More dental good times

So we have a history of fun and drama at oral surgeons, being that my children don't actually LOSE teeth, like, I don't know, nearly every other child on the globe.

Today went much better. We went to a different dentist, who more or less kindly told my son to tough up, breathe the laughing gas and sit still. No "drink" of stupor inducing sedative. Dare I say, we have turned a corner? I mean, he's still kind of drooling blood on my pillow, but I don't think we'll have hallucinations this time. Rock on.

Rhymes with mocha

Last night I had to serve those "Soy or whatever but not really meat" burgers for dinner.


(The backstory is that I used the self cleaning option on my oven ONCE and it burned out the element AND didn't clean the stupid oven. It's been two weeks. I still haven't had a chance to get it fixed. Ooops. See? Cleaning is inconvenient. It leads to nothing but trouble.)


So, I made those patties. They were hiding in the freezer from when I had a nutritionist come and try to teach me that Durkee fried onion rings are not properly considerd vegetables. (I love this time of year, you go in the market and there's a GIANT PILE of those, on an end shelf.) I have to say, I'm not a fan of the liquid smoke taste of the "burgers", especially since it lingered through a good part of my choir rehearsal, and if I have to load up my pan with olive oil, how is this helping me? What sticks to a nonstick pan???

I didn't let on to my kids that I was cooking a foreign substance, but they're no fools. Just for all of you child-free lucky bastards, here is how the meal went.

Child one: (C1) What's this?
Me: A burger. (technically, not a lie since it is a word in the product name)
C1 frowns, knowing something is up.
C2: It doesn't taste right.
Me: You love McDonald's burgers, which only have a slightly higher percentage of actual beef in the ingredients.
C2 is now frowning as well.
C1: But what IS it?
Me: (sighing) it's a soy burger.
C1: Soy??? What IS that?
Me: Protein, from uh... beans or something.
C1: Why???
Me: Well, uh, some people are vegetarians
C1 & C2: "why???"
Me: because they don't like to eat cows, or pigs, or chickens.
C2: (bursts out, as if shocked by the idea; I KNOW she is familiar with vegetarianism)

But they're GOOD !

Me: shut up and eat your dinner, both of you.

And that, my friends, is parenting. Fatigue, desperation, and ultimatims.

New blog

Frank has apparently made arrangements for someone to post French secrets...

http://postsecretfrance.blogspot.com/

I enjoy this even more because I can only guess at what the secrets are. I want the translations, but I don't.

busy week

In my mailbox yesterday I found Canoe & Kayak , December issue... with 2008 buyer's guide.

Dreams of summer, quiet mornings on a still lake.

No laptop. No "teammates". No homework no bills no cooking no laundry.

Just me & the dragonflies.

Sister Clare

Recently I attended an event where the keynote speech was given by Sister Clare Fitzgerald .

This is my attempt to recap some of what I learned; she was clearly a wealth of knowledge, feisty and all of those other cliches that are used for "old" people who don't act old, but hold on to their vitality, their energy, their joy. She was alternately charming (singing, in a Bob Hope- era style) and "a pisser", as my friend put it. If you make this woman mad, you're going to hell on a bicycle. She said so herself.

I found the history fascinating, given that I knew none of it. I was Lutheran as a child. I am that rare bird who converted to BECOME Catholic.

Catholic education finds its century-old roots in parish schools, charged with educating immigrant children; Catholics attempted to establish a school system that would provide a general education of the kind offered in the public schools, while emphasizing religious training. The Baltimore Catechism is a slim booklet which bears no resemblance to the weighty catechism of "today". Oh, and free labor - the religious community staffed these parish schools, of course.

One major challenge facing the Catholic church in America prior to 1940 was political; Catholics were sometimes viewed as almost “anti-American", because of the political power of the Vatican and the Pope.

During the great wars, the Catholics fought for their country and slowly earned the respect of a Protestant nation. From WWII until the mid-1960s, American culture began to "reflect Catholicism” in Bing Crosby movies like Going My Way, Bishop Fulton Sheen’s television show, and the election of John Kennedy.

Catholics began to demand a higher quality education. At the peak of the 60's, there were some six million students in Catholic schools. These students climbed the cultural ladder to become doctors, lawyers, CEO's... attaing positions far beyond the "menial" jobs of their immigrant grandparents.

Today families have fewer children, due to contraception advances. (I'll leave the discussion of Catholics using contraceptives for someone else... I know one family with TEN elementary school-aged children. I am hard pressed to think of any others that I know with more than five. The big families that I *DO* know are filled with joy, but I can't imagine walking that path myself.)

The system as a whole ultilizes fewer religious faculty members today(they now represent only about 5% of the overall staff...) and tuition is a substantial cost compared to a generation ago. I spend more per month to educate my children than to drive a car.

And, of course, schools are closing. But not all Catholic schools. There are aproximately 2.8 million Catholic students today, compared with that 6 million figure of some fourty years ago.

Children are shaped by four major factors - family, school, church, and culture. What do children gain by a Catholic school? A culture of faith. For my children, church isn't a boring hour on Sunday. It's where they spend a good deal of their waking hours, where all of their friends are. The children are prepared to receive the sacraments of our faith. They pray together. They work together to learn and live our religious beliefs. Day in and day out, they are exposed to our holidays, the stories of our church ancestors, the vast mysteries that our faith holds. The uniform they wear signifies that they are a part of something.

The challenge today is to keep going. To find a way to pay the bills and keep the doors open and keep the process going. A modern day "loaves and fishes" problem, if you will. That was the remainder of her message - not to give up.

All in all I found her to be a very captivating speaker. At times shouting, then whispering, she held the attention of 150 people in the room for nearly two hours. And, well, I was in the third row, center, right in her line of sight and I didn't DARE doze off. Hell on a bicycle, you know.

Starting my shopping.

I might be buying this for my son to protect the new toy. And this for my poor older child. (Oh, the angst, to have a 1ST generation Nano when there are so many newer, nicer ones....and she doesn't even have a cellphone...)

Other than that? I have no idea.

200 more days

Time to start thinking about the next Freihofer's run. Well, ok, not really, but perhaps.

Marathon champion Alberto Salazar once said "Standing on the starting line, we are all cowards."

I was unexpectely delighted to read this quote today. You see, my first /last / only 5K, I stood at the very back of the pack waiting for the starting horn and tears trickled out, because I was terrified that everyone around me would run away and I'd be last, and people would be pointing and laughing.

I did finish the race though...and I wasn't even last.

As promised - Humphrey

You may have seen this, but I hadn't come across it.

(Not really safe for work... you need sound for the full effect but in the office you'll definitely want to use headphones...)

Yesterday my brother in law came over to give me a belated birthday gift. He said, "Now close your eyes and trust me." We don't have THAT kind of relationship, but our spouses were in the room, along with our kids, so I knew it couldn't be TOO far out there. Boy, was I wrong.

He started fumbling with my ankle, and then I felt him put something on my leg. All of a sudden it started MOVING, and I heard this terrible sound. My eyes shot open, and this is what I saw:







...by the end of the "performance" I was laughing so hard I could barely stand up and there were tears rolling down my cheeks. The last scream at the end more or less killed me.

If you want your own, you might be able to get it here... but R had it backordered for a while.

Say Thanks

Celebrate Veteran's Day - kiss a soldier today.

I've got the day off, I can do WHATEVER I want... whatever your opinions on current foreign affairs, I'm sure you'll agree, we should all stop and remember the Veterans who served so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have.

This is my children's great-grandfather, by the way. Thank you, George.

Mural progress

worked on the fence today....gray lines, various shades. Two hours of tiny gray grey lines. I figure I have 30 hours left. Ugh! Since B pointed out it's only SIX WEEKS UNTIL XMAS, I am discouraged about my prospects of getting it done this year.

Tonight my brother in law gave me a gag gift for my birthday that can only be properly blogged via video. Stay tuned.

Gallery, 11/11

Today's artist is William Merritt Chase. I love the clothing from this time period. I enjoyed this page from the National Gallery of Art because it describes the wheres and the whys of some of what you see in the picture, and you can also click on the picture to get to another web page with detail images.

Detail is one problem I'm having with the Yankees mural. I know there's a white wall, on the far side of the stadium, but had to hunt down the specifics of what that wall looks like, and the ads underneath it. Lucky for me, a friend had sent me the right photo. It was in my inbox the whole time.

Now I can't decide whether to do ads from that set of photos, or make up ads for things like our favorite restaurants and so on. I'll have to decide that in the very near future. But first, the wall. A white wall can't be too hard, right? Hahahaha. It's white and gray and tiny lines and streaks and ugh.

This afternoon I'm hoping to do some work on it. it's much easier in the daylight. Gotta go!

It's all about the money

If everyone out there in corporate america wasn't trying to screw over everyone else, over "our stock price", things like this wouldn't be happening.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2007/11/i-was-until-rec.html

Excerpts from an e-mail from Dale Alexander, a key grip on NBC's "The Office":
"Our show was shut down and we were all laid off this week. I've been watching the news since the WGA strike was announced and I have yet to see any coverage dedicated to the effect that this strike will have on the below the line employees.
"I respect the WGA's position. They probably do deserve a larger percentage of profit participation, but a lengthy strike will affect more than just the writers and studios. On my show we had 14 writers. There were also 2 cameramen, 2 camera assistants, 4 hair stylists, 4 makeup artists, 7 wardrobe people, 4 grips, 4 electricians, 2 craft service, 4 props people, 6 construction, 1 medic, 3 art department, 5 set dressers, 3 sound men, 3 stand-ins, 2 set PAs, 4 assistant directors, 1 DGA trainee, 1 unit manager, 6 production office personnel, 3 casting people, 4 writers assistants, 1 script supervisor, 2 editors, 2 editors assistants, 3 post production personnel, 1 facilities manager, 8 drivers, 2 location managers, 3 accountants, 4 caterers and a producer who's not a writer. All 102 of us are now out of work.

Share the money, people. Give me back my favorite show.

It's a plan

I have about 20 - 25 Christmas cd's. Most of them, I did not purchase.

I am thinking of taking everything off of my iPod right after Thanskgiving. No, this is not heading where you'd expect. I'm soooo not going to load that sucker full of jingle bells.

I have a large library of NON xmas music given to me over the years by Johnny and Shamus and Shops and other friends who don't have the time to blog or twitter. Wait. Only Johnny still blogs. Anyway, I'm going to fill my iPod with all of the songs they've given me that I've listened to once, or less than, and completely try to forget the schmaltz that is the holiday season. Groups I've faintly heard of... their music will be my respite from holiday madness.

No, I'm not being humbuggy, I just don't like seeing decorations up in Target already; it makes me wheeze because I have so much to do in the next few weeks and can't even begin to formulate a plan for it all quite just yet. And I have a mural to finish.

Highlights of the day

At teacher conferences I read a hilarious story that my son wrote, but it's still at school so I can't share it with you yet. Killer spiders. That's all I'm saying.

You actually CAN buy Scooby Doo episodes to put on your brand new iPod. It's wrong in more ways than I can count, but it can be done. So yes, he got his iPod today and it comes out of the box almost fully charged which is nice when you have no patience.

I had a good massage today except for some adhesions she broke up that were over my shoulder blades. Owwwwww.

I bought another Rachel Ray cookbook with the money my mother gave me; (no Shamus, she is not wearing a low-cut top on the cover) I did not NEED another cookbook, but I enjoy browsing through cookbooks. Saying yeah, I'd make that, if I just had these ingredients.... and did you hear that Giada is pregnant, Johnny? A chicklet head, a toothbrush body, with a baby bump. That will be a sight to see, won't it?

Thanks for all of the birthday greetings! It was just about this time that I was born and then all of the lights in NYC went dark. Ooopsie.

Backspace

Last night I was watching Dinner Impossible, and the challenge this week was for (Chef) Robert Irvine to cook a meal for several hundred Pixar employees. It dusted off a few memories for me.


In my senior year of college (I was studying math with a minor in computer science); I was interested in going to RPI for an additional degree computer graphics. One problem: I was also broke. Really, really, really, broke. I also entertained a job offer in Boston in a trainee/ programming position that would have started me at $19,000 for the first year. Living in Boston, on 19k a year. Hahahah. Again, my financial status made that move pretty much impossible to me.


Every now and then I see what Pixar is doing lately and think "Damn. I would have loved to be a part of that." Or I wonder what it would have been like to explore Boston, marry a rabid Red Sox fan, etc.


It occurred to me, mulling all of that over last night, that some people worry about decisions they've made in the past, and some people worry about what the future will bring.


I've never been someone to write with paper & ink when a computer is nearby. It's slightly easier for me to type, backspace, type; it's a struggle to organize my thoughts without the ability to cut & paste. This tends to give me the impulse to constantly edit, tweak, and adjust everything around me. Well, to never quite be satisfied. To wonder, what if I could have changed this?


I sometimes find myself questioning decisions I made 20 years ago, and I see that it's crazy. I really do. I just can't help but wonder once in a while, "was I meant to be...?" and last night was one of those nights. I was completely green with envy watching that show thinking that I could have been working RIGHT THERE in that building, on those movies. (Do you enjoy the leap in logic that if only I'd gone for that degree, I would be at the top of the field by now? Mmm hmm.)


On the flip side, I see a couple of my older relatives worrying on a daily basis about the future. Not spending money on things that I think they NEED, like a car that run well consistently, because someday I'll be older and I'll have medical bills and if I don't scrimp and scrape now I won't be able to pay them. I can't even bring myself to contemplate where I'll be in 10 or 20 years. I haven't crossed over that line yet. Will it all be worth it in the end? Will I regret doing this, or not doing that?


I'm not sure whether everyone falls in to one category or the other(worrying about yesterday, or tomorrow); obviously I don't think either one is any better than the other. It's very hard to just live for today, in this moment, doing what you need to do. Or is that just me?

Today's Homework

For your edification; and yes, I was asked to review it (test corrections) at 9:36 pm.

A totem pole and a potlatch are both signs of wealth. The totem pole is a symbol of ancestors. A potlatch is party where people get gifts.

The Kwakiutl used animal hides and cedar bark to make clothing that is waterproof. They used all of the resources around them wisely.

Footnotes:
1. Said child should be in bed by 9:30 and answered "no" when asked 3+times this afternoon if there was any outstanding homework.
2. Original draft had missing words and mispellings and no real content of any sort.
3. I don't know if these answers are right. Days like today, I don't even care. I'm tired!

Flowerpot

Today's guest artist is none other than my sister AKA Suzy. She sculpted this figure completely (no molds at all for the limbs, face, clothing etc - all made by hand). She spent the better part of two full days on this project, so Yes, she will make you one, but yes, it will be quite expensive.

This little fairy will ultimately stay in Suzy's collection, and climb out of a flower pot. Her wings glow in the dark. I'll post another photo of her actually climbing out of a flowerpot, when I get it.

iListen

My son has been working hard and handing over his money to me. He wants an iPod, and darned if he doesn't already have enough to buy it, from doing things like raking leaves for his grandparents. Suzy recommended I make him really work and wait for it. I am not made of money, and he's too forgetful to get one just handed to him. So this Friday we'll go buy it (part of his savings is aTarget gift card), and then he'll have a nicer one than me. Hmmmph.

Here's a sample of what I've put on my iPod in the last week, trying to break out of the COUNTRY ONLY rut. Let's see how far we've come (lame joke, that one too, Matchbox 20):

• Apologize - One Republic. Or Timbaland, depending on whether you're listening on Sirius or buying on iTunes.
• Seven Days of Loney - I Nine
• Rainy Monday - Shiny Toy Guns
• (A Spice Girls song I won't mention, and the new JLo song might have slipped in. Ugh. I was doing so well too. Um, those are for my daughter. Yeah.)
• Surrender & Dream Police - Cheap Trick (you have to understand, my highschool boyfriends, they liked Cheap Trick and Journey and Rush and AC/DC and REO and all of that... I remember when Ozzy bit the bat's head off and who would have ever thought he'd be on tv shouting Sharon's name and muttering incoherently??)
• April Wine - Just Between you & Me (keeping the retro thing going)
• Undone (The Sweater Song) - Weezer (a song I bought only because I was looking at his songs based on something else he does and I liked the name...)
• First time - Lifehouse
• I just love you - Five for Fighting
• Still Fighting it - Ben Folds (an iTunes version, but they didn't have one of The Luckiest which is a great song too)
• Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's
• I'm with the band - Little Big Town (ok, I know, this is DEFINITELY country; this song reminds me of "I'll know when I get there" by Keith Anderson which is SO different from what you'd expect him to sing, if all you know is XXL.) Also "To know love" by LBT.

My daughter got Reba's Duets but... most of those songs are REALLY depressing. I literally can't listen to "Every other weekend" and not practically sob. Since that's not my idea of a good time, those songs aren't going to be on my iPod any time soon.

I'm mildly annoyed that I can't seem to find the Eagles (How Long). Sometimes I hear a song on Sirius before I can buy it. Oh, poor me.

I'm not crazy

I'm just a little unwell...



Strep throat. Just what I wanted for my birthday. Yay.... yeah, so this post is a blatant plea for sympathy. So?? I'll share some of my crazy.

• Today I found myself singing "Who left the door open" to my children, complete with barking noises.
• Yesterday I ate the SOUP in our cafeteria at work. (PS, everyone knows that the second soup on Monday was the first soup on Friday). I was too sick to go out to get REAL soup, and I have no friends.
• On the way home from the doctor's I stopped by the convenience store to get coffee cake, bread, and so on. The lady in front of me bought cigarettes and about $20 worth of scratchoff lottery tickets. At one point she made a joke about Beginner's Luck. I had all I could do not to laugh in her face.
• On days when I am sick my couch becomes the Island of Wellness... phone, remote, tray with hot tea, cookies, etc all nearby. I can't be the only one who copes this way. But I am perhaps the only one who has home made maple walnut fudge (it's supposed to be a birthday present; I am already eating it. Yummy.)

Progress?

well, the skyline is done. (Perhaps.... maybe. I tend to go back and add more paint here & there. For example, the biggest tan building near the right, I added some highlights because it looked too dark and muddy before. )

I managed to work on the wall yesterday afternoon for about an hour and a half. I started to paint the white arches but don't really know what they look like; so it was a good excuse to stop. (Good thing I didn't notice the garbage can he has that was 5 feet from me....)

Tired and allergies are raging. What fun. Every fall I go through this, feeling like I've swallowed a handful of ground glass, then my sinuses fill up, then I get a sinus infection. Good times.