« August 2007 | Main | October 2007 »
I've been sneezing and snotting my ass off all weekend. Something is blooming and is absolutely killing me. I have to make an appointment with the allergist I haven't seen in a year, because obviously whatever he's not doing for me isn't working.
"Piggies are cute. But they have magical powers that also makes them very tasty." - James
James is exceedingly hard to fit clothes for. First of all, he's a seven year old boy, and they're about as prone to want to try on clothes as housecats are likely to like having their claws trimmed or their coats dematted. Secondly, he's a difficult size. He put on some girth this summer, so he's very big in the waist but hasn't sprouted upward in leg and arm length yet.
Getting him a size 10 or 12 in regularly-fitting clothes simply doesn't fit -- either the waist is too tight or the legs are far too long. What's more, he prefers roomy athletic pants to dungarees or trousers, and they're usually made of nylon, spandex, or other material that's nothing short of a gigantic pain in the ass to alter.
So we took him shopping today and went up to the Faunce Corner outlet mall in nearby N. Dartmouth. Vanity Fair has an outlet store there, and it was there that we were able to find a plenitude of Lee jeans (with snap buttons on the waist, which he finds acceptable) and even a pair of cargo pants, all size 10 Husky, which fit him remarkably well.
I'm glad to finally get him some pants -- he's been making do with his summer wardrobe up to now, but the weather is getting more fall like, and it's no longer acceptable to send him to school in shorts.
Woke up at quarter to 7 this morning to a loud crashing sound in the kitchen. Emmeline had opened the refrigerator door to get milk for her cereal, and apparently a metal bar that holds bottles in place inside the door gave way, spilling numerous bottles to the floor -- including a king-sized bottle of A-1 Steak Sauce and soy sauce, both of which shattered when they hit the tile.
Cleaning that stuff up is like trying to clean up a crude oil spill -- it's sticky, it spreads everywhere and even when you think you've cleaned it up, it's still there. It didn't help that it had gone *under* the fridge, so I had to move the fridge out to get all of it.
All without a mop -- the mop we have busted about a week ago and I haven't replaced it yet.
My heart breaks to see the A-1 gone. I can replace it, of course. I'm just sad to lose it on principal. It's my favorite steak sauce.
This is shaping up to be a fine weekend.
Twice this week Bonnie has been put off by rude scheduling people at doctor's offices, and I don't quite understand if this is a general trend or something local to us.
On Monday she saw her primary care physician to have her thumb looked at. It had swollen painfully over the weekend -- in retrospect Bonnie thinks it might have been a spider bite she got in the middle of the night. The receptionist arbitrarily scheduled her for a followup in the middle of the day on Wednesday.
"Well, I'm working," said Bonnie. "I just started a new job."
"There's nothing I can do about that," said the receptionist, who gave her a song and dance about how the scheduling software they used didn't allow for any sort of flexibility.
Bonnie ultimately called on Wednesday morning and cancelled the appointment. Fortunately, her thumb is healing.
This morning she was contacted by another doctor's office for a followup for something she had looked at several months ago. They arbitrarily scheduled her for an appointment at 8:50 on Monday morning. Didn't bother to ask if it was okay first -- just put her in the book and called her to let her know about it.
"Well, that's not possible for me," said Bonnie. "Between getting the kids ready for school in the morning and making the 35 minute trip to your office, that doesn't give me the time I need to get myself ready."
"So...do you want to reschedule?" asked the receptionist.
Well, what do you frickin' think, lady? It would have been nice if you'd simply *scheduled* to begin with, instead of decreeing when she could be seen.
So the new TV season is rolling, and I hate to say it, but I couldn't care less. There were a lot of good trailers on this summer that certainly should have interested me, with actors and premises that I think, under other circumstances, surely would have grabbed my attention.
But for whatever reason, I haven't bothered to plug many of the new shows at all into the recording schedule of my DVR. I set it up to record the pilot for The Bionic Woman, mainly because I love Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from the incomparable re-imagined Battlestar Galactica) and wanted to see how she does as a bad guy. Girl. Whatever. And outside of her little tidbits, wasn't overly impressed with what I saw.
Part of it is that here it is, the end of September, and my DVR is still 50 percent full from stuff over the summer that I haven't watched yet -- endless episodes of BBC America's Robin Hood, three episodes of Torchwood I've yet to catch up on, Dr. Who, Eureka, a couple of episodes of The Dead Zone, and a ton of anime like Bleach and Naruto.
Part of it is that many of the broadcasters this fall are hoping to hook viewers into watching serial dramas they'll have to watch for the whole season, and I just can't handle that commitment right now. Sorry.
The kids have been back in school for a few weeks and it feels like we're settling into a comfortable routine: Robert out the door at 7, Emme out the door at 7:30 and James following at about 8:10.
Bonnie started a new part-time job last week doing clerical work in a doctor's office in Hyannis, and that's keeping her quite busy a few days a week, from about 10:00 to about 5:00 PM some days.
In other words, Max and I have the house to ourselves for the moment. He spends his time finding patches of sunlight to nap in, and I stay busy with work.
I'm back in Mashpee, safe and sound, thanks to Paul Bonarrigo, who drove me home from the airport. Our flight from Minneapolis to Boston was uneventful and fast -- we landed well ahead of our scheduled time, thanks to the strong tailwind afforded by the Jet Stream.
It's been a long but very productive week, and I'm really happy that I met with whom I met with and did the things I did. I know it's been very trying on Bonnie and the kids with me away this week -- especially for poor Bonnie, who started a new job. I'm hoping I can pick up the slack going forward and help her out more to take a bit of the edge off.
I'm just finishing up a midwest tour that took me to Austin and Houston, Texas and Chicago, then Minneapolis. Got to see a lot of people really important to me, and a lot of people really important to the Mac industry -- it was time very well spent.
Unfortunately, it's put me behind the eight ball in other ways, but there are always tradeoffs.
Anyway, home Saturday, then back to the grind almost immediately.
When they borrow your Altec Lansing im716 in-ear earbuds and the filters are so clogged that you can't hear anything.
So we landed safe and sound in Austin, Texas late on Monday morning and basically hit the ground running. We started meeting with clients as soon as we got here -- Paul B. and Paul Z. don't mess around, we're here for business. Then we hooked up with my friends Ryan and Jenn for dinner.
The two Pauls and I love barbecue -- the Texas barbecue is nothing like what we get back in Boston unless you *really* know where to look, and you can get good barbecue here at gas stations. (Literally. We at Rudy's for lunch, which is phenomenal.) But going to Rudy's for lunch and the Salt Lick for dinner may have been a strategic error, in retrospect. All three of us were practically incoherent by the time we got back to the hotel (and it certainly wasn't the one beer I washed all that meat down with).
I slept like the dead. Didn't get out of bed once the entire night. A belly full of meat and a comfortable bed does that to a guy.
I'm already missing Bonnie and the kids, of course. But today's a big day -- get to see Aspyr Media and check out Guitar Hero III for the first time, which I'm really looking forward to. Tomorrow, Houston.
Time to get up and get ready for our 7:30 AM flight to Austin. Wish I was still asleep. At home! But Paul and Mary are excellent hosts.
I spent much of yesterday evening at a wedding for Bonnie's cousin Kerry and her fiance Phil. I'm not much into weddings, so I surprised myself by having a really good time at this one.
A lot of it had to do with impeccable planning on the part of the bride and her mom -- no detail was overlooked, and the food and venue were fantastic. Part of it had to do with having a genuinely good time with the people I was with -- I'm going away for a week tomorrow (actually, tonight), so it was nice to spend some time with Bonnie and without the kids doing a "grown up" thing, and I like her family. But part of it also was just getting to celebrate a happy day with other happy people.
Bonnie's family is tremendously talented artistically, and her brother and her cousin Kerry's brothers are all incredibly gifted musicians. A live band played, and they generously let Kerry's brothers Justin and Michael, Michael's girlfriend Tishara and my brother in law Eddie play a few songs for the crowd. Of course, everyone got up and danced. A good time was had by all.
CapeCodTimes.com - Police seek parking lot masturbator: ""
How do you masturbate a parking lot?
We have three school buses that service the neighborhood: One for kids in K-2, one for kids in 3-6, and one for the high schoolers. The K-2 driver, since we moved to the neighborhood, is Amy. And she's the sweetest, best bus driver ever. We love Amy.
Amy decorates the bus with pictures the kids draw for her. Occasionally she gives them sugar-free lollipops or other treats when they're well-behaved. And she always toots the horn or waves if she sees us from the street.
Since the beginning of the year, my neighbor Lori and I have been wondering why Amy has been stopping about half way down the street to pick up one lone kindergartner whose house is situated between two official stops. We finally figured out why today: It's because his mom just had a baby over the summer, and she also has a younger son who's in pre-school. Kindergartner must be accompanied to and from the bus stop by a parent or guardian, and Amy didn't want to make that mom walk to one of the stops with her infant and preschooler in tow, especially as the weather gets colder.
It's stuff like that that makes Amy worth her weight in gold. I'll be so sad when this school year is over, because James is in second grade now, so he won't be riding with Amy anymore.
Of all the time for my camera's battery to be recharging.
"Daddy, there are turkey-things in the yard," calls out James this morning, before he got on the bus for school.
I came downstairs and looked out the window. Sure enough, there were six turkeys in the yard. Wild turkeys. First time I've ever seen them here.
It's been a couple of weeks since I paid my last visit to the nearest Kia dealership -- now more than half an hour's drive north of here to Kingston, Mass. They agreed to order me an oxygen sensor after the check engine light came on, and said they'd call me when it came in.
They didn't call, but the problem didn't go away. In fact, the van recently started hitching and bucking, so I figured the problem really had to get fixed. Fortunately the part did come in -- someone just neglected to call me.
Anyway, they did the work today, and everything's fine so far. The van's not hitching and bucking anymore, and the Check Engine light is off. Let's hope this is the last repair story for a while.
I have to say though, the dealership is pretty cool. They have a very comfortable waiting room with desks and electrical outlets, cable television and trays of complementary pastries. If they had free soda and hot wings I might have to move in.
So I'm going on a business trip next week. I'm accompanying our associate publisher on a four-city, five day trip around the midwest, where I'll be meeting with upwards of 10 clients, if our current schedule holds.
I'm really looking forward to this. Increasingly we've been matching our sales people up with editorial people when they go on client calls, and both departments really get a lot out of it. I think the clients feel better too, when they get the attention from both sides of the publishing business simultaneously.
Plus it'll be the first time since March that I've gone on the road, and while I'm not big fan of jet travel or living in hotels, I've grown a bit weary of the day-to-day grind and am yearning for something different.
The icing on the cake is that I get to meet with a few clients of ours that I really enjoy spending time with, and almost never get to see outside of Macworld Expo events, when we're all usually so crazy busy that we might as well not be seeing each other at all.
Of course, the trip will cause a bit of stress at home, as I'll be gone essentially for seven days. I expect Bonnie will be exhausted and burnt out when I get home. I feel bad about that. I wish I was in a position to get her some help with the kids, especially. Maybe some day!
This is just bullshit. It was bullshit 47 years ago when a Catholic ran for President and it's bullshit now.
I won't vote for Mitt Romney because I think he's an asshole who will ruin the country. His religion doesn't play into it one way or t'other.
Every so often something pegs my geekometer straight into the red. Well, this broke the gauge all together.
Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers) was the first anime I totally got into. I watched it over and over and over again, and just adored it. I've heard the American version of this theme enough times that I'm pretty sure it's burned into genetic memory (We're off to outer space / To save the human race...). But this is the first time that I've ever heard it sung in the original Japanese, by the original singer. And his yellow blazer is just icing on the cake.
So in the last couple of days James has gone from calling us "Mummy" and "Daddy" to "Mum" and "Dad." He also speaks disparagingly of the kindergarteners in his school. At second grade he's at the top of the heap now (the school is K-2). I guess my little boy is growing up...
Went off with almost no hitches. The first van arrived to drive Bob to school at 7 AM; the second picked up Emme at 7:30. By 8:14 James was on his bus.
I got a call at about 8:30 from Robert's teacher. Turns out that all of his records are missing in action, somewhere between the guidance department and the special ed office. They actually wanted me to fill out all of his enrollment records again -- give them things like proof of residency.
I humored them enough to give them emergency contact info, but that was it. I have no interest in filling out more paperwork than I have to, especially to duplicate material they should already have on file.
There's one big problem with working from home when you have kids, and that's that when they're home from school, they're underfoot. Even if I try to hide in my office they'll find reasons to come downstairs to ask me questions, petition for something, or complain about the unfair treatment they're receiving at the hands of their siblings.
So the toughest months for me to manage are unquestionably June through August, when the kids are home all the time.
It makes me painfully aware that there's absolutely no way I could be a househusband, nor can I be expected to regularly watch the kids after school, if Bonnie ultimately gets a job that will keep her out of the house longer than the school day -- we'd have to do something else, whether it'd be hire a sitter or enroll them at the Boys and Girls Club, I don't know, but something.
With one kid it's totally manageable. With two, it's difficult. With three, it's impossible. There's something about the dynamic of three kids together that creates almost total chaos, noise and destruction almost constantly.
So it's with tremendous joy and relief that I find us once again at the tail-end of Labor Day weekend. The kids go back to school tomorrow and I'll once again have the house to myself, able to work and function in relative peace and quiet, at least until the next vacation.
I understand that the kids aren't happy about it, and I can certainly relate -- I can't ever remember a time when I was a kid that I really looked forward to going back to school. But as an adult, and as their parent, I'm delighted.
It also helps that we've had a string of glorious late summer/early fall New England weather -- and the forecasters are saying that it will stay unbroken for some time to come.
Although we have a strict moratorium against driving off-Cape on Labor Day weekend, that doesn't mean we hunker down and don't do anything. Robert is off with his grandmother -- they're taking a day trip to Martha's Vineyard, and that should be a nice way for him to cap a relaxing and low-key summer. Yesterday afternoon we went with a friend and her son to Old Silver Beach in Falmouth; one of the most beautiful beaches on Cape Cod.
Christine's trick is to wait until at least mid-afternoon to go. That way the sun is low enough in the sky that you don't have to slather on sunblock, and typically people are starting to filter out, so you can grab a prime spot on the beach (and parking) with little or no hassle.
We spent a couple of hours there and then came back home. I made dinner for everyone then watched Clay Buchholz, the new rookie pitcher for the Sox, pitch a no-hitter in his second major league game.
All told, a pretty solid Saturday.