Introducing....

Dulce de Leche aka Dulcie

Banner ads done all wrong...

I was innocently going to try and find out if Time Warner was going to show the Vanderbilt game this weekend because... eh... I probably won't watch, but it's nice to know it's there.

I wasn't able to find out on Time Warner's site, plus I was distracted by the war going on between my local NBC affiliate and Time Warner... must get back on task.....So I went to TV Guide to see if they could help... they are TV GUIDE afterall...

and this is what I saw...
If I had to guess... I'd say that TV Guide is owned by CBS and they REALLY REALLY want us to watch Eleventh Hour tonight...no, really, you should watch it... oh, and they haven't sold any banner ads in months because they have 6 (!) different kinds of banner ads for Eleventh Hour! it's tonight! So you'd better watch!

Back to work for 5 minutes...

Take my money! I hate you/call me!

Here, take my $20 Stephanie Meyers! I was resisting buying your 3rd book in the Twilight series because I was looking for it in paperback. I only finished the second book the other day... so I was being patient and responsible...

I was so excited when we went to Half Price books and there it was on the shelf! And Half Price! After I stopped dancing around and waving it in front of Ryan in triumph I opened the cover and was disappointed to find it was in Spanish. BahhH!

So I had to buy it at full price... in hardback... driving immediately to the nearest B&N!

Damn you! Damn you for making teen fiction so appealing! So readable! There's not even any sex (just lots of smoldering) and I am totally hooked! And the third one is pretty good (I am surprised she's able to keep up this level of interest after three).

So, sorry Jose Saramago, your intriguing Blindness is going to have to wait, half finished, until I know what's going to happen to Bella and Edward. I will resist purchasing Breaking Dawn until Jose gets his much needed attention.

At least I am not talking about a TV show... only because Lost doesn't start for another month.

Bates Family +1

You will all be happy to know that we have added to the Bates Family. A girl this time.

She's about 6 pounds and covered in fur and is adept at saying "meow".

We are in negotiations on the name, but some top contenders are "Ember", "Emerald", "Amy". We had to put our foot down on names derived from Pokemon characters (although Rosie was a good suggestion). It seems that J, Ryan and I can agree on any number of names, but P feels strongly and objects to most names.

This little bundle of fur is a 1 year old ivory short hair tabby who seems really sweet and not completely freaked out by the dog. They both spent the night in our room (kitty under the bed and Maggie on her usual bed), so we considered that a success.

Did you think I was talking about something else when I said we had added to the Bates family?

Happy Anniversary, Honey

Today it's been 9 years since our fun party with all our friends where we got hitched.

As is standard for a 9th anniversary (officially the "pottery" anniversary, unofficially the "practical" anniversary), we have given each other a new computer. An iMac! Which we promptly reformatted half the drive to be a Windows machine, so now we have TWO new computers! woo hoo!

I have gotten a number of very nice emails this morning wishing us a wonderful day. Most of them hope we get to go out on a date (which we are tomorrow night AND Saturday night!). Tonight we are going to a Cub Scout meeting and watching the debate with our neighbors. Again, the "practical" anniversary.

Finally, I wanted to share an e-card which my parents sent to us. It's my favorite. Mom didn't intend for it to be hilarious, but the banner ad really makes me enjoy the card all the more.

Happy "first cold front of the year, that's why we picked this weekend" Anniversary! Check those genital warts!

Sewing is Hardware

I have recently busted out the sewing machine and serger to get working on a few projects and it got me thinking...

Despite the lack of space, I have managed to get started on two new diaper bags for friends who have a new baby and a baby on the way (that's you Daryl and Jenny!). I also have some fabric I bought 6 months ago to make a slip cover for our sad looking brown chair in the living room. We'll see if my domestic streak lasts long enough to get that project finished too.

While I was serging all the edges on the diaper bags last night (love that serger!) I started to think about how similar sewing is to home improvement projects.

Just like you COULD build a house with a screwdriver, hammer, planer and saw, no one would recommend it. Not only do power tools speed up the job, they add accuracy to the work so you can accomplish square corners and smooth surfaces which would be impossible without them. And it's so much more fun and satisfying to use the right tools for the right job.

This weekend our back yard neighbors decided to make some screens for their windows. It was really satisfying to be able to reach into my store of tools and give them a hack-saw and spline tool which they would need to finish the project. The best part was the "wow, you are really handy" comments which came along with it.

Similarly, using my serger gives me the same pleasure of having the right tools to do the job. Before the serger I was sewing for profit for friends in North Carolina and I cringe at the state of the pieces I made at that time. I even made a coat for myself, but it was a chenille fabric which unravelled easily. After only one winter season it was fraying everywhere! Now that I serge all the edges (boring, yes, but a necessary step for quality) I know that the items I make will last.

Having the right tools for the job really make it easier to get to better quality without requiring much higher time to achieve it. Some words of wisdom for work too....

Club Scouts

We took J to a"Club Scouts" information meeting last night.

The "den" and "pack" seem like a really nice group of people and J is VERY excited about joining.

Ryan and I had talked about J and P joining scouting, but my theory was to wait until they showed some interest or until they were older. I had heard that some kids joined Cub Scouts too early, get bored or burned out and then miss the real fun when it's time for Boy Scouts.

We went last night because J was SOOO excited by the flier they sent home from school about joining. I think his summer at an outdoor camp has given him some notion that spending time in the outdoors isn't that bad (even if it means time away from the wii).

Last night we stayed in the hall with the troop leaders and found out about the activities while they took the kids (even P) to the park across the street and made marshmallow shooters. Of course they came back total Scout converts. Even P is going on and on about going back to the next meeting even though he's too young.

So we are signed up and now all we have to do is get the uniform and get J and P to stop calling it "Club Scouts". Oh, and expect an email asking for you to buy popcorn.

A few notes on the financial crisis

I am quite worried about what's going on on Wall Street, but it's reports like this that make me feel like something has to go right...

"So be it"

I don't usually get exercised about political things, but now I am. So here goes.

This morning I was listening to NPR and there was a story about Palin and one of her supporters who (what glee!) got to ask her a question yesterday in Michigan.

The question went something like this...
"People have accused you of not having enough foreign policy experience, what skills do you bring that rebut that claim?"

Palin's long winded answer can be summed up as (a paraphrase)
"I am a Washington Outsider, so they feel they can criticize me. But I am prepared, I'll be ready. If you want specifics, you can ask me and even play stump the candidate if you want."

NPR then went back to the lady who asked her the question, Kimberly, and looked for a response to the candidate's response.
"She knows that she is lacking in that area, so be it." Kimberly said.

"So be it" !!!!!

Wow.

I am floored by the complete lack of consistency. It's ok to be inexperienced because she's breaking new ground here, she's a woman, a mother and how awesome would it be to break that glass ceiling! So what if she has no applicable experience? She's pretty and she's good at saying folksy things which make people feel secure.

Watching the financial markets this week and the train wreck that may become our economy, I wonder how people can't make the connection that we already hired someone who looked like a good-ole-buddy. He is also an educational underachiever who made good. And look where we are now?

I am so giving money to Obama today.

Here's the story if you want to listen to it for yourself.

Hurricane Ike Weekend

This weekend was upside down in many ways.

We were expecting the arrival of at least the outer bands of Hurricane Ike to give us some rain and wind. We were also expecting my little brother, Colin, and his fiancee Chelsea to come so they would avoid the storm in Houston.

Neither arrived.

Colin and Chelsea decided to ride it out at my parents house and were fine. They still have no electricity and last I heard no water, but they have "lots of smoked sausage", and are doing fine.

Here in Austin we didn't even get a single drop of rain. A little bit of wind and lots of clouds, but no rain!

To prepare ourselves for a weekend of being trapped in the house we went to the store and stocked up on food and videos. Ryan and I are working our way through Mad Men Season 1 and the kids are obsessed with Pokemon.

So instead of being trapped in the house, we ended up spending the weekend outside... running errands, went to the pool one last time before it closed, went through the boys clothes to take out all the too-small-for-P and pass down the J clothes.

Sunday morning the boys woke up extra early (as they always do on the weekend, but not the weekday!) and I dragged into the living room to fire up Pokemon. They were watching some terrible episode about a bike (bicycle) gang on a 10 mile bridge which was terrorizing Ash and the gang while they were trying to get medicine to the Pokemon Center in Sunnyville, etc. I decided this was a great time to get some shut eye.

The next thing I knew I heard tears, real tears. Not the fake "I didn't get what I wanted tears" but truly upset tears. I looked over at J and they were streaming down his face and he was sniffling like he was watching "The English Patient".

What was causing all this boo-hooing?

Apparently Ash and the Gang had found a group of Picachu in the forest and Ash's Picachu decided to leave his human buddy to stay with his Pokemon bretheren. There was this big emotional scene where Ash and Pica say goodbye and J is bawling. Of course, Pica decides to stay with Ash (else you wouldn't be able to watch Pokemon in whatever order it's on. Kind of like mixing and matching the Darren's on Bewitched.) and everyone is soooo happy. Especially J.

Hope you had a safe Hurricane Ike weekend too.

If I didn't know better, I could swear you were adopted...

I am constantly amazed at how different our boys are from each other and how different they can be from me.

This is the last week of J's summer camp before school starts. He and I have spent most of the summer together in an extended commute to and from school. In that time he has taken up some new habits.

The first new habit is reading voraciously. He started with Captain Underpants and moved on to Encyclopedia Brown and then jumped straight into the Hardy Boys. While we know that he skips the hard words, he's getting the story and plot and is energized to learn more. He clearly gets the "love of reading" part of reading that it took me YEARS to find. I remember reading Encyclopedia Brown in 4th grade! It wasn't until High School and Robert Heinlein that got me into real reading for pleasure.

J's second new habit is listening to NPR. I was putting NPR on when he started reading because I figured he was busy and I like to listen to NPR to keep up with events. But recently I noticed that he's not reading, he's listening. And this morning I asked him if he wanted to listen to music or the news, he said "news".

This week we got a new shower radio for our bathroom and I put the old one in the kids' bathroom. J and I were talking about how now he and P could listen to music while they were in the bath. "or the News" he added.

Again, many years did it take me to learn to read the paper, watch the news, listen to NPR. "So boring, so mind numbing" was how I thought about it as a kid.

I am sure that Ryan's scary love of reading and news has influenced J's genetic makeup, but I still marvel at what an individual J has turned out to be.

P announces...

We were boarding the plane to go to Seattle to go to our friend Dave's wedding to Jenny.

P was wearing his favorite shirt...


He says as we step onto the plane...

"I am not voting for Obama, I am voting for McCain because I am sad that Hillary didn't win"

Even more embarrassing was that we spent the next 5 minutes convincing him that a vote for Obama wasn't a vote against Hillary, but that Hillary would want for us to vote for Obama rather than McCain.

He's 4.

I was reading this post by Penelope Trunk about three questions she hates to get.

The last one (You ask me a question that requires more than two paragraphs.) has struck me not because I have trouble explaining my failings...

Like my favorite Jackson Brown line goes...
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
but that I had just come from a meeting which hadn't gone quite like I expected and I was trying to figure out why. I spent a few minutes trying to boil down what happened into a sentence.

This meeting didn't go well solely because of me. Because I thought I had to be involved in every conversation and that I had something interesting to say in every discussion within it.

After the meeting was over, a very kind friend and I were analyzing what happened and he told me in the kindest way that I shouldn't have called the meeting since it wasn't in my realm of concern. And that people might have been uncomfortable because I was the one asking questions about the lack of QA coverage etc.

My initial response was that I saw a need, a vacuum and thought that for the good of the team and the product I needed to raise the issue, but the truth is... I didn't trust enough that everyone was going to do their job and so I wanted to be there to guide them, step by step.

So now I have to have a little talk with myself about how to make my concerns outside my immediate realm expressed in more constructive was rather than that constant mother-view of the world. It's not my job to make sure everyone eats their vegetables, but it is ok to make the suggestion, right?

This weekend I was at a friend's house and their adorable daughter asked me if she could have some ice cream that I was dishing. My response was "can I Please have some ice cream?". It was reflex, and everyone thought it was funny, but in a very mild way it was inappropriate.

So, yes, you may have some ice cream, and QA will be fine.

Wow

This is a breathtaking article about class and the American elite University system.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html

Riddle/Joke

J asked me this riddle the other day...

"You are in a room with four walls, a ceiling and a door that is locked,
how do you get out?"

I didn't know so I guess with "you use a key?"

"No Mom! You only have a PIANO!"

I laughed so much at the mistelling that I had to ask for the answer another day.

"You try all the keys"

oh!

P went in for his 4 year old check up yesterday. Before he was aware that three shots were coming (and the yelling started) the Dr. and I were discussing all the appropriate things that P should be learning at this age.

Stranger Danger
Check

Home phone number and address
Check

Where to go if there is a fire
Check

Don't touch or take any medicine unless you get it from M&D, even if it looks like yummy candy
Check

Gun Safety - don't touch it or pick it up or even pretend to shoot it
...

WHAT!

I contained my moral outrage while he was mentioning this and did not inform him that we don't have any sorts of firearms in the house. Ryan didn't even want to get a Star Wars blaster for J no matter how much he begged.

Then I realized that J & P may actually need some knowledge about guns because they will go to someone else's house, and they may not have trigger locks or gun safes. And this is Texas, so it could be anyone's house, even that ultra-liberal college professor that lives in the back yard. You never know.

So, we will be adding a new scary no-no to the list.

I love this picture

I have been scanning more pictures lately. I raided my mom's closet and found some great shots...

This is my all time favorite from the collection:

While this picture says a lot... Who thought satin was a good choice for a cheerleading costume? How did I get my hair to be so perfectly flipped in Singapore's 100% humidity? The team was called the Packers, which I didn't even realize at the time was an NFL football team, I just thought it was a really stupid name for a team. And who thought Yellow and Green was a good combination?

But that's not my favorite part...it's on the back.

This picture must have been at my Grandma Swanson's originally. In her handwriting is written:











She has written my brother's name and then scratched it out and put mine... as if there was some question at to which GENDER this grandchild was.

Happy Birthday Josh

I wrote this a few months ago for Josh's birthday. I couldn't post it at the time, but now I think is a good time...


Happy Birthday Josh.
Thanks so much for being a part of our lives.
It's impossible to think back on the last few years and not remember you as part of it.
You walking up to our house in Chapel Hill with Abby and N just to say hi. All your interesting knowledge about Crystallography which you patiently explained. Your excitement at finally being a dad. Your patience with our kids as they yelled in your arms. Home made bread. Pork-fest. Smarmy comments during Passover dinner. The first time I ever heard the phrase "fundy". Hiking in Eno.

This week we will all be together in the house where most of us last saw you. While I know it's not going to be fun remembering you there and how you aren't, I feel sure our time together missing you will be fun in all the right ways.

The last 9 months since you died have been, well, unpleasant. It's been hard to watch Lauren deal with it. She was so gracious in insisting that my home make-over efforts actually helped when clearly it was a bad replacement for what she really needed... you.

It's been interesting seeing how people other than the ones you lived with have dealt with the loss. I saw Morela recently and she said that your death has given her the clarity to focus on her own career. She realized that you can't count on your mate to be there, so she needed to take the reins on her newly expanding opportunities and not be timid. Not that Morela is timid in any situation, but it made a big impression on her.

Others see your loss as a reminder that you need to appreciate the time you have. Spend more time with friends and family, keep in touch, write emails, call. As I write this, I remember that this was certainly something I vowed and now that time has passed I have lapsed back into my old habits.

Most recently we have shared pictured from the beach last year. It's difficult & sad to see those pictures of the last time we were all together. But more importantly it makes me really happy to see you so happy with your wonderful family.

Happy Birthday Josh, sorry you weren't there to help us celebrate it.

J learns a new language

J has learned a new language. It goes something like this:

Picachu is strong but not as strong as BObachu
and Bobachu is stronger than Wallychu but his sidekick is Pokewonk who's sidekick is
Frankenchu who is an even trade for Gigamon

Ad infinitum

for 20 minutes, each way to and from camp.

so I guess we like Pokemon now.

The NPR Effect

I started a new job last week and so far it's great. I enjoy the people, the work is interesting and challenging, and it even looks like I get to suggest some re-organization (my favorite)!

My only complaint is the commute. The office is located at 360 and Bee Caves, about 12 miles from the house. Add in the "for the summer only" dropping off of J at his summer camp and I am driving about 30 miles per day.

So what, you say? So what indeed. Plenty of people drive a lengthy commute to work (although with the cost of gas, that dynamic may change when people begin to choose the "right job" in future) and 15 miles isn't that bad, really. Plus, the benefits of a steady paycheck and fulfilling work vastly outweigh the negatives of too-much-time-in-car.

But then one has to consider the "NPR effect". That is the effect of additional time in the car has brought me into the dreaded window of... hearing the stories I heard in the shower again when I am in the car. Ugh. Since NPR runs their morning programming (lasting 2 hours) twice in the morning, the story you hear at 6:20 am is the same as is broadcast at 8:20 am.

I guess I can work on getting out the door faster, thereby missing the repeat, or getting up and into the shower earlier. Neither of which is easy as it's not just me who has to move faster...

Or I can spend my nights and weekends working on a teleportation device, thereby solving my own problems, the problems of the earth and oil consumption etc. Of course, my teleportation device would run on the whine which emits from 4-6 year olds when you ask them to "hurry it up" in the morning, an inexhaustible resource.

Summer Camp is a breeding ground

Since my kids have been to more schools than I choose to count, we have had our fair share of germs. With each new school all of our immune systems are taxed by slight mutations of germs which take out each of us in turn. J even missed the very last day of kindergarten when he came down with strep for the nth time.

Now that J is in summer camp, he's been exposed again. No, not a cold or cough, but songs from bigger kids.

Today on the way home he was singing a song about how he hated Barney and the many ways he would harm the big guy. The song was brutal, but I was fascinated because I had never, not even once, turned on Barney. I am sure he knows who this purple dinosaur is, but it was incredible to think that he could sing such a graphic song about someone you hardly knew.

Today I was trying a new tactic where I let a kid be a kid for a minute or two before we talk about what the song means etc. and how wrong it was to sing about maiming etc. Rather than make him stop mid-song, I was letting it continue and figured we'd talk when he was done.

Just as I thought the song was finished J started up a new stanza. Since P was in the car too, J obliged by changing the lyrics to the other acceptable version where Barbie was shot, mutilated, and killed in various ways. Again, I decided to wait.

"A B C D Barbie is my enemy..."

Just as he was finishing P pipes in with
"I love that song, it was Barbie Island Princess, right?"

Once I stopped laughing I tried to explain that I was not laughing at the song, but P's reaction to it and I could see that I had lost the battle on this one.

When is a good time to become World Aware?

J is home today as it is the FIRST DAY OF SUMMER (as he loudly proclaims). The last day of Kindergarten was yesterday (which he spent at home with Strep, is now recovered), and he is excited about the summer, especially the summer camp he is going to (horses! a creek! a swimming pool!).

This afternoon we were walking into the HEB to get some groceries and a panel van with two concert speakers strapped to the top drove by the front door. Blaring from these speakers was a girl talking. She was informing people about the number of people who are executed each year in the US and Texas in particular. She went on about lethal injection and capital punishment as we made our way into the store. I would guess they picked this spot as there is an early voting location next door, but it was a bit surreal.

This led to the inevitable questions from J. "What's capital punishment?"

We discussed how bad people have various grades of bad and how some of the super baddies are sentenced to die themselves. J was interested, but not overly so, so I felt like I had managed this speed bump well.

It did makes me wonder when it's ok to expose kids to things like capital punishment and the like. We haven't been shielding them, per se, but we have been avoiding the question. I tend to turn off NPR when they are in the car, we don't turn the news on in the evenings when it used to be a staple pre-kids. The few times they caught something about the Iraq war we have had to have a sad conversations about the soldiers, President Bush, why we are there, etc. All hard questions to answer, so I guess we started avoiding the question.

When I was a kid, and there were only three "real" channels and the other one or two on UHF, I remember my parents turning on the news nightly and me proclaiming my immense boredom. Yawn, the oil crisis, yawn, the hostages in Iran, yawn, bombing Syria. World events were not particularly interesting to me, so I don't know how much explaining my parents had to do about iffy things I had overheard. Apparently I was so disinterested that my 5th grade teacher commented on it on my report card. I am paraphrasing since I don't have it here, but it said something like "Suzy is very interested in her own world and things immediately within it, she is quite unaware of the world outside of her." Actually, I remember it was a bit more catty than that, but you get the gist.

Now that I read the paper, watch the news, listen to NPR and generally hold up my end of the adult bargain, I wonder when I should start to permeate the kids with the outside world. I am starting to think that explaining how the world is scary or crazy or sad is a small price to pay for my kids to who know it exists and that the tv isn't just for Backyardigans and Indiana Jones movies.

A test for web customer service

Lately I have been inadvertently doing a survey of online service provider's customer service.

I have been trying to gain access to my frequent flier accounts just to see what was going on with them. We are finally in the traveling mode again after 5 years of mostly staying home, so I was wondering if I had any miles to play with. I even downloaded MilePort in order to track them more diligently (and signed the kids up for accounts too!).

The contenstants:
United Airlines
American Airlines
Frontier Airlines
Delta Airlines
Continental Airlines

The test:

It's been a while since you have accessed their website, and therefore you don't remember your
a) login name
b) password

to complicate things
c) you have moved physical addresses (perhaps multiple times)
d) you have abandoned your old email address due to masses of spam (and an inadequate spam filter)

The results:

All the sites are equipped to handle b. You have those security questions for that reason.

But without A (login), you don't get a chance to remember your elementary school's name (also a challenge for someone who went to 6 different ones, but I imagine in that I am an outlier).

Which leads you to the problem with your lack of D (email address on file which you have access to). They are happy to email you your login, but Mindspring is blithely bouncing all those emails!

So, I resorted to calling customer service.

Everyone was able to verify enough information with my address(es), old emails, new emails, etc. to give me the information and tools I needed to gain access with the exception of Delta airlines.

Delta apparently believes that their frequent flier miles are worth more than my bank believes my money is worth.

It took recitation of my prior physical addresses IN FULL to get her to admit that I had an account, which I then had to confirm my birthdate (which they had wrong) in order to get her to give me the number.

She then told me that she couldn't help me with the pin/password, but I could go online and have it emailed to me. I explained the email-address problem and she was completely unable to help. She couldn't update that information. She could mail me the pin, but it would go to the address in North Carolina, and no, she couldn't update the address.

She suggested that now that I had the number, I should try and guess the pin, but that it would lock my account after three tries, so stop after two and come back later and try again!

Her final suggestion was that I go in person to a Delta ticket office (of which there are none except at the airport) and show them my ID so they could update the information or send me a pin (she wasn't sure what would happen), and it would be super if I brought along something with my Chapel Hill address on it(!).

I was stunned by the labyrinth of security put around what turned out to be 500 measly points (yes, I was able to guess in three tries) until I thought back to when I was changing my name from Ward to Bates.

I remember irately yelling at someone on the phone about how stupid it was that I could change my name with a simple phone call at places like my bank, but they wanted to see me in person???

And then I remembered, that was Delta.

Back from the beach!

Yesterday was the end of our yearly trip to the beach. We had a really wonderful time hanging out with the other 4 families and seeing how much all the kids had grown in a year. No one got sunburned and all the kids took turns freaking out and requiring a little time away... a total success in my book.

Our return flight was to be expected in this day and age of flying. The flight from RDU to Charlotte was completely packed and when I checked in I saw that I had three seats for me and the boys in three different rows. Obviously this wasn't going to work as I was the only person who wanted to sit next to a 4 and 6 year old, but the ticket agent was powerless to help. She recommended I try the gate agent.

The gate agent was surprised and dismayed.. not at my predicament, but in my insistence in asking her to help. She sniffed and said that this was a problem for the flight attendant to sort out. (how crazy of me!)

On the plane we easily sorted it out by being the last to board and loudly proclaiming when we got on that "we are seated all over this plane". People dove out of their seats when faced with a 4 year old in a pink tiara with matching shoes and bag. We ended up sitting at the back of the plane with the transferring flight attendants and pilots. P sat next to a very nice (and hopefully junior, he was quite young!) pilot who was nice enough to answer all of his questions about the plane. P was very interested in the timing of when we had to put our trays and seats up and down, when he could and couldn't get out his Barbie computer, what that ding was, etc. The Stewardess behind us was interested in teasing P about his tiara and threatening to take it for herself. I'd like to see her in a fight with a determined 4 year old, but happily her teasing was just that. She did spend a lot of time telling the pilot seated behind me all about how much she loved getting drunk on 6th street, and proceeded to tell J how sure she was that his mommy did too once upon a time. Ah, I love it when people project.

Incredibly, the next flight from Charlotte to Austin was exactly the same, seats everywhere, people gleefully moving to get away from the kids, surly flight attendants sitting in the back row gossiping about the passengers...(this is a direct quote) "If they expect to sit together, they should have gone online and reserved their seats ahead of time" and the inevitable judgy question "I just have to ask, why is he wearing a tiara?"

To which I reply "He loves princesses, don't you?"

Geek Out!

I've had a little time on my hands lately, what with being out of work, so I have been trying to use my time wisely. Yesterday I decided a post-breakfast nap was in order, but most days I actually do something useful.

A few months ago my friend Ben posted a link to someone's brilliant idea on how to clean up your cluttered home office desk cheaply and easily using that pre-drilled wall board intended for garage/shop.

With this great idea in mind I went to the hardware store and purchased one 2 x 4 ft piece of pre-drilled wall board. Once I got home I layed out all of my equipment on it (on the floor) and started to zip tie it all in the most logical places. Modem, router, power source, and external hard drive, all previously taking up space on the desk, now have a home on the wall!

I did have to drill the wall board to the wall as the weight of all the gadgets were making it bend forward, but one seems to have done the trick.

Ryan asked if I wanted to move my Vanderbilt diploma which is now a bit hemmed in. I think it's a fitting place for it, given that this is the most MechE thing I have done in a while. (ok, it's really civil since it's not moving, or electrical since it's all computer stuff, but give me my moment, ok?)

IT Help Desk, how can I help you?

For years now, I have provided IT help for my parents. It's a part of our relationship that I don't mind, but mostly because they are teachable and eager to figure it out themselves.

Even when they lived in Argentina and being on the phone cost a dollar a minute, I remember helping my mom working through some sort of "icons mysteriously disappearing in Word" problem. (eventually needing a word reinstall). I kept encouraging her to find some kid in the neighborhood to help her out, but she liked dealing with me.

I'll also never forget the time I came over to my parents to visit to be met by cursing and yelling in the computer room. The printer had malfunctioned and my dad needed a document to be printed. He had asked for it to be printed 97 (!) times! Here's a lesson in "just because it doesn't look like it's listening, it's still remembers. But if it's not doing it, don't ask it 100 times". This is exactly the opposite tactic in raising kids, so I guess it's not a surprise he just kept asking over and over again.

Most recently I was on the phone for about 3 hours with my mom walking her through installing iTunes, installing an external hard drive, the ripping of her cds and the synching of her new iPod. The call would have been shorter if I hadn't spent an hour trying to install some sort of remote desktop management software so I could run her computer from mine (this was eventually unsuccessful as we figured out her dial up wasn't sufficient). She was on top of everything, I was just having trouble seeing what she was seeing. In retrospect, it was better that she had to work through it herself without me grabbing the handles and doing it for her.

Providing my parents this service is a good deal for both of us. I like to be able to help them out and they are good at learning and trying new things. I know my mom actually took my advice when I explained that I have a few philosophies when it comes to computers:
1) Look around, it's probably there somewhere
2) It's always worth trying to learn something new as it will save you time later
3) it isn't a malicious entity trying to ruin your life, it just follows directions you give it, give it dumb directions, get dumb actions.

Obviously my Mom gets it because I see her hunting around for new ways to do things on the computer. The fact that she was willing to get an external hard drive, iTunes, and an iPod without that much consternation means that she's gets it. And that's one reason it's fun to help her find the answers to the problems she is having.

It does make me wonder what kind of techno-boob I will be in the eyes of my kids. Obviously I will resist something, I am just not sure what it is yet.
Implanted cell phone? Probably will stick to my cell phone in my purse. It's just me, but I like to "forget it" sometimes. And I know everyone enjoys getting a purse call from me on occasion when I forget to lock it.

What would you do if you won a million dollars?

Yesterday was more drama around the Bates house. We had a hail storm on Wednesday night which downed trees (1), broke windows (3) and crushed cars (0 for us, thank god!). J's school was closed and I had an interview in the morning, so J went to work with Ryan.

After I was done I went to pick up J and took him to lunch. He and Ryan had had a pretty big spill while walking down the sidewalk downtown and J had some scratches on his face. He deserved a treat so he got to pick the lunch spot.

When I asked J where he wanted to go... no hesitation... Burger King!
"Why Burger King?"
"Because they have Indiana Jones Stuff!"
So we located a BK and went to enjoy the deep fried goodness.

At the moment Burger King is having a cross promotion with the new Indiana Jones movie. Not just the regular kids meal toys, but a game. Standard peel the thing off the cup to win a free fries game.

I thought J was going to have a heart attack when he found out there was a game with a MILLION dollars as the prize. I am sure all of the "everyone wins something" inclusion parenting that is prevalent at our home and school led us to the next 6 hours of debate...

Our one peel off resulted in a free shake. I am sure in J's mind, this was proof positive that we were going to win the million, we just needed to buy one more thing. He began his line of reasoning...

"We need to come back for dinner tonight. We will bring Dad and P and everyone will get a meal and then we have a 4 percent chance of winning!"
"If we come back two times a day until the game is over, we are certain to win!"

This went on for HOURS! He had it all worked out... until I explained that we would have to EAT the Burger King food two times a day for three weeks, and I wasn't sure if that was worth a million dollars (already feeling queezy from the lunch, ugh). My logic did not sway him, we had to go back now! Tonight! For Dinner!

We still didn't have electricity at dinner time so we went out, not to Burger King, much to J's disappointment (= crying). We did discuss what he would do with the million, once it was his. His generosity was nice to hear... A new house for us with two "extra rooms". One would be a princess room for his brother (squeals of delight from P when he heard the plan!) and an elaborately constructed Star Wars room for himself, complete with a mural on all four walls (he had them all figured out, some how I don't think a room of his own was a new fantasy). He added "a new Star Wars X wing" meaning the Lego sets, but it was fun to watch Ryan spin this into a full size mock up for J to play with in his custom room.

He's still lobbying to go to BK as much as possible, positive we are just one super fry away from the cash. I have promised one more trip before the game is finished. Now he's lobbying for us to SuperSize all four of our meals so we get that many more game pieces... where's the Pepcid?

Apparently I am that mom...

The other day in the car we were playing a game of silly names. We like to make up silly sounding nonsense words that sound a lot like the real name, but are totally ridiculous.

This incarnation was mostly centered around Star Wars Princesses & Queens.
Some offerings for Princess Amidala were...
Princess Wack-i-doodle
Princess I'm a doggie

Howls of laughter from the back seat.

Then I came up with "Princess Pizza Face" !?!! Where did that come from? It was greeted with laughter from the back, but some horror from the front. They just thought I was being funny, but in fact I was introducing them to those names... names which I hated as a kid.

So I was thinking back and wondering how that girl who joined the year book for the EXPRESS PURPOSE OF BEING IN THE BOOK (and has one lousy picture to show for all the work. Here it is. I see it hasn't improved with age. Still looking sullen, still peeling an orange, still below hot Kelly Fellers, sigh, oh, and Greg Frost is some hot shot at the Associated Press or something...) turns into that mom who is teaching her kids what Pizza Face means?

I love my kids and I think they have an even chance of not being permanently at the loser kids table, but mostly because being a geek is now cool. But I don't want them to be the ones armed with the mean words and the pithy taunts to other children who happen to have acne, braces, and glasses. (I can pretty much guarantee all of the above for J and P).

Recently Ryan and I have been wondering how Kindergarten is a microcosm of the future. There are already cool kids, fashion conscience kids, geeks who love Lego and Star Wars, and even a bit of a bully. They are tamer in all respects and there seems to be less exclusion at this point, but it's all there. We encourage J when he comes home and tells us he's now hanging out with someone new. But we also ask about what happened to the old friend we used to hear so much about?

So, I will watch what taunts I teach them. But it's too late for birthdays... be prepared to be told that you look like a monkey and you smell like one too. That was me. Sorry.

Internet Uphoria Lost! Bah!

I was mentally writing another post about how much I love the internet and how it makes seemingly simple things like getting a cake for your son's birthday so much easier until I was faced with the flip side... badly implemented great ideas.

So, let's say you are coming down from an all time terrible weekend where you
a) pulled your back throwing 40 lbs of kids into a ball pit, over and over
b) spent the rest of that day in bed
c) woke up on Mothers Day to a wonderful breakfast with your family, showered with love and presents only to crawl back in bed to recover
d) got up to make dinner for parents, only to have it be a crashing failure when your improvisation of the recipe you have and the recipe you remember and wish you had were different enough to cause a terrible meal to be delivered
e) oldest child starts vomiting
f) you start vomiting
g) youngest child starts vomiting
h) saint of a husband spends the night with kids, helping them
i) you spend the next day with kids at home, parents watching them (thank you sooooo much) and much of it in bed, or the bathroom
j) wake up the next morning still feeling terrible and have to cancel an interview that looks quite promising
k) go back to bed for hours
l) watch tv all day and still feel exhausted
m) go to bed only to NOT SLEEP for the majority of the night

Oh, I forgot the part where we figured it was the beautifully made and wonderfully tasting home made quiche that my husband served for Mother's Day breakfast was the suspected toxic food for much of this time. Happily, this has been rethought and it seems to be a store bought lasagna is more likely. Can I add that none of this was Ryan's fault?

So, here I sit, looking for something easy to make this upcoming birthday special with as little effort on my part as possible.
In comes Ben and Jerry's.
There is a scoop shop less than a mile from the house we are staying at the beach. I went to their web site and was pleased to find that they have lots of information about their shop and an INTERACTIVE CAKE CREATOR!!! All my Internet loving molecules went into overdrive.
Choose the size, the flavors of ice cream (P likes Vanilla with Heath Bar, I feel sure), the filling, the icing, the sprinkles, the writing on the top! So easy! Enter your name and address, email and phone and presto!

Waiting

Waiting

and then a weird blank popup with a helpful x to close it. That's it.

So, I'll call them later and see if they have 6 orders for a birthday cake for P or none at all.

Invention - Relative Time

I know what are thinking, Relative time is not an invention, and it has already been discovered! Einstein has beaten me to the punch. Just follow my logic...

Yesterday I was meeting a friend for lunch and I was running late. I HATE being late, it's just hardwired into my brain that you leave early enough to get there on time, even if it means you are a little early. It just so happens that I had over booked myself and was running from "coffee with the guys from Dovetail" to "margaritas at Hula Hut with Whitney" and I didn't actually leave until I was already late (sorry Whitney!). Which got me thinking...

We have a clock in the kitchen which, as expected, tells the time. It is set about 7 minutes fast. I can't remember if we did this on purpose or not, but it provides a great deal of help in the mornings when we are trying to get J out the door on time. Almost every morning there's some sort of pleading about getting dressed or eating faster because "we're already late" (that's me doing the pleading, Ryan is usually saying "you are fine"). We rush around and then we walk out the door at 7:40 to walk the block and a half in a rush only to get into the class room to find that we aren't late at all. J has time to put his stuff away and have a quick hug before the bell rings.

So this "bending of time" got me thinking. It would be great if the same clock could be programmed to be a little early when I (or Ryan) got home at night. Then those days when you are walking in the door at 6:10 and dinner wasn't even considered let alone started wouldn't feel like such a let-down already. You could have that relief of walking in the door, knowing it's late already and looking at the clock and saying "whew, it's not as late as I thought!"

So this brings me to my invention. A personal clock. Of course, this would have to be implanted in your head because it only works for you, but that's just details. This clock would know your habits and have solutions for them...
Habitually late? the clock would know to lie to you so that you aren't 40 minutes late to your kid's birthday party.
Hate commute time? your clock adjusts the time it takes you to drive across town by telling you it's only taken 20 minutes to drive to Lakeway!
Kids want to stay up a few extra minutes? Presto! "See it's already 8 now! You've been playing for the last 45 minutes!"

Some points of your schedule are bendy - like you want the hour you have to spend with your kids to last a little longer... see you spent an extra ten minutes with them and still have time to get to the doctor's, but the hour you had to wait to see the doctor should only feel like 50 minutes.

Of course, there are things the clock will have to take into consideration... appointments, for one. All this bendy time has to be matched up to a real time schedule so that your clock can get you to your destination at the "real time" and meet your friend for Margaritas on time.

Happily some modern conveniences like DVR's eliminate some scheduled activities like "Must See TV". We start watching shows at all times of the hour and finish in 50 minutes (sorry advertisters!), so I feel like I am already bending time to my will!

There's a few things to figure out, but it seems plausible. Let's take that feeling "wow! the time just flew by" or "is this ever going to end?" and use it to our advantage.

Of course, now that I know that the clock in the kitchen is fast, we'll really be late.

Will the other Suzy Bates, please stand up

It was bound to happen. For years I would talk to friends and they would say "I sent you an email!" and I would have nothing to show for it. Even my mom would send something to me and then I would find out later since I never received it.

Years ago when I choose my new gmail email address, I was forced to choose something other than the "suzybates" I really wanted. That name was already taken... so I went for suzywbates. As I started to hear that emails were being sent to "suzy without the w" I was hoping that that email address was a defunct address as I am sure a number of my important communiques where sitting there... I really needed that picture of the dog!

Well, the other Suzy has finally stood up. I am in the process of looking for a job and have been emailing with a recruiter to set up a phone interview for this afternoon. Apparently in the hand off from one to the other, my "w" got left behind and the Other Suzy started getting emails about moving my interview back an hour. Happily, this very nice lady (who apparently lives in Japan!) informed the recruiter of her mistake and then sent me an email informing me of the same. She also asked if my kid was in Chess Club, as she had been receiving emails from them too...

So, now I know. She's out there. Living in Japan. Reading my email. I am sure she's trilled to know that the end of year Chess Club party is on Friday!

That's an Adult Movie

More and more lately we have been talking to the kids about things that are in the grown up world. We refer to these things as "Adult" versions of things they are familiar with:

Adult Lemonade: Margarita
Adult TV: Shows we watch after they go to bed
Adult Movies: This sounds worse than it is, it's just not Dora Saves the Mermaid Kingdom

Since J is 6 and now exposed to older kids at school and aftercare, he's becoming more interested in the world of adults. The other night Ryan and I were watching "How I Met Your Mother" and at one point there was some physical comedy where Barney gets punched in the crotch. Crude, yes, but funny enough to chuckle (and Barney deserved some sort of response from Ted!). As soon as the punch was delivered we heard a big giggle from the doorway. J had been hanging out in the adjacent room covertly watching our Adult TV for a while and was tickled by this scene enough to break cover. We had trouble holding a straight face while we herded what turned out to be both boys back to bed.

The other night at dinner we were recounting our day. Ryan's was about his day at work, J and P their (mostly silent, what's with boys never telling your anything?) school exploits and then I talked about my day. I had spent the day hanging around the house and I exercised while watching Martha Stewart. Martha... someone who used to be a large obsession. I STILL own her stock that I bought on the day she went public (I think I have mentioned here not to take my advice when it comes to investments... so here's a nice graphic illustrating the point...) The funny part was when P asked "What's Martha?" Ryan explained "Martha is like Backyardigans for Mommies", so true.

I have always believed in not limiting TV to just kids shows when they are around... I don't want them to think that all things are for them... but we haven't had the TV on much lately when they are around, so I think we've established the pattern anyways. Will they survive not having seen Martha? Yes. Ryan thinks we should introduce Gilligan's Island (there's some physical comedy for you), but it's not on TV anywhere we can find.

It's Cinco De Mayo... so enjoy some Adult Lemonade!

With my Mint, Now I have Guilt

So when I dreamed about hiring someone to clean my house, I wasn't really aware this is what it would be like... of course I didn't think I would be at home not working when they came, so maybe that is the real problem.

I have a long history of uncomfortable standoffs with cleanliness. Much of it could probably be traced back to my mother and her sense of well being with a clean house. I can remember many adolescent moments where she would insist I clean my room and I would insist she close the door. I don't remember winning many of these arguments, I am guessing my mom remembers not winning either, so begins the standoff.

After I moved out of the dorm and into an apartment of my own, started my first job, started to get a real grown up life I remember thinking that I was trying to find my level of cleanliness. Whenever I had a roommate my standards seemed to rise, it was easier to keep it clean with some level of peer pressure around, but when I was on my own I was pretty unconcerned with clutter and had a mild tolerance for dirt.

Then I met my husband, at the time potential husband. He is what I am learning is a regular guy when it comes to cleanliness. He lived in a house with 3 other guys when we started dating and I remember refusing to spend the night at his house because of the dark green mold taking over the shower and the general level of squalor in the kitchen. I couldn't understand how he could live there, and apparently he didn't like it much either as he practically moved in to my duplex where I lived alone (and admits that that house was particularly terrible). His living situation seemed to be Cold War standoff where they were allowing an escalation of dirt and would see who could take it the longest. Also, they knew that Bill, one of the roommates who was out of town much of the time. had a low tolerance for filth and when he came back he'd clean it up.

So, we're young, we're in love, we've shacked up together and we are working out how to work it out. Things started out well where I had high standards and he tried and failed to meet them and then I got to take the moral high ground and insist that his definition of clean wouldn't meet the minimum health codes. I think almost every fight we have had in our 11 year relationship was related to cleaning or sparked by some cleaning/sharing of duties situation. What eventually happened is that in an effort to meet half way/share the work and take advantage of the post-feminist world where we can expect our husbands to carry half the load, I had to lower my standards. He raised his so that dishes aren't left in the sink for days, but I lowered mine so that I wasn't doing everything and then feeling bitter and resentful.

So what does this compromise mean? It means that I live in a house which is livable, but by no means perfect. There's usually a collection of dishes waiting patiently on the side of the sink to be put into the dishwasher and the laundry takes sometimes up to a week to get all the way through the process. Ryan and I have pretty civil conversations about who's doing too much and too little, and we have a well established definition of both.

Which brings me to the housecleaners who now come weekly and make my house shine. They have removed the crumbs under the glass on top of the wooden countertops. They dust the pictures, blinds, and baseboards. And the bathroom smells like sunshine on a weekly basis (with three boys in the house, that doesn't last long).

So what's the problem? Now I am at home all day and I spend a good deal of my time feeling guilty because my house IS clean and I wasn't the one who did it, not like I was going to do it, but still.

Sharing Photos

My recent foray into digitizing my photos has led to yet another happy occurrence.

I went out last night with an old friend from college for a few drinks. We had a really great time catching up (she lives here in Austin, but we don't see each other nearly enough) and I was telling her about my recent obsession with digitizing my photos. I even told her about a few pictures I had found from back in the day when we hung out at a certain ZBT house too much.

So today I went through the photos and uploaded the offending proof into a Picasa Web Album and sent her an invitation to view it. These photos are mostly out of focus and document past boyfriends (and in one case, an ex-husband), but it was fun to pass them on to her.

I also went through and found almost 100 pictures of some friends and their kids I have assembled over the years. These friends have been at more birthday parties than not in the "history as recounted by kid birthdays" and it was fun to see their kids as well as my own grow. There were too many to upload to Picasa Web Albums, so this time I have burned them to a CD and I'll give it to her the next time I see her.

Sharing these photos was not even a tangential goal when I started this project, but it's a great side-effect!

PostSecret

I was spending my unemployment time wisely this week by surfing around the blog-o-sphere. I am not very good at following link after link just to see what was out there, but since I have the time I figured I could give it a whirl.

Yesterday I ended up on PostSecret. This site is nothing new and is based on an art installation from 2004 (see wikipedia for the whole history, including some annoying references to inconsistencies in when secrets are posted etc.) There are now a number of books out with the secrets in print.

The original concept was an interesting one... where people sent in their secrets to an address in Germantown, MD on homemade postcards divulging a secret they had never told anyone. The post cards were used for an art installation. Shortly thereafter a website was begun where around 20 secrets are posted each week.

What I find a little disturbing are posts like this one which implies that people are now posting in hopes of being found out or as a method of conversation. It seems that the point was to allow people an anonymous forum for airing secrets which are of some weight to their soul, but as so many things do, has become a place to witness the failings of others (and thereby making ourselves feel better?). How many people cruise PostSecret weekly in hopes of seeing something they recognize, someone they know they can then use that secret against?

This post in particular makes me wince: This is a very real feeling for a very real mother, by writing it down, it gives it some credence that it is a real problem. But by posting it and letting other judge, it just feels like so much voyeurism.

So, now that I know what PostSecret is, and I admit I even spent a few minutes considering what I would send in as a deep dark secret of mine, I think I will unsubscribe in my Reader.

The Family Man

This post from 37 signals called "Why I love working with family people" summarized a feeling I have had and couldn't quite put my finger on about why people with families are great employees.

Ryan and I have seen it over the years at the various companies we have worked. The young, crazy, unattached are prized over the married/settled down employees because they seem to be so much more willing to "go the extra mile" or "work all night". I was amazed how something I think is irresponsible, like working all night, is a prized skill in an employee.

What about the person who makes a schedule and sticks to it? What about someone who has other things to do with their free time, so focuses while they are at work, rather than long lunches or chat breaks? What about the person who chooses to surf the internet at home on their off hours rather than at work and then stays late to get the real work done?

In a slightly different view of the same subject, Ryan sent me this article a while ago about the relative productivity of men vs. women with and without children in the Lawyer world. It was surprised to report that "fathers with preschool-aged children are more productive than non-fathers.". I don't find this surprising at all.

When Ryan was in law school we joked that all our friend who arrived with kid(s) in tow were better off from the outset. They didn't have time for the weekly bar runs on Thursday, but they had an advantage because they had to focus the time they had between dinner-bath-book-bed and all the other responsibilities of being a parent and studying. I don't have any statistical proof, but many of our friends with kids ended up at the top of their class at Duke that year.

Hopefully companies out there are starting to wise up in the hiring of tied down folks like myself. It's not that I am not passionate about what I do, it's just that I have to focus that passion at something else for the hours I am not working. And that's ok. Mommy has enough love for both of you.

A dryer's view of the world

My dryer could tell a million stories about it's owners, but I like to think of it's life in era's:

The rarely used era
I used to wonder about those people who complained about doing laundry all week long. This was pre-babies, of course and the dryer was used only every other week. It was a sweet life for a dryer (and it's owner).

Spit Up Era
Life got a little more interesting when J came along... but his tiny baby clothes didn't add that much to the now weekly load. He wasn't a particularly messy baby and I didn't mind leaving him in slightly dirty clothes (provided it was only spit up).

Toddler Era
Again, a little more hectic, but not so much more so, just bigger kid clothes and the same adult quantity.

Toddler + Spit Up Era
Here's where the fun begins. What used to be three loads a week has grown to 4, and the kid clothes are adding up.

Sand
J went to a pre-school in Chapel Hill with Sand+Dirt as the playground flooring material. This era has led to about 3 cups of sand sitting in the vent (I can see it, but I can't reach it with any implements which might be able to get it out). The sand even prompted me to ask a repair man how to take the dryer apart to get it out. He has given me instructions but I haven't done it yet.

Dog Hair
In Denver we lived in a a very small house with a very small yard with severe winter weather. All this added up to MASSIVE amounts of dog hair. Brushing only put a dent in the problem. Each time I washed and dried there were black pills of dog hair on everything. I eventually bought these little velcro covered balls which scrubbed the dog hair off of things. They helped, but it was incredible how much she shedded, didn't she need that hair?

Acorns and Rocks
In Austin we are now in the Acorn and Rocks era. Both of them bring these things home in their jeans and the end up in the wash. J and P had an all out war the other day about an acorn one of them had brought home from school. "It's mine!" "What did it look like?" "It was brown and round and pointy on one end" "Just like every other acorn in the world?" "Bwahhhh!" Each load of laundry comes with a load of rocks and acorns which unearth themselves in the washer and dryer. I should start telling people that "stone and nut washed jeans" are back in style.

One more reason to love the internet

I just got the kids school pictures back and they are.. eh. J's smile is exactly the kind of smile I get from him when I take pictures myself, so at least he is consistent. P is cute, but I give him one more year and he'll be smirking too.

Rather than buy the "$10 a sheet" racket that the photographers offer, this time I went with the CD only. It was a bit pricey, $30 for P's and $25 for J's, but I think this is going to work out in the end. They included a letter giving me the right to reproduce and now I have loaded it up with all the other photos from this year in Picasa. It will probably make an appearance in the "A Year of Bates" that I am making.

Now comes the part where I love the internet. J and P's grandparents live in 3 different places (or 2 and one unknown place as my parents aren't ever in one place for long. They are kind of like Schroedinger's Cat. If I am sure they are in a single place, they are sure to be going someplace else, if I think they are moving, they are certainly in a local I didn't expect) and all have differing levels of display in their houses of the "grandparent wall of fame".

Rather than guess what they'd like, or decide who is the lucky one to get the 8 x 10 rather than the 5 x 7, this year I have sent them an email saying "what size would you like?". Ryan's Dad and Stepmom wanted 8 x 10's. So I went to Picasa, choose to have them printed at Walgreens (there is one near them, they were even kind enough to provide the address), and Walgreens even let me pay for them online!

So for $5 I printed 2 glossy 8 x 10's of my kids, I didn't have to mail them, and they can pick them up tomorrow! Awesome!

Great visit to Denver

P and I had a wonderful visit to Denver to see many of our friends there. We had a whirlwind visit planned to see some of my friends at Cricket, P's friends at Primrose, our great friends and godmother Diane and one of P's very special friends G.

The trip was a success. P was an angel for the majority of the time. He didn't agree with me that I got to see my friends too, he didn't want to wait until after lunch with my Cricket friends to go to Primrose or until the end of the day Saturday to see his best friend G, but we worked it out.

It is apparent that he has his mother's ability to remember places and locations, but not names. I spent the whole weekend trying to remember the names of the places we went to and the street names, but had no problem navigating the back ways to get there (even went to my friend Rebecca's house with no address only by memory). When I was back in my old work place I was grasping for names (mostly of people I only tangentially worked with). P apparently has the same gifts. At Cricket he ran straight to my old cube and said "this is where you work!", but when we went to his old daycare he couldn't remember the names of the other kids (except for G, of course).

It was wonderful to see everyone and particularly nice to have such a great reaction from people at Cricket. Some even asked if I was moving back to Denver and would I please come back to work there? Can I bottle that feeling and sprinkle it on people I am interviewing with here in Austin?

It was also wonderful to see the mountains and feel the very bright sunshine and dry air. Then people started to tell me how it had snowed just a few days before... which I don't miss so much.

Hair Drama

After three failed attempts at getting J's hair cut last week (the barber shop was closed at 4:30 each day, no posted hours, so it was mysterious when they were open), I took the kids by yesterday afternoon and they were open!

J has really, really great hair (in my mommy opinion). Not only is it a great shade of blond, but it's thick, straight and looks great in a "John John" haircut, as it has been for years now. We have had numerous conversations about how he likes for it to be "floppy" and I have seen him run where he lets it flop from side to side. This makes me thing that he's fine with it too and it's not just me imposing my wishes on his hair.

So we went in for a long overdue cut. It had been months and months since he had gotten a cut. I had trimmed the back and sides to keep it presentable, but now it was too far past long.

I am trying to remember how my description of "he has great hair that we like just the way it is, just shorter, especially the back and sides" was interpreted as "I am a mother who has no idea what I want, please, don't listen to me and cut it so he looks like a mental patient, jagged cut all over, still long in the back and sides".

I almost started crying when I looked up from talking to P to see the mess that she had made. She did notice my distress and when I asked her if she was cutting a bowl cut her response was "that style has been out for 20 years. I haven't cut anyone's hair like that in forever. Why would you want that?"

So I asked her to cut the sides and back like I had asked. She tried to pull it off by claiming it was a bowl cut now! see!

What I didn't do and should have was tell her that she hadn't listened to me. That by not listening and then doing whatever she wanted she had not only upset me, but given him a terrible haircut too. Then I made another mistake in telling Ryan in front of J how upset I was at how it had turned out.

This morning Ryan took him to school and apparently everyone commented on his haircut (in an approving way, he tells me). As his teacher told him she liked his new haircut his response was "no! it's not what my mommy told the lady to do!"

I need to work on my white lies. All this truth telling I have been doing lately hasn't helped me out as much as I thought it would.

"Why did Jesus make school?"
asked P as we drove up to his Baptist daycare this morning.

"Because Jesus values education"

I have hacked again!

I have another post on Parent Hacks... this time about making a dinner party fun for the kids even when they have to go to bed before it even starts!

Here it is

Imagine taking Luke Skywalker to Target

We were going to Target this weekend to get a few things and P strolls up to me as we are getting ready to leave.

"Can I take my light-saber to Target? I promise I won't kill anyone"

Needless to say, we didn't take our light-saber to Target.

Looking for a new job. It's interesting what's out there right now. I'll let you know how it goes...

Meanwhile I am ripping all the CD's we have laying around the house. It's funny the music I decided I had to own years ago. I have Nillson's "The Point", some terrible ABBA compilation which has not a single song sung by the group itself, and a bunch of show tune CDs (Mack the Knife! The King and I! Les Mis! Evita!). Those don't really go well on an Ipod on shuffle, but eh, it's there now.

Now all I need is a mint

After years and years of saying that the first thing I would do when Ryan got his big-lawyer job was get a maid... I finally did it.

Months ago I got a reference from a friend for a couple who cleans houses. It sat on my desk for a long time and I kept looking at it. I was conflicted by my inability to keep my own house clean. I am able bodied, I am a relatively neat person, I enjoy a clean house, why wasn't I able to keep on top of it? I even subscribed to "fly Lady" for the past few months and read the "Today's mission, the entry hall: Clean off the tables and throw away any junk mail." It all sounded so do-able. But then the inevitable black-hole that is working full time and then rushing home to feed, bathe, read books and get kids to bed and then collapse on the couch ate all the energy I stored up in anticipation of cleaning off the hall table.

Then we took the kids to get tested for allergies. They are both affected by house dust mites, which live on house dust. "Cleaning the house can only help this situation", the allergist explained. So, that afternoon I called the number on my desk.

Last week they came and looked at the house and I am sure they were being nice when they didn't laugh at it's state. They gave me a very reasonable quote for weekly cleanings and then they said it would be more than twice that for the first visit. Then they started asking me what products I use for things like cleaning the wooden floors etc. I laughed but was equally embarrased to say that I hadn't, actually, cleaned the floors, but thank god you're here!

They worked from 8 until 2:30 yesterday and cleaned everything. Now it feels like someone else's house. They got the crumbs under the glass counter top, cleaned the toaster oven, and even got the grunge out of the master bath-tub (I scrubbed on that! Honest!). Ryan came home and looked a little bewildered too. P was confused when he walked in "It smells different... clean?"

So I guess now we have to get used to having a clean house once a week and I can worry about other things. Like all those projects which are half done and begging to be completed while I am looking for a new job.

Unintended Voyeurism

A few months ago we got a new DVR player from Time Warner. Our old one was acting up and we had to swap it out.

Aside from the frustration of losing all the shows we had recorded and hadn't gotten around to watching (Cold Case is my Rainy-Day show...) and all the programming of the shows we want recorded this transition was especially shocking...

When I plugged the set in and started surfing around I was surprised to find that Time Warner hadn't wiped the settings on the box. All of the previous owner's scheduled recordings and favorite channels were still saved.

It's safe to say that this guy (I will assume) had different tastes than Ryan and myself. Lots of sports channels, lots and lots of sports channels. And he apparently had some premium channels we don't subscribe to.

We have so many pieces of equipment which represent our personality and interests. DVRs, computers, ipods, even the radio stations in the car. It felt odd to be scraping this guy's personality from the DVR to make it our own... but I got over it. I wiped this guys porn off of our DVR and set up the recorder to make 5 copies of the Backyardigans.

More digital pictures scanned

Last weekend I went through the OTHER box of pictures and found around 20 more APX film cartridges and packet after packet of regular 35mm negatives. I put each in a Costco envelope and took it over again. One mess of negatives were just jammed into an envelope from who knows how many rolls.

They were happy to see me with my bag full of envelopes and promised they would be done within a week. Again they called on Tuesday to say they were all finished.

When I went to pick them up I was met with glee. The lady who helped me said that it was fun to scan my pictures. She also said that they had a new service which scanned slides. I had found a box of those too! And video tape to Dvd! Ryan's mom has sent us a number of tapes over the years which we haven't ever watched! And Super 8! WOW! Mom has a bunch of those!

So, now I have to gather some of these other items and take them to Costco for digitalization!

And you will be called transitional man...

Isn't it interesting that people who are rational and careful in one part of their lives can be reckless in another?

Take me for example. I was quite conservative in my dating days. I wouldn't even go a date with someone who wasn't a serious contender. I think it was the right thing for me, and it worked out quite well.

Jobs, on the other hand... I am apparently one of those people who sometimes has bad judgment in "men".

The job I had before this one was a fine job, but it was a lot of work and I knew it wasn't going to work out in the end. I kept on trying and trying to be the perfect girlfriend up until the last second when I had to go. I was really bummed that I hadn't done a better job or tried harder or whatever. I was also physically and emotionally exhausted by the whole thing. It took me a long time to be able to think in terms of dating someone else.

Then came this job. I thought it was going to work out, but in the end, he was just a transitional man. He was messed up in ways that made my neuroses look like child's play. I was the sane, stable, grown up one in the relationship. As time went on, it was more and more clear that no matter how sane and stable I was, he was always going to be messed up. And in the end, one of those self-destructive, taking out all your friends with it, kind of messed up.

So it's with no trepidation that I say adieu to my transitional man.

Yesterday, as the first day without him, I woke up, exercised, shaved my legs, did my hair and make up, ran 100 errands that hadn't gotten done in the past few months and in every way felt like a million bucks! We even had Ben and Sara over for a wonderful dinner! How can I even look back for a moment?

Now I am looking forward. Looking forward to "long term man" and all that he can offer. I am hoping he has a good health plan and 401k, but mostly I hope he's not a wack-a-doo. If you know anyone nice, send him my way.

I was another person for a year!

When I was a kid, I was brought up to believe that each move was a great opportunity. An opportunity to meet new people, see new places, have a new room, a new climate, so many new things. You also have the opportunity to leave behind things you didn't like... friends or enemies, schools, yourself.

One freedom this allowed, that I wonder how many people would consider trying out, was reinventing yourself. It was a low risk activity since we knew that no place was permanent. If you didn't like the new person you invented, that's ok, you'd move again soon and you could go back to your old self, or try someone new.

In third grade, I did just this.

I started a new school in London and we knew that it was going to be only for one year. I began the first day by telling the teacher that I was to be called Elizabeth (my middle name). Elizabeth quickly became Liz and I was Liz for that whole school year. At home, still Suzy, but Liz to all my friends & teachers. I am sure my parents thought this was funny/weird, but they were pretty supportive about it. They also knew it didn't have to stick if I didn't want it to.

At then end of year we moved back to Houston and I went back to Suzy. It was me, but it was great that I got to try it out.

Perhaps this experience is why I am quite partial to my name even though I am the first to admit it's a little girl's name. I have come to terms with being Grandma Suzy in years to come, and that's fine with me.

Obama brings out the worst in people

As you know, we are huge Obama fans around our house. The "race" speech has convinced me of so many things...

But, it apparently does not bring out the best in others.

For the election, Ryan went to the Obama headquarters and purchased a yard sign for the front yard. We put it out there and enjoyed it until J's birthday when my parents came to visit and absconded with it. Dad claims that telling us afterward that it was in his trunk makes it ok, but this isn't about that.

Mom and Dad took the sign to Canmore, Alberta (where they are "snowbirds who got lost and stayed too long"ing this winter) and put it in the front yard of their house. It looks like it was tough to spot in all the snow!

Earlier this week the sign was liberated from their yard too. This wasn't a real surprise as Obama signs are probably hard to come by in Canmore, but still a shame.

Mom went onto this website and bought two more signs (two for her and one to replace ours) and a bumper sticker and had them mailed to us here in Austin. They arrived yesterday and sat on our front porch until we got home from work and retrieved them. Something about this box (perhaps that it was mostly falling apart and on the front porch un-attended) gave someone the idea to poke around in it. So when we got home it was opened and the bumper sticker is missing.

Sigh, he's the candidate of "hope", right? Guess people don't equate that to personal property.

Time Change Nightmare

Who decided the time change was a good idea?

We are asking kids to go to sleep when the sun is still up and wake up before the sun gets up... all so retailers can make a few extra bucks? It is nice to have some time at the end of the day where the sun is still up so we can have dinner on the porch, but I don't think it was necessary to move it up a few weeks so that we are all getting up in the dark.

Now I have kids who won't go to bed AND don't want to get up.

Small World

I am always amazed at how small a world it is.

Austin is a really small world where you run into people from other areas of your life unexpectedly, but it really isn't that big to begin with. Especially when you hang out with similar people (IT or Lawyers). Similar experiences, similar interests.

Where I get amazed are the people I run into who have lived in far flung places just like me. At J's allergy appointment last week I was talking to the Dr about having grown up in different places and it turned out that she went to the same american elementary school in London I did. ACS Hillingdon. She also lived in Jakarta and went to the American school there while we were at the Singapore American School. Her dad worked for Conoco, so we ran in the same circles, but it's still a shock to run into these people.

Don't take stock advice from me

This image is a great example of why no one should take advice from me when it comes to spending money on something that has a "Market".

This graph represents the cost of tickets to go to the beach this summer. I have been watching these tickets for months now, knowing that I was going, and I kept watching. You can see by the jump and fall of the price earlier that I should have learned that NOW is a good time to buy. And then our friends who are also going all bought theirs last week. But did I buy? no. Did I think they might go down again? Of course I did. Even though I saw an article in the paper which said "ticket prices to go up with increased fuel costs".

So, now I will wait some more because it will cost me an additional $400 because I am an idiot.

Weekend Drama

It was a great weekend. We had our friend Lauren in from North Carolina with her son N. All the boys played nicely, even worked out sleeping with all three of them in the same room (good practice for our trip to the beach this summer!).

The Drama this weekend was a trip to the emergency room to get P's chin glued back together. He was leaning back in a dining chair and went all the way back and (somehow, not really sure) cut his chin open about an inch from side to side. There was surprisingly little blood and he was in a great mood while we were at the emergency room (which made our visit much longer since he wasn't in distress, infuriatingly so).

But all is well, he is thrilled that the glue they used was purple and he hasn't complained about it once.

No wonder you're in a bad mood!

It took us a long time to come to the conclusion that J isn't a "difficult" child. All signs pointed to us having a kid with issues. Now, he's a great kid and he's smart and interesting and gets along with adults and kids in a regular kind of 6 year old way... but he is a challenge when it comes to his emotions. He is prone to bursting into tears at the least provocation, like "please pick up your shirt" led to crying and histrionics of massive proportions.

So Ryan and I have spent countless hours worrying, reading, talking to teachers... ok, mostly the hours were spent throwing our hands in the air and declaring defeat in the eyes of this beast. We didn't know how to handle it let alone address it. We did try time and again the tricks we had in our bag. Patience, talking, time outs, reasoning, explaining, lack of patience, bribes. All of it seemed to have no impact. He understood, we talked it through, but in the end his emotions always got the better of him. As time passed, we prayed that it would pass too as he matured.

When we got to Austin he started Kindergarten and we were both hoping that he was up to the challenge. It's tougher to be in a bigger class with only one teacher who has a stricter agenda (must teach to the (eventual) test!). It was interesting to see J's teacher struggle with the same things we did. The teacher conference was educational as they were at that stage of remaining hope that we had hung around for a while. "It's just the age" they assured us. "Lots of boys are like this".

Then we turned a corner into the dark time in J's Kindergarten career. He started to get in trouble a lot more. The exasperation in the teacher's voice when we spoke was more and more clear. They moved into the "frustration & exasperation" phase ("welcome", I thought to myself, "see, it's not just me").

Just as Christmas was looming I started to seriously consider counseling. And then an unexpected thing happened. We got a Christmas tree.

A few hours after the tree was in the house, P started sneezing and scratching at his eyes, runny nose, the whole thing. I gave him some Claratin and considered getting rid of the tree. In the morning he was better but still had symptoms. I decided the tree could stay, but that he was just going to have to have allergy meds through the holiday season. As I was giving P his tiny white pill, J asked if he could have one too. Since they had both have had the same allergies at the same time in the past (and our pediatrician told me that Claratin is a very benign drug) I gave J one too. For the next week J & P got Claratin and things started to change. J listened better and had much more appropriate responses. He was able to deal with his issues in a much more rational manner. When we went back to school after the break, his teacher even asked what was different and if we had changed something. I began to realize that the allergies were impacting his ability to concentrate and deal with things emotionally.

So fast forward to today. We had J tested for allergies yesterday. The specialist says that he has spring allergies to things like Oak and Pecan pollens, and he has year round allergies to dust and... Dog. We talked about strategies, allergy shots, meds, etc. The sum of the conversation was... you have a dog, your son has dog allergies, good luck with that!

So, now we know. J started his allergy meds again this morning (after a week off and the teacher asked me "When does Joe start his medicine again?").

In two weeks P is having his skin tests as he's starting to get testy too. He's probably allergic to tulle and glitter.

Somebody should...

About a year ago when green-ness was becoming in vogue I wondered how green I was and how I could find out more about becoming more green. Thoughts like this usually lead to me dreaming up some new software application to answer my ponderings, not actually doing anything to take Action on the problem... but enough about me...

Here's one (of many I am sure) site that answers the question I was asking. Knowing what car I drive and what lightbulbs I choose to light my home with, what is my impact on the environment and if I choose to change my lightbulbs or car or whatever, what impact can I make?

Low Impact Living

F@#k You Nina Totenburg!

It was a big day in the Bates household. Ryan went to DC on Saturday to attend the hearings for his first case as a "real" lawyer and it was a biggie! He is on the "less rights for the indigent" side of Rothgary v. Gillespie County that was heard in front of THE Supreme Court. (Some friends assumed it was a Texas Supreme Court case, just to be clear...).

So, all day I was watching The Volokh Conspiracy and the New York Times and other sites to see if there was any interesting reporting about it. Ryan had called in the morning and said he was "going dark" for a few hours (they can't take electronics into the courthouse), so I was all a twitter. My co-workers undoubtedly rolled their eyes when I posted that he was there and his case was being heard (get back to requirements analysis already!).

Then came the drive home. I love Nina Totenburg on NPR. Her soothing radio voice and "break it down for the masses" writing style is great for a girl like me who's breadth of legal knowledge is wholly encompassed by Law and Order. I was so looking forward to hearing about Rothgary v. Gillespie County and the pivotal fight to determine when you actually get a lawyer when "you have the right to an attorney".

An aside here. Ryan was in the midst of writing his brief for the court and asked me some "as a citizen with little or no legal knowledge" questions pertaining to his case. I like to think I helped him out by being so blase about my understanding of legal representation. (I'd like to note, that when Ryan decided he wanted to go to Law school, I figured I would "lawyer up" at the slightest provocation or even an illegal hang-nail... he's free, so why not?)

So, hoping my 20 minute drive would coincide with ms. totenburg's summary of my hubbie's legal career, I jumped in the car to get the kids. Minutes later... there she was! Woo hoo! Lay it on me sister, explain to me what has engrossed my husband for night after night and was the cause of my mad rush across town to pick up both boys before the day care starts charging by the minute!

Nina then tells some very boring story about how Fox Broadcasting is appealing some draconian implementation of the "7 dirty words" law. And how they want to overturn.. blah blah blah. The salacious information in the report was that it was about the usage of the F word and S word on live broadcasts. And Cher and Nicole Richie's poor choice of public language was causing a multi-billion dollar company to shell out a few bucks. While I believe this issue is mostly ridiculous on both sides (Nicole Richie is setting policy? v. Who the hell cares?), I was especially outraged when Nina wrapped up her reporting with nary a mention of when your right to legal council attaches! That bitch!

Well, I can't really change her reporting, but I am anxiously waiting for the Volokh Conspiracy to post their analysis (as promised). By way of compensation, perhaps if the Democratic primary election could come down to some sort of legal battle (with Obama winning in the end, of course), that would make up for this slight. That would make my hubby happy.

Cross Dressing 3 year old makes a Girl out of Mom!

The other day I was dropping P off at school and he ran up to his teacher and exclaimed in delight at her skirt. He was so thrilled by it he was giddy. Then last weekend I took him shopping with me to get some work staples (nice shirts and jeans, thank god I work in high tech) and he not only made me try on this flirty embroidered dress, but begged me to buy it.

So I began to wonder about his disappointment at having an Everyday Dora for a mommy (practical hair, pants all the time, prepared for anything with trusty backpack) rather than the pink-ed up princess with the floaty dress and bad hair extensions. How disappointed he must be when I appear each morning and I don't look like Doris Day.

So today, consciously or not, I choose the pink purse and matching pink wallet at Target when I was buying my twice yearly effort at accessorizing. I choose a nice shade of purple for my toes the last time I got a pedicure. I have been trying harder to do the hair and face in a purposeful way.

He won't ever have the incredibly put-together mommy of his dreams, but I can try and meet him half way. Then some day I can point out that although I don't have matching purse and shoes, I can help him rewire his house, and then maybe he'll thank me.