bajada·net

Dear CNN,

I understand that you have a certain style of interviewing that is rude and belittles interview subjects. Really, I do. The whole question, challenge, expand mode of journalism generally gets you results and makes your reporters look like unmitigated assholes.

However, a bit of advice is in order. If you’ve dragged a shell-shocked New Orleans evacuee onto your live television program who is struggling to put together two words regarding efforts in Houston to give her some semblance of a life back, you shut the fuck up and let her talk. You do not interrupt her after you’ve just asked her a question and she has spit out two words in an attempt to reply to your total stupidity.

Sincerely,
Me

Dear Kids,

Water does not belong on the kitchen floor. Five dishtowels and a bathtowel full of water especially do not belong on the kitchen floor.

While we’re on the subject of things that do not belong on the kitchen floor, it might have been nice if you’d told me that you’d dropped a hamster water bottle on the kitchen floor and that it had shattered all over kingdom come. Then I might not be sitting here nursing a bloody foot that I got while cleaning up the water.

Love,
Me

Dear Day,

Let’s start over again, really. So far, you have sucked massively.

Sincerely,
Me

“Roger, uh, any recommendations on how to give birth, over?”

“…raw sewage… rotting pause trash…”

The media is doing a great job of informing us of how dangerous the rotting trash is.

“The world factbook” is a public domain periodical published by the CIA containing information about each country’s geography, culture, government, and economy.

“The best brands of the world” collects famous brand-names and logos used worldwide for easy reference and browsing.

Things, they are decent. We have been working very hard on completing our shed project. This weekend, we started roofing (first, we had to build a scaffold) and wrapped the building in a Tyvek skin. All very exciting.

I have learned that I do not like heights, but that I can build up a tolerance for them. Once on the scaffold, my knees get dizzy. Not my head, no, that would be normal. But my feet and knees get dizzy. We’ve been shingling the roof and I help Matthew out by passing him supplies as he nails them onto the roof. Also, I help by finding and reading the instructions on how to nail shingles, as we kind of messed up the first few courses because lo, no instructions were read.

Rebecca and Marcus are starting kindergarten and second grade, respectively. We are using the Calvert homeschooling curriculum and supplementing heavily in the science and history departments because I am picky and annoying. (I object to Attila the Hun being portrayed as a very nice man. Taking all the fun parts out of history is just as bad as not teaching it at all.) Marcus has decided that reading is cool, and spends his car rides reading every sign that we pass. He is very interested in chemistry (um, especially thermodynamics) and electronics (radio and sound generation—the louder, the better). They are both taking gymnastics at a local gymnasium; Rebecca has two classes per week and Marcus, one, because the other classes for his age group all fall smack dab in the middle of rush hour, which is really ugly around here.

I will hopefully be taking a Learn to Shoot lesson at the Bull Run Shooting Center next weekend. Shotguns are big and heavy and loud, and I have been told that I will have a bruised shoulder if I ever shoot one. The very nice man at Virginia Arms Co. suggested the lessons as a good way to try out different shotguns so that I could get a feel for the punch. I am apparently petite and will be knocked off my feet by some of them. Vaguely nervous, but I’ll cope. I would prefer to not have a black-and-blue shoulder, but it is apparently part of the process.

I should update more often because life is becoming more interesting than not.

Colour lovers allows users to view, rate, and review user-submitted colors & palettes.

Rebecca sings:
I’m yellow, yellow
I’m wearing a yellow shirt
And blue socks, blue socks
I’m wearing blue socks
And brown shoes, brown shoes,
I’m wearing brown shoes.

idiosyncrasy n., pl. -sies.

1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.
2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity.
3. An unusual individual reaction to food or a drug.

List five of your own idiosyncrasies and then tag five friends to do the same.

I am deathly afraid of sharks and aliens. As phobias go, I find that I can cope with these quite easily. They generally do not affect my daily routines as much as, say, a fear of spiders or the sky falling or flying insects or the like. (Ants do not count. Ants will be covered later.)

I made my younger sister cover Call It Courage with a brown paper bag so that I would not have to touch the picture of the shark on the cover. When I was younger, I had the occasional freakout in the middle of a pool because of the invisible chlorine-digesting sharks that lay in wait at the bottom of it, but I’m pretty much over that. Also on the list to avoid are baths; I’m really not a big fan of them. I greatly prefer showers. I will probably never go on a cruise. I am very leery of oceans and beaches and the like.

I inflicted more agony upon the same sister with my fear of aliens. (Only the H.G. Giger brand, mind.) We shared a bedroom, and every night she had to go through the ritual of turning on the closet light, closing the middle closet door, closing the outer closet door (there were two bedrooms with connecting closets, a feature I saw and loved in E.T. that was built into the house), and finally, turning off the closet light. Yeah. Otherwise, no sleep. I have not yet inflicted this on my husband, although he has occasionally done things like, um, jumping down from his desk onto the floor next to me right when the monster chase starts in The Relic, which made me scream very, very loudly.

I have seen each movie in the Jaws and Alien series multiple times. I do this to try to convince myself that there are strings attached. Each time, I fail miserably.

I cannot eat if my kitchen is a disaster. Crumbs on the floor? Dishes in the sink? Pots on the counter? I cannot eat. I cannot have so much as a cup of tea if there is not some degree of order and cleanliness in my kitchen. I have issues with my kitchen. I love my kitchen. It is the one room in the house that is entirely under my control. I get antsy when things like motor oil and lumber and screwdrivers and toolboxes are left in my kitchen. I get irritable. I get snappish. It is best to keep stuff out of my kitchen unless I put it there.

I cannot post/email/communicate unless it is perfect. I write drafts of emails. I write drafts of little blurby things that end up on staff pages for various projects. I obsessively draft most entries for this site that are actual content and not little link library posts. I rehearse communications with other people in the shower and while I am doing dishes (because those are noisy activities where people will not look at me strangely for my constant muttering). I make up situations in my head when I am falling asleep because I know I will say the wrong thing. I am very good at saying the wrong thing.

The situation: I am at a Longhorn Steakhouse in Ottawa, Ontario with a group of people from BSDCan.
Kirk McKusick: “So, how do you like Ottawa?”
Me: “Iowa? It’s a great state. I spent a summer there with the Women in Science and Engineering Program at Iowa State University.”

Two minutes later, I realized that he was asking about Ottawa. I have no context for conversations. None. Whatsoever. Hence the muttering. Much muttering.

I cannot sleep without having taken a shower. I must go to sleep with wet hair. I have braved below-freezing weather and cold water that never really warmed up in order to take a shower at Girl Scout camp. At the Confirmation retreat, I was the first girl into the showers with their sulphur-laden water that smelled of rotten eggs. (The retreat was in Sulphur, Louisiana. Clue, much?) The very first thing on my mind after sex? Getting a shower. After giving birth? Getting a shower. After a day of really doing nothing except taking it easy with the kids? Getting a shower. I must have my shower. Period.

This extends to the kids, a little bit. They must have a bath if they have played outside.

Ants. Oh. My. God. Ants. This is from my mother, and her mother before her. It has been passed down through the generations. If we see an ant, we kill it. It must die. It must die and be completely dead. I have been known to smush them with my bare hands. I will sit and smush ants in their little fucking happy trails until they are dead. I will spray poison until I get dizzy because the ants, they must die. I hate ants. I am not afraid of them. I hate them in a new, special way.

I have had minty fresh ants, a trail of little green blobs which smelled minty fresh when I squished them because they had been drinking Creme de Menthe. That is how evil ants are. They go after your soul, and then they go after your liquor.

Seven days old

Marcus was born seven years ago in a little house in a medium town to two very happy parents who counted his toes and kissed his fingers and boggled at how, exactly, he managed to weigh ten pounds, two ounces at birth. He greatly enjoyed his baths, loved pulling the cats’ tails, and was a spectacular spitter.

Treed

He now climbs trees with almost (but not quite) reckless abandon, speeds down the driveway on his bicycle to cut a figure-eight through the front yard, and fixes his sister’s oatmeal in the morning. He greatly enjoys reading Roald Dahl books, wants to be a train engineer when he grows up, and wants to die before the sun goes nova.