« October 2006 | Main | December 2006 »
November 28, 2006
I think this pisses me off
Apology Cards for parents.
Yeah. I'm too tired to talk about why, but the person who wrote this clearly is not thinking about cultural examination...bleh.
Posted by mryonker at 10:59 PM | Comments (1)
November 27, 2006
babies laugh best
I know I've got some readers out there who don't read dooce, and that's OK. It's OK because I check in every once in a while for them, ya know? And I follow her links every-so-often, too. So, if you haven't caught this video yet, take 30 seconds to watch it. You will laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
Poor kid. His dad (or whoever) just won't quit. But I don't think I would, either.
Posted by mryonker at 08:57 PM | Comments (3)
November 22, 2006
happy murder-a-turkey day
Posted by mryonker at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
I couldn't (and wouldn't!) make this up
I'm in the laundry olympics today, and plan to take home the gold for most loads washed/dried/folded.
It's 10 am and I've already filled my dining room table, which, you see, is not an insignificant amount.
Little J frequently "helps" by moving wet laundry from the washer (I have a front-load, so everything's in his reach) into the dryer, putting in the dryer sheet, emptying the lint screen, etc.
George Muttley also enjoys hanging out when we're laundering, because he gets to explore the insides of the machines as they are emptied.
This morning, though, I'm on a strict schedule. I have to be done by noon so we can drive south to celebrate the Day the Native Americans Made a Big Mistake and Welcomed the Puritans to North America, Little Did They Know the Similarities Between the Words Pilgrim and Pillage Weren't Only Phonetic.
So, I switch loads, hurriedly. J wanders in to clean the lint screen as I'm shoving wet clothes into the dryer. My dryer is old and the opening isn't nice and wide like it could be, so there's an amount of forcing going on. J throws in the the dryer sheet, I slam the door, and I move to the dining room to fold the next load. J climbs up on the catfood bin next to the dryer and hits the start button for me, like he always does.
As I'm sorting what seems to be several trillion pairs of socks, a sound makes me hesitate.
Thump
Thump.
It sounds like there's a shoe in the dryer. But there's no shoe in the dryer, for sure. Little J's coat is in there, which is probably heavier than the dryer's normal fare, but it should not be
Thump
Thump
Thumping.
I fold a few more socks, wracking my brain to figure out what might be in there. I decide there must have been a something in there of Big J's--he's notorious for filling socks with rocks and leaving all manner of unwashables in his pockets. I decide I should probably retrieve what ever it is, lest it dent my already-limping-along-dryer.
I walk in and open the dryer door and jump back with a small yelp. There's an ANIMAL in my dryer and it looks like a SKUNK.
Oh, no, it's only George.
I grabbed him out and he immediately threw himself from my hands to escape the torturous hell I've subjected him to. He ambled crookedly into the dining room and collapsed under the safety of a chair, looking pointedly at me. I reached down to tell him I was sorry, that I really did not know he was in there, and he accepted by apology with a rumble of a purr.
All told, he was probably in there for less than 60 seconds. I'm sure for him it was an eternity.
Posted by mryonker at 10:26 AM | Comments (3)
November 19, 2006
grosser than me
I found a runner whose running-bodily-rebellions may very well be grosser than mine.
And for this I am happy.
Posted by mryonker at 09:02 PM | Comments (1)
snack lick
My little-J has been three for over two weeks now. In many ways, he is still a baby to me. He is still cuddly and has great cheeks for kissing. He sleeps on the bottom bunk in a room shared with big-J, but he still gets up early in the morning, around 5, and climbs into bed with us. He has tantrums when he's tired and loves taking baths, but hates brushing his teeth.
He also does some decidedly un-baby things. He likes to play "hide and seek" with George Muttley. This involves J hiding George, mostly in cabinets in the kitchen or under the TV.
He likes marinated vegetables.
He puts his shoes on the shelf when he comes in the house more consistently than any other kids around here.
He flushes the toilet more consistently than any other kids around here.
He says "I love you"--and I don't even have to tell him I love him first.
And today he scrounged under my desk to find my snack stash. Clearly he has known about this stash for a while; there was all the purpose in the world of his scrounging; no serendipty there. He pulled out a small ziploc of Chocolate Chex Mix (which I find to be not bad, but not really great, either). He deftly opened the zip and dipped his small hand in to retrieve a piece (one of the bread sticks, I believe). He held the piece to his nose briefly, and then licked it experimentally.
He then replaced the bread stick, attempted (unsuccessfully) to close the zip, and put the bag back in my stash place.
*sigh* I suppose I should know that at least my Doritos are safe; no one in this family would lick-and-replace a Dorito.
Note to self: 1) Change snack stash hiding place. 2) Devise strategy for booby-trapping stash, so I know if someone's been licking my snacks. Suggestions appreciated.
Posted by mryonker at 12:54 PM | Comments (2)
November 12, 2006
sunday morning blather
About the 70s and 80s:
Why is it that all the books on content analysis are either from the late seventies (OK, and the early 80s, too) OR checked out and excessively overdue (indicating that even a recall would be questionable in my actually getting the book)?
About the 90s:
Fighting Gravity, or Boy O Boy for old school fans, came up on my playlist this morning. All of my stuff of theirs is from the early 90s, and while friends and I used to make frequent (sometimes illicit--sorry mom!) trips to Richmond and Virginia Beach to see them play, I've been out of touch with what they're doing for about 10 years. Since I'm sitting in the office feeling sorry for myself because I feel like crap (see 100s), I allowed myself a quick google-around to see what they're up to. I'm disappointed to say that the horn players are gone, and from what I gather listening to snippets here and there, the signature ska that I spent many a night skanking mightily to has been replaced by something more Dave Matthews-esque. Not that I don't love Dave, as I snuck out many a night (sorry again, mom!) and into many clubs to see him play around Hampton Roads before they became superstars. (I have this great memory of getting backstage at a show they played at Town Point Park in Norfolk and watching them from about 10 feet away. Beauford's enormous kit would travel forward several feet during each song, and in between some roadies would scurry out onto the stage and shove the whole thing back. During the longer pieces Beauford himself would have to grab hold of the snare, or the bass, or the high hat stand, or whatever, and pull it back toward him. And he managed to continue drumming *while* rearranging the kit, not ever missing a proverbial beat. He was/is amazing.) Oh, what was I saying? Yeah, too bad FG ain't ska no mo.
About the 100s:
I joked my students a few weeks ago that *I* don't get sick. Apparently the joke is on me. Today my head is so full of snot that the gingerest of footsteps (my own) send the bones in my face reeling in pain. And I have the shivers and sweats of someone working a decent fever; I'm sure if I took my temp it would top 100.
Posted by mryonker at 08:43 AM | Comments (5)
November 11, 2006
if you were curious...
Dean Karnazes didn't beat Lance, but I think I'm more impressed with Karno's performance than Lance's.
It's been a funny thing, Lance running the NYC marathon. I've always been a little ambivalent about Lance. I think his physical abilities border on the non-human and therefore fascinate me. His battle with cancer was compelling and important. But for some reason I was quite disappointed in him when his marriage broke up (strangely, I wasn't disappointed in Kristin; maybe I should have been); and I remember reading somewhere that he didn't treat Sheryl any better when they were together. I guess I have utter respect for him as an athlete, but I'm less impressed with him in other roles. I understand, of course, the unfairness of my assessment.
At any rate, Karno, ultra-runner extraordinaire, used the NYC marathon last weekend as the capstone to the Endurance 50, where he ran 50 marathons in 50 days.
And after having run a marathon per day for 50 days, he was still able to nearly match Armstrong's pace.
I think I wish Karno had won. But I'm impressed, nonetheless.
Posted by mryonker at 12:21 PM | Comments (3)
November 09, 2006
belated halloween blogging
In case anyone's wondering, *ahem*, I did not sew one single stitch for these costumes. The kimono and pirate get-up are courtesy of my mom's most excellent handiwork.
The lion is a throw back from when H was a tot.
Posted by mryonker at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2006
mom blogs, attacked again
In working through Technorati this afternoon, I came across this post from zero boss about when writing about our kids should stop. He laments that The Trixie Update, popular a few years back for its diaper-changing counter, is shutting down once again.
Trixie's dad says that as kids get older, they get less bloggable. As they evolve in to real people, essentially, we should respect their privacy...
But before I could think through what I thunk about that, I managed to find (via Zero Boss) this post from Violent Acres which I have not even read through all the way yet, but holy crap is that lady giddy with the knowledge that we are all setting up our kids for certain future humiliation. This writer (I have not even read her about page yet) makes the following claims:
1) children have a right to privacy
2) it's NOT my child's job to "ease the pain of [my] inferiority complex"
As far as I'm concerned (and I'll probably regret this later): the only rights my kids have are the ones that *I* grant them. True, child labor laws prevent me from putting them into the factories to help me pay the mortgage (which, we are broke enough right now that I'd consider it if it were legal--plus, that would get them out of my house so I could get some writing done). Privacy is not a right, it's a privilege. And I don't remember who said that, but I probably got it from Anne Galloway or danah boyd and so forgive me for not sourcing that properly. At any rate, and regardless of rights, Leta will probably be *happy* that, when in junior high, her peers make fun of the fact that her mom was in a hospital for depression. That juicy tidbit will work wonders in distracting those bullies from the IMPORTANT embarrassments of junior high: ashy legs in gym class (and no lotion anywhere!), trips to the nurse for (forgive me, I love the phrase) "feminine napkins," the long walk down the hall to the band room simply to announce that your bassoon reed is cracked and you don't have a spare.
Further, my inferiority complex exists BECAUSE of my kids. The reason I doubt my abilities as a teacher, as a writer, as a student, and ETC is because my poor brain is always awash in all the minutiae of keeping track of lives other than my own. And believe me, keeping track of my OWN shit is hard enough (just ask the people who had to rescue me, TWO DAYS IN A ROW, with jumper cables because, apparently, I cannot remember to turn my lights off...when I am stranded the first time, that is not enough of a lesson for me to remember the next day to turn the suckers off--then I'm stranded AGAIN). As far as I'm concerned, my kids make my life *hard*. Therefore, it is not too much to ask of them to help me through it. They do a fine job of sliding down McDonald's hamster tubes in other kids' shit, and me getting to write about it is important for me to be able to make sense out of it.
So...I've read around Violent Acres a bit. She's new, there's NO about page, and I found this post where she discusses having been exploited by her mother as a child.
Now, I have a little sympathy, and I'm feeling a little sorry for her. But she uses her own bad experience with her mother to argue that mommy bloggers exploit their kids for revenue, and this is *bad*.
Hm. No, I'd still send my kids to a factory to work for financial gain. I mean, they're living in this house, too, right? They should help me pay for it.
Lookit. We moms cannot win. We leave the house to work, we're hurting our kids. We stay home with our kids and work (and get paid to write about them) we're hurting our kids. I don't have an answer. Right now, anyway.
Posted by mryonker at 04:06 PM | Comments (2)
November 04, 2006
if i had a guarantee...**
that I would look this cute with my hair this short--I'd do it.
But my lovely baby sister Fran has far better hair than I do. Hers is thick and wavy-ful and wonderful.
She did, you'll notice, inherit my chicken neck, though. Poor thing.
**alternate title: "This is what you get, Fran, for sending me cute pictures of yourself. I show them to the entire Internet."
Posted by mryonker at 10:20 AM | Comments (6)