Watch This Space

We'll call this one "BEFORE".

And it's the source of all my whining this week (other than the cold, of course) as well as the project of my "staycation".

Also? Anyone who mentions The Basement or inquires on the progress on The Basement will be banned for life. You've been duly warned.

Illness-Induced Delirium

For something that just popped into my head and made me giggle, this sure took a long time.

I've been burning the candle at both ends to be able to take two weeks off of work without having to do "just one more thing" or call in and help out with this or that. Sure enough, as soon as I relax, that virus says "you're mine, you fargging bastage*!"

I thought that had happened as we went to our friends Margo & Brian's cottage on (as in, RIGHT on) the lake. I abused used it constantly ("no, I don't want to go swimming sweetie, I'm sick, you know" and more often "could you get me another drink? I'm too sick to get up.")

But as I arrived home, and the ton of bricks hit me, I realized that my body had been attempting to further stall the inevitable. Which I appreciated, since, as lousy as I felt, I (and we all) still had a great weekend.

My only reliable friend has been Advil Cold & Sinus. I describe our relationship as follows:

I had sketched this up on paper and showed Max when he walked in to rescue me from any real effort for dinner with some boxes of KD (have I mentioned that Norah can pretty much make us a meal in the form of KD? She is quickly surpassing me in the kitchen). He looked at it and laughed "You're making graphs about being sick? You're clearly delirious." So I added in the fifth point on the bottom.

--------------------

* [anyone who can tell me where that line comes from will get a virtual shiny gold star (well not so much virtual, as imaginary). It's a pretty obscure one, I think, but comes from one of Max's sentimental favourite movies. That's not really an unfair hint for anyone who knows him, either]

Back to Nature (there's dirt there, I swear)

Time for an update on the outside world. Stewie saw me going outside with the camera, so he took over first:



[take special note here Wylie, that red stuff in the background is the bergamot we were discussing early in the season]

And then I wrestled the camera from his hands and got him to sit still (you can't see it here, but I put velcro on his butt):

Not Me my kid Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. I usually just run over and read the denials of Stone Fox leaving my own snide additions there, but today it switched to the kids, so it was like a sign from the bloggoddessessess from above, so here we go:

My beautiful nine-year-old girl did NOT come up to my room and sit on my bed last night at the EXACT. WORST. POSSIBLE. TIME. And proceed to tell us in great detail how she was worried about when the sun would explode.

That is all.

Chartreuse? Pear? Pistachio?

We're pretty green, but pretty much everything we do is for another reason.

* We use a "reel" mower because Max doesn't want to deal with gasoline (I threatened that if he dies, the first thing I'm doing - assuming it's summer - is buying an electric mower)

* We drive one car because it's too expensive for 2 for our needs.

* We compost - again, Max liked the challenge and now it's a habit

* We don't use weed killer because I've found they just don't work on dandelions like pulling them out. Or any other weeds for that matter

* We don't drink bottled water because it's just too expensive considering it's basically tap water that someone else bottled (this was hard, since it's sooooo convenient - and actually got me drinking water regularly) Cost of bottled water (cheapest I've found): appx $0.1275/L; cost of tap water: $0.003111222/L. I could get 41 bottles of tap water for one bottle of the cheapest.

* We use reusable grocery bags... sometimes. We've got about a dozen of them, but if they make it to the car *I* usually forget them there & don't think about it until I'm at the checkout. My weaselly solution is that I give the plastic ones to my sister to reuse as dog-poo-bags (sorting out the ones with holes in them is up to her!)

* We've got a front-load machine, but only because less water saves $$
[have been planning to replace the toilet for years. Let's see: 7L - current 13L toilet - 6L "green" one - x 15 flushes/day x 365 x about 4 years we've been "meaning to" X $0.003111222/L = $477 wasted since we figured it would be a good idea. Can't recall the exact time; have never counted number of flushes; didn't account for leap year! Also didn't account for many times using the 3L flush which would make our 7L difference 10]

* I, um... drink wine from the box. Because there's um... much less... um... packaging.

* I bring stacks of (printed one side) paper home from work for the kids to draw on. THEN (depending on the artwork) it goes into the recycling. This is a cheap thing... Do you know how much art these kids produce?

On the other hand:

* I don't give a crap about watering my lawn & garden (i.e. I'll do it) - don't bother selecting low-water plants.

* I will usually drive if I can.

* I will usually turn up the heat if I can get away with it. Put on a sweater you say? Yes, I'll do that. And then I'll turn up the heat anyway.

* I live in urban sprawl. Yes, it is an "older" (beautiful) neighbourhood and the anti-sprawl crowd for some reason looks favourably on my 'hood. But the lot sizes are the same - and sometimes smaller - in what "they" generally consider to be the blight on our urban environment [the evil suburbia]. Also, because I have a back lane AND a sidewalk AND a front street (and grid is not the most efficient layout of pavement to reach every property), I consume more infrastructure than I'm generally given credit for. If we're talking density, I'm not in a particularly dense area. Screw 'em all. I like my neighbours, but not in my lap. Subject for another post? If I get around to it [ha!]

Anyone else a lazy shade of green?

10/07/02 12:45 - 7#7 - XX

Happy Birthday Pepper!

Forever ensuring the middle child is NOT lost in the shuffle!

The one where a bicycle factory exploded on our street

And all the kids ran off because
"HEY! THERE'S SOMETHING SHINY DOWN AT JAKE'S PLACE!!!"
(there's never anything said on the street that is in anything less than a screaming voice.)

Why America is Great

Because they invented the Muppets; dumbed down YouTube enough for me to embed this and also, keep the world safe from weirdos. Among other reasons.

Happy America Day to my southern friends!

Helen Keller

It was windy Sunday, so Max had planned to take the kids kite flying - the girls both got big fancy kites for Christmas, and we had yet to try them out. Yes, I am aware of the month.

I broke into song:

"Let's go fly a kite!
"Up to the highest heights!...

"What movie is that from?"

Max pondered a moment. "The Sound of Music?"

I huffed - because yes, I'm totally the musical theater aficionado (I know it's a movie. It's also a book).

[I detest musical theater. So much so that I have yet to see a dear friend - the one whom Nen calls Sly - who is tres accomplished locally in the field of MT, AND a delicious singer (I have heard her sing) - perform. I was just about to suck it up and go when she went off and had a family. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.]

"NO!"

"Diary of Anne Frank?"

"WHAT THE HELL? Yes, because she was all out there flying kites: 'yoo hoo! Look at me! Out here in the open! Flying a kite!'"

"Oh yeah. I guess she would have had trouble, being blind and all"

"---"

"She was deaf?"

"--- [sigh]

"You're thinking of Helen Keller. Did you even LIVE in North America in the late 20th century?"

"That's the one. There's that song: 'Do it like Helen Keller'. How does that go? 'Shake your hips...'*"

(The Boy runs in and jumps on the bed)

"Stop right there. I have NO idea what you're talking about, but I'm almost certain HE shouldn't hear it. Besides, it doesn't sound like it's about kite flying."

"Um...No... You know, I've actually even read 'Diary of Anne Frank'"

"Interesting. I haven't, and yet I seem to have picked up more from it than you did."

And then he left before taking another futile, yet thoroughly entertaining stab at the answer to the original question.

Any other thoroughly entertaining stabs anyone else would like to take? The only prize is public humiliation. Fortunately for you, the public is fairly limited, as the summer blog traffic lull seems to have hit Harmzie's Way a little early.

*Turns out that this IS an actual song and it's current and on the radio. It's very, very awful. Even ignoring all the intrinsically awful things about the song and the words and the message, it's just an annoying and bad song.

The Spinner

I have a "spinner":

1/ pull covers [unconsciously, of course] to chin [mmm coziness]

2/ feet get exposed

3/ pull covers with feet to cover said feet [exposes wife's feet? maybe]

4/ yell at wife for being "fussy" about having to have the blankets "just so" whilst he's sleeping.

[sigh] Amongst other splendiferous attributes, he cooks.

But if I were to start in on the splendiferous, it could start to drift away from entertaining and waver dangerously toward "ewww". So I'll just continue toying with the comfortable thought that he'll never start his own blog and start in on me.

Also? 16 years of legal, publicly acknowledged lust pawing "practicing" correction affection as of today. If you ever drag your sorry ass here and dare to take a peek at what I write about you, Happy Anniversary Max Power! The big wet smooches will be administered whether you drag your sorry ass here and dare to take a peek at what I write about you or not.

...and This Is Your Brain On Bugs

"Mom, if a bug crawled into your ear, could it get out the other side?"

"No dear, your brain is in the way."

"Oh. NO! Couldn't it crawl through like under and then around?" [lots of indecipherable hand motions]

"Your brain is still in the way"

"NOOOOOO! You don't understand what I mean..."

[Me thinking it's over, but 10 minutes later]:

"Here. This is your head. And this is the hole that they go through to get through the other side. It goes UNDER your brain!" [stupid]

Also, apparently we all look more like Shrek than we realize.