Conversation of Yesterday

Filed under:Heh,It's My Life,Mothering — posted by Anwyn on June 26, 2008 @ 6:20 pm

I’m a mother prone to a little hyperbole. “You took the longest nap in the world!” is a regular comment of mine on the rare occasions when the Bean does nap. Because he’s still battling jet lag, he’s been napping quite a bit this week. He’s always accepted uncritically the idea that whatever we’re talking about at the moment was the [biggest, best, coolest, longest] in the world. Until last night. He looked at me suspiciously and remarked, “Some people take longer ones.”

Sigh.

Holy Smoke

Filed under:Blogging,Heh — posted by Anwyn on June 12, 2008 @ 7:38 pm

A woman blogger who makes Rachl Lukis look like a little ray of sunshine dancing on the wall for your amusement. Don’t believe me by this post or this one? Try reading her “About” blurb.

Can we sic this woman on Rachel’s Idiot Angry A(nti)theists?

Via my friend, Miri’s dad, Godwin the Garter Knight, who suggests we find and kiss this woman on the mouth. Dude … you can try. Send me the video.

I Got Nuthin’

Filed under:Heh — posted by Anwyn on May 23, 2008 @ 6:49 pm

Everybody remember this?

Have a great long weekend.

Mindless Exertions

Filed under:Heh,It's My Life — posted by Anwyn on April 23, 2008 @ 9:54 am

A phrase from Mr. Sippican Cottage has stuck with me: “…skinny from mindless exertions and not work…”

It’s a phrase from one of his “flash fictions,” to be sure … and there’s no saying (at least not by me) how much of his characters’ thought represents author’s voice. But I tell you this: I’m not much in favor of mindless exertions myself, so if you can find me a household chore or some productive work that will strenthen my abdomen muscles, weaker now than at any other time in my life after being stretched over a baby-laden uterus, as well as diminish the soft little pouch of fat thereon, I’d happily do it rather than the Pilates I keep putting off from day to day. That is all.

Happy Birthday, Rachel

Filed under:Heh — posted by Anwyn on April 21, 2008 @ 4:38 pm

Ms. Lucas gets an Instalanche and some marital advice.

Extortion Artist

Filed under:Heh,It's My Life — posted by Anwyn on April 18, 2008 @ 1:10 pm

Or, the Downside of a Four-Year-Old’s Ability to Read Fluently.

Or, Friday Mommyblogging: Suck It Up, Rachl Lukis.

Scene: Interior, Honda Civic, day. Mother and four-year-old Son are driving to preschool, a 20ish-minute drive depending on traffic. Mother puts in a CD, a film soundtrack that starts off with a slow Natalie Merchant song.

Son: “I don’t want this song. I want the songs I usually listen to.”

Mother: “Let’s listen to this one for a while.”

Son: “No, I don’t like it!”

Mother: “How can you know you don’t like it unless you listen to it?”

Son: “Give me my paper” (referring to flyer from the local indoor skate-hockey/lacrosse/soccer place where Son has soccer once a week and has had one rollerblading lesson). Mother hands him the sheet.

Son (reading from flyer): “Hockey leagues. Adult programs. Required Equipment: Elbow pads. Knee and shin protection. Cup and jock (males).” Son pauses thoughtfully, thinking back to soccer class, where for scrimmage the kids are divided into Pancakes and Blueberries, Blueberries being distinguished by blue jerseys. “I’ll be the cup. I’ll tell [young teammate] he’ll be the jock.”

Mother (startled out of listening to her music choice): “What?”

Son: “I’m a cup. [Teammate’s] a jock.”

Mother: “No, honey, that’s gear. Gear, not people. That’s gear you need for playing hockey.”

Son (continuing down flyer): “Pelvic protector (females)–”

Mother: “Here, baby, let’s listen to your songs now. You ready? Do you want your magazine?”

Son: “No, I don’t want my magazine. I want my songs.”

Mother: “All righty! Here you go! No problem. Give me your flyer–(he hands her the paper)–Yay songs!”

Who, Me? Grouchy?

Filed under:Heh — posted by Anwyn on April 16, 2008 @ 5:39 pm

My friend the Garter Knight has emailed to say I’m too grumpy and to knock it off.

Come on, Knight, I’m not grumpy–we all know I’m bitter. And so are you–we lived without distinguishing accents in the same rural area/set of small towns in the Midwest, and you were having trouble finding a job about the same time I was losing one. Apparently my religion and my antipathy to people unlike me are not doing their comforting job. I guess I’ll have to buy a gun–problem solved!

Karma: Don’t Screw with the Post Office

Filed under:Heh,It's My Life,Not Cool — posted by Anwyn on February 19, 2008 @ 12:04 pm

Remember the rant about my central post office (might I add, my annex post office in my grocery store is nothing but sweetness and light–they give my son cheerful and exciting stamps on his hand whenever I take him in! Nevermind that the ink is likely meant strictly for paper use and thus runs all over if he so much as waves his hand in the breeze or, God forbid, touches his shirt! Nevermind that, because we are speaking nice about the post office today, lest we be visited by More Wrath of the Post Office Deity)? In the two weeks following that rant, the following three things occurred:

**A package mailed to me on Tuesday, February 5, the same day as the rant, took two weeks to get here from St. Louis. Two weeks! And though the ship method was one of the less expensive ones, it still wasn’t cheap or anything like it.

**A birthday card mailed to my mother three days before her birthday, containing cash in a denomination I wouldn’t normally send through the mail, took a week and a half to get to her. The cash was intact, though. I consider it kind of a warning shot across the bow (Straighten out your mouth or next time we’ll take your mother’s birthday money, unnerstand?).

**A credit card bill, mailed more or less a week before it was due, returned to me the day after it was due–sheared in half. I kid you not, it looked like somebody simply picked it up in both hands and r-i-p-p-e-d right down the middle. This abomination (but only the one half–invoice, check, and all) was placed into an outer envelope with a letter wrapped around in bland bureaucrese–“We are sorry for the damage to your mail … yadda yadda.” Next time we’ll burn the whole bill and you’ll never know it was lost until the late fee shows up on your credit account, got it?

And did I mention how much I used to enjoy the post office in my small, friendly hometown? They’re great, hardly any lines and helpful people eager to handle your package with the utmost in delicacy, even if they charge the same heinous rates as the big surly post office here–talking nice about the post office today, see?

All of which leads me to the Quote of the Day, from my friend Aughey who sent me the two-week package: “The shipping was ridiculous considering how long it took to get there. I think I could have strapped it on the back of a horse and slapped its butt and it would have gotten there sooner.”

Quote of the Day

Filed under:Heh,It's My Life — posted by Anwyn on February 7, 2008 @ 2:53 pm

Or, Memo to George Lucas on Another Symmetrically Designed Female Hairstyle Featuring Oddly Shaped Monuments Over the Ears.

Son, lifting a handful of hair on each side of my face up until they look like pointy wings or scythe blades: “You look like Yoda!”

Yesterday in History. In Indiana.

Filed under:Heh,History — posted by Anwyn on February 6, 2008 @ 2:23 pm

Or, Where’s Waldo? He’s back in time saving the legislators of Indiana from signing a piece of mathematical ignorance into law.

1897: Egged on by an amateur mathematician, the Indiana General Assembly almost passes a bill adopting 3.2 as the exact value of pi (or π). Only the intervention of a Purdue University mathematician who happens to be visiting the legislature prevents the bill from becoming law, saving the most acute political embarrassment.

I love Indiana. And I love Purdue. And Indiana loves Purdue. Now you see one reason why. I wonder if the Purdue guys weighed in on the whole Daylight Savings Time thing, either when Indiana refused to go on it or when they mandated it and then tried to split the state into a few different chunks based on what large out-of-state city each chunk was closest to. If you can make sense of all that, be my guest. I pretty much keep track of what time it is where my parents live and don’t bother with the rest.

But back to Purdue. Ever heard the Engineers’ Cheer? The correct value of pi (or the beginning of it, at least) is built right into the sports at Purdue:

E to the X, DY, DX
E to the X, DX
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine
Three point one four one five nine
Cube root, square root, BTU
Slipstick, slide rule, GO! PURDUE!

Via Instapundit.

Quote of the Day

Filed under:Heh,It's My Life — posted by Anwyn on February 1, 2008 @ 11:56 am

Son, examining a diagram of the solar system: “We live on Earth.” Pause. “Do you like this planet?”

Conversation of the Day

Filed under:Heh,It's My Life,Uncategorized — posted by Anwyn on January 24, 2008 @ 6:55 pm

Me, upon being told by son’s teacher that they talked about presidents 14-19 today: “So who was the fourteenth president?”

Son: “Franklin Pierce.”

Me: “Wow! Very good! Who was the fifteenth president?”

Son: “I don’t want to talk about that. One president is enough to talk about.”

Utterly Hi-Larious

Filed under:Heh,Jerks,Politics — posted by Anwyn on January 22, 2008 @ 9:53 am

To see Democrats bitching because Bill Clinton is stumping for his wife. Only one of many (via Hot Air headlines)–and they don’t even bother to hide that it’s because they’re disgruntled that he’s not available to stump for Obama. If Hillary were not in the race and he were stumping for Obama, you’d be hearing universal Democratic cheers, except for some whining from the Edwards camp, and nobody would care half as much about that. He wouldn’t then be “unpresidential” or a divider–he’d be a team player!

Go on, President Bill. Stand by your woman. Obama hacks, go pound sand.


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image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace