Pink Prickly Pear

Yay for the first bee-sting of 2009! </sarcasm>

Once again, I was totally minding my own business.  I wasn't molesting them or drinking sticky soda in their presence or stealing their honey, I was just raking the dirt into a little pattern on the path (so SoCal) in the front garden.  I felt the sting, looked down and saw the miserable little offender crawling around on my arm.  Bees!  What have I done to make you smite me over and over and over and over again?!?!?!?!?!  I have your image permanently inked on my body in homage to all the lovely things you do for us and this is how you repay me?

I suppose the silver lining is there are bees around to sting me.  I thought I'd managed to nip the swelling in the bud, but I woke up on Sunday morning with Popeye's forearm.

Between my efforts to simultaneously rid our home of clutter while also procuring inexpensive second hand items of a temporary nature (ie. high chairs, baby gates and the like), I've spent a considerable amount of time online at places like craigslist and half.com.  People's descriptions are amusing, to say the least.

Someone, while attempting to put a positive spin on the condition of their copy of Chipp's Theories of Modern Art (I am scoping out the competition, not interested in aquiring another copy) noted that in addition to the "nice, tight spine" their copy had "useful underlinings and highlights".  Now, as anyone who's ever ended up with a marked up text knows, someone else's markings hardly ever correspond with what you probably find most pertinent.  Purely speaking for myself, I find other people's hot pink highlights and ill-formed marginalia most distracting.

A certain type of seller can't resist pointing out to potential purchasers how much they initially paid for an item.  I don't find this information useful, except perhaps in pointing out what a boob you were to spend $300 on a highchair you could have bought on craigslist for $50.

Seller's opinions don't hold much sway with me either.  I just want the facts (dimensions, condition, price), preferably accompanied by a good photograph.  I don't need to know how "cool and unique" you think the hidden cupholders are on your (IMO hideous) green corduroy couch.  Do alert me to its presence though, because there's a wealth unsaid in that detail - there are going to be crumbs galore in them there couch cushions, aren't there? 

Also, when taking a photograph, natural light is best.  The photo should be of the entire item, not just the un-stained portion.  You also might want to clean up your scruffy abode, or at the very least, crop it.

Since I heard you needed to look it up...

...a covenient link clears up any confusion about santorum.

3:30 Dentist Appointment

I don't know what substance Dr. W used to cement in my new crown, but it tasted like robot santorum.

So kids!  What's for dinner?!?

She makes all the lesbians scream.

So, whenever I hear these fucking wingnuts straight people going off on why the gays shouldn't get married, I always think, "Really?  It bothers you that much?"

Because honestly, if you're not gay and you don't travel in gay circles, just how big of an impact does it have on your day to day existence if two ladies up the block want to file their taxes together or have next of kin privileges at the hospital?  How does that threaten your marriage?  Not that I'm able to grasp any of their hateful, ignorant argument, but in particular, the bit about their own marriages being threatened, maybe I'm stupid, but I just don't quite get that one...at all.

At any rate, the other day, we were out walking the dog.  There's this house we always walk past.  Before the election the yard was plastered with those hateful Yes on 8 signs and at Christmas, there was this big inflatable Jesus in the yard.  Yeah...some haters.  Got to bring Jesus (you know, that peaceful love your neighbor guy in the hip sandals?) into it.

Anyway, I'm walking up towards the house and I do this double take.  And I real quick look over at Mr. Pear and he's just done a double take as well.  Because standing in the front yard is this very (stereotypically) butch lady.  She's got her severely short hairstyle, her steel rimmed glasses.  No flannel shirt, but a sort of shapeless thermal top and a swagger.  My gaydar wasn't just beeping - it was like an air raid siren going off.

That poor woman must be that family's Mary Cheney!  was what immediately came to mind...but then this other lady I recognized from the neighborhood walked up and they started chatting and it was clear, from their conversation, that this wasn't their lesbian daughter or cousin or sister come over for a visit, but this was the planter of the Yes on 8 signs and the owner of the inflatable Jesus herself!

No wonder the gays intimidate this poor bewildered woman!  They must be licking their 'staches at her every time she pulls up next to them in her Toyota Tacoma!  Every time she's mulling over the tool selection at Home Depot, they must be cruising the poor thing and asking if they don't know her from line dancing!  This tease must be getting the reckless eyeball from every lesbian between here and the Sierra Nevadas!

So, I think I get it...a little.  As far as she's concerned, the gays are coming to get her.  Those lesbians especially.  Come on over to the dark side, they beckon.  All. the. time.  Don't give her a moments rest.

She must be vigilant with her yard signs.

Resolutions...

I don't make a list or anything, but I suppose I do make a few half-assed promises this time of year.

In 2009, I'd like to explore San Diego more.

So today, we went down to Balboa Park to check out Free Tuesday at the Science Center.  Uh...my quick review?

It's kind of smallish, but there appear to be a lot of neat looking interactive stations for the kids to explore.
The bathrooms smelled reassuringly of bleach and the soap dispensers were at least half full.
Don't go on Free Tuesdays because there will always be someone else's kid grabbing everything and mucking up your experiment.  And where is someone else? 

I don't like great unwashed crowds.  Mini-pear doesn't like loud.  D-anjou was over-stimulated - just the way he likes it.  We left after about 45 minutes.

It's the weekend and while I should be all, "Yippee, it's the weekend!" I'm actually feeling sort of tired and grouchy.  I hardly have time to brush my teeth, let alone spew my unedited thoughts on the internets.  This is a yay/boo post, because if I wait until a time when I can write coherent paragraphs it just might not happen this year.

Boo - I know you're not really supposed to call it colic anymore and apparently it just means your baby cries more than other babies, but...yikes...my arms get tired*.  Where does he get the energy to keep it up?  If I cried that hard I think I'd last fifteen minutes before collapsing in a comatose heap.

Yay - Lots of energy!  He can go for hours!  What a healthy boy!

Boo - Black widows. 

Yay - lunch at Pelly's - clam chowder, mussels, fish tacos!

Yay - an hour at the meditation gardens.

Boo - laundry, disorganized garage, disorganized thoughts.

Boo - none of the books I'm trying to read really "grab me".

Boo - hair issues.

Yay - IronMan.  I wonder who Robert Downey Jr's PR team are?  Because wasn't his whole career/life in the toilet?  Also, Gwyneth looks really nice with red hair.

Yay - Mini-Pear is learning how to walk the tightrope while holding an umbrella.  What's not to love about that?

Boo - totally bizarre, very vivid dreams.

* Yes we take turns, but my arms still get tired.

Easy like Sunday mornin'...(and a rant about the sorry state of affairs in the Border's children's department)

I've been married to my father-in-law's son for over nine years now, and yet he still thinks it's perfectly fine to call me at 8 o'clock in the morning!

Granted, we have a child, and people with children are frequently up earlier than they'd like, but still, on the weekend, she often lets us sleep in.  Or one of us takes one for the team and lets the other one sleep in.

Mini-pear is sleeping over at her friend's house.  We both could have slept in!  But instead the phone, which was right next to my ear - where it should be when my baby is away for the night - started ringing away merrily.  For some reason, the dog decided to join this joyful chorus by retching violently in the kitchen. Mr. Pear got up and mopped up the vomit.  I listened to my voice mail (of course I didn't actually answer it!), just in case it was an emergency phone call (because really, that's the only reason I want my phone to ring before 9 a.m.).  Somehow Mr. Pear was able to flop back asleep and me?  Well, here I am with my tea wondering what I should have for breakfast.

Should I fill you in on all the hot details of date night?

We took a nap.  Went to Jimbo's to buy laundry soap specifically for cloth diapers.  Stopped at the new Apple Store to check out Mr. Pear's application on the iPhone.  That was really cool!  He wrote that!  And it's right there on the screen!  Apple!  Huge!  Then we stopped at Borders (I've yet to find an indie bookstore with a children's section in defiantly anti-intellectual San Diego county) to refill the summer book fairy's stocks.  Border's books has the most asinine method of organizing children's books I've ever seen.  One would think that fiction for independent readers would be organized in much the same way adult's fiction is shelved.  Wrong!  Instead, there is a section for "Animal Stories" and a section for "School/Friendships", etc.  For someone who went in with the idea of looking - oh, I don't know- say, by the author's last name, it was baffling!

Eventually this employee who soon revealed herself to be completely useless asked if I was finding everything okay.

PPP: No, actually, I'm not.

Useless Employee with No Knowlege of Children's Books: Oh, something in particular I can help you look for?

PPP: Well, I could probably find it myself if the books were shelved properly...

UEWKCB *smiles benevolently*: Well, it is the children's department...

PPP: Meaning?

UEWKCB:  Sometimes the children will pull things off the shelves and not put them back in the right places.

PPP:  No, I'm curious as to why they aren't shelved alphabetically.  If I'm looking for books by a particular author, but don't know the subject matter of each and every book she's written, I'm going to have to look in all these separate sections...

UEWKCB *ignores my logic*: Well, it is back to school time, so we are running low on a lot of things...Shall we look them up in the computer?

So I tell her we can start by looking for anything by E. Nesbit and Edward Eager.  She needs me to spell both their names, and while on one hand, I can appreciate her wanting to get it right, I am mostly really disappointed that she's obviously never heard of them.   If I were in a real bookshop, with a proprieter as opposed to an employee, with someone who actually cared about children's books, I imagine they might screw up their little face with glee and breathily declare how much they enjoyed E. Nesbit's books.  Perhaps they'd even say, "If your reader likes those, she should try something by ________", but, no, this lady is just an employee at a big, box bookstore and doesn't know jack about kid's lit.  So disappointing.

At any rate, they don't carry anything by E. Nesbit.  Really?  Really?  I craned my neck looking at the screen - not just out of stock, but you don't carry them???  And we went and looked under "Independent Readers/Science Fiction" for the 2 individual copies of Edward Eager's books they had in stock.  One, we already owned.  The other I found "mis-shelved" among the E's in "Independent Readers/General".

UEWKCB:  See, the kid's are always putting them back in the wrong place.

PPP:  No, I'm pretty sure that that's where I'd shelve him - with the other E's...

And she had the nerve to give me a pitying look!

/rant over.

We came home, made smoothies and watched American Gangster.  2 hours and 45 minutes!  Long!  A midnight dog walk, and I was more than ready for bed.

I want to be all done now.

This is what a good portion of my living room looks like at the moment. Re-organizing and purging our paper files is something I've put off for years.  I keep our file boxes in my bedroom, but foolishly thought that if I worked on this project in the middle of the living room, I'd be more inclined to complete said project in a timely fashion.

Ha!

Will someone please come and clean up for me?  Pretty please?  I've never seen so much shredded paperwork in my life.

Math. I can do it. But it is really boring.

Are there people who get all excited at the prospect of crunching numbers?  I know part of the creative process for me is problem solving, and so I suppose it's possible that there are people who get a gigantic grey matter hard-on for arithmetic...it just seems so improbable to me though.

We're getting a new insurance plan, which is very nice indeed, but I need to crunch some numbers and do a cost/benefit analysis of the various plans.  Labor and delivery is covered by all of them, but we have various options for room and board, as it were.  It's nice to have options, so I shouldn't complain, but while options usually leave me feeling slightly overwhelmed ("Too many choices!") in this case, I know there is one option that will save me money and I need to commit some arithmetic hurdles in over to figure it all out.  Boring!  Like if I get the plan that requires I only pay $300, no matter how long I stay in the hospital, but higher monthly premiums, will I end up paying more in the long run than if I pay less per month, but a percentage based fee based on the length of my hospital stay (if all goes well, 48 hours, if they have to stick a knife in me, 96 hours, if all hell breaks loose, we got bigger problems anyway)?

Who knows?  I've done this much homework - called the Birth Center at the hospital and asked how much they charge for a semi-private room per day, and how many hours I'm legally required to remain in the hospital for both a c-section and a vaginal birth.  I probably could have crunched the numbers in the time it took me to compose this stupid post about it, but procrastination is way more fun than MATH, even if it is the kind of math that will save me money.  Besides, I know I can do this kind of number crunching, because despite my math anxiety and every teacher I ever had through 11th grade telling me I had no head for numbers, I used to do this particular kind of number crunching back when I had * insert sarcasm* a real job, except back then the numbers were much bigger and it wasn't my family's checkbook I was balancing, but a really big checkbook for a really big institution.  They paid me to crunch numbers and I did a very good job too!  So there, no head for numbers naysayers.

Still, I didn't like it.  Am I going to sign off and go crunch the numbers? 

No.  I'm going to go to the freezer and see if there's any Ben and Jerry's Karamel Sutra (with the caramel core!!!) left and then I'm going to watch my homeschooling homeboy, Will Smith, in I Am Legend (a PG-13 film which I am, nonetheless, too chicken too watch when it's dark outside).