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| Friday, November 20th, 2009 |
digitalemur
|
11:44a |
The only thing crazier than Clapotis is Clapotis with beads.  |
| Thursday, November 19th, 2009 |
dumble
|
11:02p |
|
dumble
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2:06a |
Update
Took a nap, went to a jazz concert, then danced for an hour. What happened to being exhausted? Maybe I should just blame it on phonetics and being unmotivated. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow, which is ridiculous because I like Thursdays. I am looking forward to a "Footwork and Styling" class before dancing on Friday. Current Mood:  relaxedCurrent Music: The Hardest Part of Love - Stephen Schwartz |
| Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 |
digitalemur
|
9:34p |
she said "st. theresa comes to me in dreams."
Tonight marks the second time, and only the second time, I've ever recognized a band name on a t-shirt in Questionable Content. I love it for that. And now I know what I'll be playing on repeat for the next hour or so. PS: Eventually, will I use all of the lyrics from this song as post titles? Maybe I should try it and see what happens. Current Music: your little hoodrat friend |
dumble
|
5:43p |
soooo sleeeeeeeepy
I've said to many people in the last two months that grad school is exhausting, but this week has really taken it to new levels. The odd thing is that it's not that I'm not getting enough sleep. But despite getting plenty of sleep, I've just been absolutely exhausted all week, to the point of really being useless at doing work. I'm supposed to go to a jazz concert tonight, but I think I'm going to have to take a nap first, since that's about all I'm good for at the moment. Hopefully I'll wake up eventually... Current Mood:  exhaustedCurrent Music: If Only You Knew - Yes |
heebie_geebie
|
6:27p |
To many Punchy Wednesdays to come.
Today is Punchy Wednesday. I hung out at daycare for awhile, because they have great toys and lots going on. I pushed her in a swing. Hawaiian Punch smiled and crowed a lot. When the other babies were going to take a nap, we came home. There's a danger in putting Hawaiian Punch down for a nap any time after 4:00 pm, which is that she might just be down for the night. And then at 4:30 am - that's the morning 4:30, in case you missed that - her eyes go BING! LET'S PLAY! And that's just bullshit. Book Club was perfectly pleasant but free of fireworks. No one liked that crappy book. I didn't get a vibe that I should really rip it a new one, so I exercised restraint. There's a mother-daughter pair, and the mother is of the Pollyanna generation who prefers to find some good in everything, and she sort of liked the book. Although she admitted that parts made her roll her eyes. The neighborhood! I love seeing everyones' houses and neighborhoods. I didn't love this neighborhood but I was fascinated by it. I've never seen a new development like it. Instead of giant snout houses, every one of these these (giant) brand new houses were extremely southern, with the big porches and pillars, and lots of second story porches. But brand new. It made it feel like a movie set. I'm uncomfortably beginning to realize that I quite enjoy people of suburban ilks I never thought I'd cavort with. I thought the lines I drew in the sand were permanent. After all, it's sand. Stay on your side, you friendly people in your giant suburban houses with your slightly uptight but mostly endearing mannerisms, like fretting about your children, or which recipes are healthy and low-carb. It's confusing. |
ophblekuwufu
|
5:30p |
naqaa part II
I caught a naqaa in the wild! "When she walks, she quivers like a reed upon a naqaa" Three comments are in order: 1. Clearly the folks who contended that "extended gibbous piece of sand" referred to a bank of sand rather than a grain were correct. Go you! 2. This line is more interesting than it looks because by Arabic poetic convention a reed on a sand-dune is a way to describe an ideal woman's figure--i.e. big around the hips, slender on top. Obviously medieval Arabic women didn't have legs, since...um, maybe you couldn't tell because they were wearing long skirts all the time? Seriously, it's now occurring to me that even very explicit sexual poetry in Arabic doesn't talk about legs. I should look into that. 3. Thanks to the lively discussion of a couple weeks ago, I recognized this word when I saw it in context, without needing to recourse to the dictionary. Thanks, everyone! P.S. This morning I figured out what I was doing wrong with the last instance of naqaa I posted about, which I knew clearly couldn't have anything to do with sand. Accounting for an acceptable poetic elision, it refers to a kind of wine. |
| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 |
digitalemur
|
11:43a |
I left Google Wave open while getting tea and talking to a coworker. When I came back it was grayed out and telling me, "'Everything's shiny, Cap'n, not to fret!' It appears you need to hit 'refresh.' Care to tell us what you were doing when this happened?" Google Wave team appear to be browncoats. SHINY. Update: Apparently this is well documented. Possibly Google Wave is named for "broadwave" communications from Firefly. Apparently "send me a wave" is the appropriate linguistic construction for requesting communication through this medium. |
| Monday, November 16th, 2009 |
digitalemur
|
8:20p |
Okay, somebody's an idiot, and it's not me. [This next sentence has been edited to clarify who, exactly, the idiot is.] I phoned my primary doctor's office referral lady last Monday for a referral to my endocrinologist to be processed on my new insurance, figuring that since they said they needed 48 hours notice and I was giving them NINE DAYS to do it, they'd be able to manage it. "Do you need the numbers off my new insurance card?" I asked in my message. "Here is my office phone number." Because of course I had to leave a detailed message on their machine, because they usually aren't answering the referral line phone extension. I just got home tonight and found a message on my HOME voicemail asking what my insurance card number was, and reminding me that they go to lunch between 12:30 and 1, and that she would leave at 3 today but I could leave a message. The message was from 11-something AM. I just got this message at 8 PM. My appointment is at 8:30 AM tomorrow. If I cannot see my endocrinologist tomorrow I am going to have very strong words for those people, and with those people. It is likely my endocrinologist's office can phone and straighten it out while I'm having my appointment, and I vaguely remember that my primary care office screwed it up last time too... but what a pain. |
thekinginyellow
|
6:33p |
Magic All Around
So, as some of you are already aware, I am enormously fond of The World Ends With You [an RPG for the Nintendo DS that came out last year]. It's one of the pieces of pop media that have most stuck with me, right up there with Utena and the Phoenix Guards books and suchlike. And for the longest time, I had the devil of a time trying to figure out why. ( Read more... ) |
heebie_geebie
|
3:36p |
Let's make this place owl-friendly.
I cleaned my desk at work. Next I am going to order curtains and bring in a rug. It's time to smarten this place up. I have returned to my pre-pregnancy weight (awhile ago) but now I am a bit dumpier and stumpier. It's okay. That makes it seem worse than it is, so I probably shouldn't have picked pejorative words. I should say, I'm now rollier and pollier. Tomorrow is the big exciting conclusion of Did Anyone Love The Awful Book Club Book? From now on I am taking Wednesday afternoons off, to play with Hawaiian Punch. Being apart as much as we are during the workweek is just too dang stressful. I'm taking matters into my own hands. I can get work done at night instead. (Sort of.) I feel better now that I've got a plan. I ought to think up a cute name for the recurrence. This coming Wednesday I have a soccer game, so I have to put my money where my mouth is. I am missing a soccer game for Punchy Wednesdays. A colleague keeps bringing me owls. He saw my owl keychain, and he likes owls, and so he's brought me three so far. He also brought me a lot of food when I was pregnant. He brings food and gifts for a lot of people. I generally don't bring other people gifts. But the owls are adorable. Especially the Native American one. The owls prompted me to clean my desk, get curtains, bring in a rug, and generally smarten this place up. |
tiamat360
|
12:05a |
Doggy!!
Today we were visited by a member of the Rescue a Golden of Minnesota Society (RAGOM), a golden retriever rescue organization, to see if we were qualified to adopt one of their dogs. And we were approved by them this evening! That means we can get a doggy. Doggy!! Sadly, they have just started a waitlist for adopting dogs in the 6 month to 3 year age group, which is precisely what we're looking at. So we might not be able to get a dog for a bit, still. But at least we can! It will happen! Doggy!! |
| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 |
digitalemur
|
9:29p |
|
ophblekuwufu
|
8:44p |
in memory of Albert
[As some of you know, a couple of months ago my friend Albert passed away at the age of 73. Albert was one of my oldest friends, one of the first people after my parents that I ever loved. He came to represent the best parts of my childhood, and I feel as though I've lost a part of my childhood with him. I was asked to deliver remarks at his memorial service yesterday, and I'm posting the text of those remarks here. Partly it's as a record for myself, and partly it's because he was an extraordinary person and I want to tell you all about him.] There was something remarkable about Albert, something you could feel when he came into a room. You could feel it in the way his big hands would reach out to grasp yours in greeting. You could see it in the improbable repertoire of whimsical expressions that danced across his face. You could hear it in the way he’d say something outrageous that somehow made you feel warm inside. He knew everyone in that room—or if he didn’t, he wanted to. He wanted to hear their stories, and he was always ready with a good story in exchange. He wanted to introduce them to each other, and figure out what people and what interests they had in common. It wasn’t just that he was friendly and charismatic, although he was both. His way with people was a manifestation of something that ran deeply in him—something precious and very rare. Albert was a person who knew what was important to him, and he was devoted to it. He didn’t bother with things that were unimportant to him. He didn’t worry about being late, or about getting lost, or about learning how to cook. He didn’t strive for worldly success—I think he thought it wasn’t worth the compromises it demanded of him. And he didn’t strive for virtue, at least not in the abstract. He was a good person because he had a big heart and generous impulses—he didn’t need to work at it. What he strove for was happiness. It sounds like an obvious thing, when you say it—you could get anyone to agree that happiness is important. But although people may say they value happiness, they frequently don’t act like it. Albert, on the other hand, took happiness seriously and valued it highly--perhaps because, while goodness came easily to him, happiness did not. He waged an ongoing struggle against depression, claiming a life of joy and fulfillment as an act of deliberate will. Albert actively sought to be happy. And he sought actively to bring happiness to others. Albert was not a snob where happiness was concerned—he sought out pleasures of many kinds, and he relished them. But I think that there were two sorts of joy that he sought and prized above all others. The first was a joy derived from beauty. Albert took a passionate delight in experiencing beautiful things, and in creating them. His love of music I need hardly mention—the vigor with which he played, the zeal with which he grumbled when the music flagged and crowed when it soared. But his quest for beauty, and his skill in creating it, was not limited to music. He and his siblings transformed their family home on Lake George over many years of loving labor: collecting, carpenting, renovating, furnishing, finishing, and always tinkering. Every room is a work of art—even the bathrooms. The house stands witness to the breadth and the keenness of his aesthetic vision, and to the sundry skills that enabled him to execute it. But more even than beauty, Albert sought happiness through other people. He loved people immoderately and without reserve. He had many friends, and he continued making new ones until the end of his life. He shared his music with them, and hosted them in his beautiful house on Lake George. I can’t imagine how much energy it takes to care so much about so many people. But he did care about them—he cared about them all, and he made sure they knew it. You could hear it in the tone of his voice when he made yet another outrageous crack about your love life. You could feel it, in the grip of his hands. He rejoiced in his friends, and his joy was contagious. It lit up the room when he walked in the door. The way Albert died was a tribute to the way he lived. He spent the last months of his life ensconced in style— and in as much comfort as medically possible— under Denise’s care, practically holding court as an unending stream of friends and family crowded around to tell him in thousands of different ways how much they loved him. As he lay dying, his hospice room was crowded by people who took turns holding his hands and playing music in the hope that some part of him might hear it. In all of this, he was simply reaping what he sowed. A life like Albert’s is surely its own reward. In the last few weeks, I have come to appreciate how inimitable Albert is, how altogether irreplaceable. And I’m glad of it—it makes it so much easier to remember him, to hold all the memories together in my head because, really, who else would have said or done something like that? When I think of him now, I think of a line by the poet Horace, which translates “Mingle a little folly with your wisdom.” I remember the time Albert ran out the battery in his motorboat because he stayed out too long admiring the moonlight on the lake. I remember trying desperately to get someplace on time, and failing utterly because Albert was so interested in the conversation he was having that I couldn’t tear him away. I am overwhelmingly grateful, for the privilege of having known this man whose little follies attest to his great wisdom. Albert was a person who knew what was important. Remembering him, he will remind me. |
| Saturday, November 14th, 2009 |
digitalemur
|
5:25p |
If you still sometimes check the backs of coat closets to see if there are elevators hidden in them, you might be glad to know what's coming out on DVD next March. What's funny is that I can still tell you that Kate Jackson played Amanda, and I can still remember a lot of the stories AND the theme song... and yet I could not remember who played Lee Stetson. I guess my five-year-old brain just couldn't retain that or didn't care as much about him as about Amanda. When reminded, I was quite shocked. You'd think I'd have recognized him! But my memory for faces is bad. |
| Friday, November 13th, 2009 |
dumble
|
6:46p |
|
digitalemur
|
6:37p |
Pirates vs Vikings? I'm bettin' on the vikings.
Exhibit a: a letter, sent by sibling #2, to the rest of us, around noon today, outlining shenanigans to be had.Exhibit b: a response, carefully crafted by sibling #3, around 5 today, outlining the materials required for said shenanigans.Exhibit c: a reply from the British sea captain, around 6:30 today, disputing Rule 11.I invite you, now, to suggest your own ideas for shenanigans. I'm just hoping they involve pancakes. PS: I can explain the raccoon joke, but a lot of you ain't gonna like it. |
| Thursday, November 12th, 2009 |
heebie_geebie
|
8:22p |
Determinants commute with products.
Hawaiian Punch is sick. Again. Last night she couldn't nurse because she was so stuffed up. The sucky bulb couldn't get enough out. We bulbed and bulbed and she screamed and screamed. Finally we turned the shower on hot and let the bathroom steam up, and that gradually loosened her nose up enough to run all over the place, and we could suck it out and she could nurse. So that's how we spent the 3 am and 4 am hours. We crossed our fingers and sent her to daycare. She didn't have a fever in the morning. They called us at 10:30 to come pick her up, because she was running a fever of 103. Poor thing. Are you really supposed to be sent home from daycare with a fever weekly? Yesterday I had a therapy appointment. I'm going in every now and then to talk about Mom. I kept the appointment even though I haven't been that upset lately. So I asked him about Chaunda. This guy was Chaunda's therapist, and he is still doing grief counselling with her husband and son. I never did get enough details about her illness and death. At one point I said, "She was one of my favorite people, ever. I miss her so much." The therapist started to say something and stopped. I asked him what he was going to say, and he said, "I didn't want you to be offended." I said I was curious now, so he admitted that he stopped short of saying that he prayed for her. I was kind of stunned that he'd think that would offend me. I don't even get the mechanism by which it would offend. (Maybe if I knew the content of his prayers I'd be outraged.) On the other hand, I am a judgemental judgeasaurus, so I thought maybe I had said something flippant at some point. I asked him. He recollected a session from the summer. Here's what had happened: while I was talking, he got up and got his laptop and started futzing around. I trailed off. Eventually he found the website of some wellness institute that promotes positive thinking and smiley faces. I was totally pissed off. It's a short session, and I wanted to make some progress on whatever I was upset about, and now we were going down this digression about Mom's treatment options within the fruity science realm. It ate up the remainder of the session and I was pissed off. Anyway, pray for whoever you want, especially if they're already dead. Pray away. I don't care. I'll miss Chaunda in my own way, you do whatever you want to do. (Maybe it would piss me off if he'd been praying for me.) I am just cranky and having trouble juggling everything. |
digitalemur
|
12:24p |
I was going to spend the hour of free time I had this morning (my morning off was disrupted for a software install that couldn't happen any other time) in the garden. Nope. First I heard "Song for Athene" by John Tavener on the radio and bawled my eyes out, and then I got my hands on this collection of videos of dogs welcoming their servicemen home from deployment, and in total I think I've been sobbing for most of the last hour. Which is worth it. |
| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 |
tiamat360
|
10:09p |
|
digitalemur
|
9:25p |
Stroganoff round 2 is not a decent test-- I undercooked the shallots, so the strong taste of not-so-cooked-onion is overpowering my experiment with the sauce, which is otherwise pretty damn good. (I threw in red pepper flakes with the nutmeg, and then used black pepper on the dish toward the end.) |
digitalemur
|
9:49a |
Dear Verizon: I won't use your services anyway, after multiple incidents where your customer service people reduced me to tears and then yelled at me for it. But seriously, advertizing your new smartphone as if it's a robotic alien invader or a drone fighting machine dropping airstrikes? This is not convincing me to buy your product. Also? Your ads make it look like a cheap knock-off of some sort of Cylon, or a cut-rate Terminator. I'm not sure what, exactly, you're doing wrong, but something ain't right. |
| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 |
dumble
|
9:58p |
I am enjoying tango classes, but I would very much appreciate some tango role models who are not impossibly skinny. Suggestions welcome. |
tiamat360
|
11:23p |
Tonight I performed for ~1200 people. |
| Sunday, November 8th, 2009 |
heebie_geebie
|
7:45p |
Let's count down till Thanksgiving.
I got terribly upset on the drive home from the conference, Saturday, because I felt I'd been apart from Hawaiian Punch for too long and I missed her. I knew she was fine; this was all about my maternal clinginess. If I had to redo it, I'd have brought her to the conference, and driven each way after her bedtime so that being confined to the carseat wouldn't be such an ordeal. Now I'm sad about going back to school tomorrow. It's just that I hadn't seen her enough all week, and she had crashed the moment we got home on Friday, and then I left at 4:30 am on Saturday. She gets so tired around 6 at night. On weekedays we barely get home by 6. It's kind of upsetting to always put the baby down for the night right when you finally see her. Have carseats put a major cramp in family road trips? When we took road trips, we had a bean bag in the back of a suburban. I think it would be uncomfortable to be strapped down in your 5-point Safety Harness for the better part of a day. The Christmas ListI finished it. It moved at a decent pace, and had an unbelievable amount of white space. A full blank page between every few chapters. Chapters that started mid-page and ended mid-next-page. It was like a college student fluffing an essay. I have two absolute favorite parts that I must share. So, Evil Bad CEO Dad opens the paper and reads his obituary. Then he reads an extremely unrealistic comment thread about his death, and decides he must make amends. (His long dark night of the soul lasted about 15 minutes on a Tuesday morning. Ok, that was another favorite part.) He asks his secretary to draw up a list of all the people he has wronged. She gasps, "But, but, there must be thousands!" Nevertheless, he is resolute. She shows up the next morning and says, "Here are the ones that kept me up at night." There are five. That made me laugh really hard. Again, does this author just not like to write? Okay, so Bad Dad starts making amends, and it's going really badly. Christmas is almost here, and he's gone down the list, and he has struck out big time. He says to his ennobled secretary, "Originally I just wanted to fix my legacy. But now I really care about people, and I wasn't able to help any of them." She solemnly drags out the moment and eventually says, "Bad Dad, this is what Christmas is all about. Redemption." That was a big favorite moment with me, how she tied it up with Christmas. Christmas is about redemption? I thought it was a birthday party. And how does that help him? Should he forgive himself? (No. He should just nod thoughtfully and know what to do.) Then there was a painful ending where Noble Mom dies, which made me cry, which pissed me off. But then! THEN! After the end of the book, there is a blank list, numbered to 5, where the reader is encouraged to make their own Christmas list. Oh, thank you! Thank you for the opportunity for me to write out the five people I've wronged, and make amends. Christmas just isn't Christmas if it isn't Yom Kippur and a 12-step program. So that was that. Next week I'll find out whether my book club is sane or not. Mom is home from the hospital! It ended up being quite abrupt. On Thursday she was in the ICU; on Saturday she was home. They found a good combination of pain meds and were able to remove the tubes from her chest. I'm very relieved that she didn't pick up an infection. At one point I said to dad, "Now that the surgery's over, what's the worst that can happen?" He started listing off complications and then trailed off and said, "Don't worry, Heebie, she's going to be just fine." I laughed and thanked him. We are so pooped that we found subs for ourselves for our soccer game tonight. I played this afternoon, in the rain, and Jammies had a hockey tournament, and it's rainy, and Hawaiian Punch is asleep, and sometimes it's so nice to curl up by the glow of the TV. |
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