Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Friday, May 30, 2008 This just in, hot off the presses:  Actually, it's not that hot. Maybe they should have FedExed it in one of those pizza delivery sleeves. Request one when you order yours! posted by M. Giant 2:49 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:
WOO HOO only 1 month to go!! I can't wait to get my copy!!
By
Already ordered! And since I utterly failed to get that celebrity cover blurb for you, I am lucky enough to have read a good chunk of it by the pool on vacation.
By Thursday, May 29, 2008 Work From Home! For a couple of months now, Trash and I have been quietly strategizing how I should broach a delicate subject to my bosses. That subject is me working from home full-time. A couple of my coworkers work remotely, and I've been doing it myself on Wednesdays only since the beginning of the year. But since I never brought it up during my interview and hiring process, I felt a little weird asking for a total telecommuting package less than a year after I started. It's kind of a shame that we wasted all that effort in planning, because one day a couple of weeks ago my boss's boss asked me out of nowhere if I wanted to work from home full-time and now here I am and I haven't shaved, showered, changed my clothes, or left the house in a week. This is awesome. Okay, I'm exaggerating. I groomed myself a bit last night, and I've either driven M. Small to school or picked him up every day this week. My ass hasn't fused to my desk chair like some people warned me it might. And I'm loving the perks; used to be that while I was waiting for a response to an e-mail, I had to sit at my desk and read something funny on the Internet. Now I can get up and vacuum the living room. How great is that?!? One of the reasons I wanted to do this was to save money, and I think that's going to work out pretty well. With the price of a tank of gas where it is, I was spending Monday and half of Tuesday just working to cover the cost of that week's commute. But now that's not an issue. I mean, I do still have to drive M. Small to work and/or pick him up, and since his school is the opposite direction from Trash's office, the gas for his commute is going to get burned one way or another. Plus someone has to make the trip twice a day. But since it's less than a third as far as my (former) office is, we're still coming out ahead. It'll be even better when the Montessori school gets wi-fi in its parking lot so I can just work in the car there all day and cut the traveling in half, but this will do for now. But now I'm finding myself thinking about all the minor expenses of workday existence that I'm now covering instead of my employer. For instance, my workplace provides free facial tissues in the office, but now I have to use my own during the day. Given my allergies situation, this is quite literally nothing to be sneezed at. I once basked for eight hours at a stretch in the glow of overhead fluorescents and a monitor that were powered by electricity paid for by my employer. Now I work under compact fluorescents, but they and my other equipment run on juice that I'm paying for. Maybe at some point I'll figure out exactly how many kilowatt hours it takes to fully charge up my laptop battery. If it costs more than a scone, maybe I'll start my workdays at the coffee shop. And expense the scone. They sent me home a giant all-in-one printer/fax machine/copier/scanner as well, which I'm sure will also be a major energy hog if I can ever figure out how to get it working. My giant water mug no longer gets its daily refill from the workplace sink, but from my own pipes. And since the water meter is also connected to the toilet, I should probably stop being quite so cavalier about my regular midmorning double-flusher. And I kind of miss the vending machines in the workplace break room. You know, I had no idea how much power those things burned until I got my own here at home. I've also decided to give up coffee. It was one thing when it was free from the machine. But now, pouring myself a cup so my coworkers think I'm normal and then secretly dumping it into my trash can just isn't cost-effective. Especially since I take the trash out around here. But all this is small change. In the long run, I'm going to be spending less money transporting, feeding, dressing, and cleaning myself, and after all air and gravity are still free. I'm living the dream, and I didn't even have to sign up for an e-mail scam to do it. posted by M. Giant 7:16 PM 9 comments 9 Comments:If you can find another family (or 2, or 3) at the Montessori to share car pooling with, you'll save even more!
By Oh you lucky lucky man. With a commute of an hour each way (even though I can take public transit) I am shaking with envy.
By In all seriousness, since you are working from your own home, you can expense part of your rent/mortgage, as well as electrical costs, when you do your taxes next year. Keep track of what your monthly costs are - it's worth it. I speak as one who's done it.
By I did the work-at-home thing for my company for 2 years, and after slowly going insane and become somewhat of a hermit, I quit and found a job where I was required to be at an office. The novelty wears off FAST, but in the meantime - isn't it AWESOME!!?
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Misty's right. I really miss my coworkers! I'd prefer three days at home, two days at the office deal.
By I just talked my boss into letting my assistant and I telecommute 2-3 days per week. In today's workplace, if you have to meet with people in person to get things done, your company is obviously not changing with the times. I attend 15-20 meetings per week with people across the globe and don't have to be in the office to do so. My management has seen how much more productive I can be from home with far fewer distractions and has responded positively. Hope yours will too!
By When I started working from home, I missed my co-workers at first, but then I realized how much more work I was getting done since I wasn't wasting time listening to people bitch about their bosses, sitting in conference rooms waiting for meetings to start, waiting for someone to finish with the copier, etc. etc. I love it!
By Oh my god, I'm so happy for you. I love working from home. I've been doing it for two years, and the thrill has yet to wear off. Thanks to wifi and my laptop, I can work on my PORCH. In my PAJAMAS. Living the dream, indeed.
By Oh good for you! My husband and I both work from home; it's a godsend in terms of saving gas money and other expenses. I was forced to start working from home last year, as visual impairment prevents me from driving; it took me 6 months to find a good work from home job, but it has paid off. Earlier in November 2007, my husband was laid off from his construction job and, being 50, didn't want to find another, so he now works for the same company I do. It's great and for anyone who yearns to do this, I recommend it. Thanks!
By Monday, May 26, 2008 Off on the Wrong Foot Thursday evening, my parents were over (having just finished some work on our house) and I was talking to my sister DeBitch the Younger on my mom's phone when Trash came out of the house and I heard a crash. Preoccupied with my conversation, I didn't realize what had happened until a minute later when Trash asked me, "Could you please get off the phone?" It seems M. Small had left a rather large stick at the base of the stair that leads from our back door to the deck, and Trash had stepped on it, with catastrophic results. First, her left ankle tried to do something that ankles are not designed to do, said "Fuck this shit," and walked off the job. Second, the glass of juice she was carrying went everywhere as she crashed to the deck, scraping her right knee. And finally, the stick that had started all this trouble in the first place added injury to injury by flipping up when she landed on it and stabbing her in the armpit. This is the point in the urban legend where the paramedics hear the story and laugh so hard they drop her in the bushes on the way to the ambulance. But there were no paramedics. We have a next-door neighbor who is a physical therapist, and we had her look at Trash's battered, bruised, and rapidly swelling flipper. But since her training does not extend to X-ray vision, she advised her to go have it looked at that night. My lovely parents stepped right up and offered to bring M. Small home with them for the night on the spot so that we wouldn't have to keep him entertained in an Urgent Care waiting room for an hour, and after they left (and we'd had some pizza-time with friends, previously planned but truncated by necessity), we headed off to the sawbones. Boy, was that guy grumpy about not getting to leave right at eight p.m.. My goodness, you'd think an urgent care doc would be aware that once in a while, things tend to come up in his line of work. But no, he gave us a lecture on showing up near closing time (sorry, my wife will try to break her foot earlier next time), warned us that the radiology department might not want to stick around for any more pictures (they did, and without a pissy-pants attitude, I might add), and disappeared. After Trash's films were developed, he gave them less attention than I typically spare on an installment of Family Circus and diagnosed her with a bad sprain. "Cast and crutches," he snapped at the nurse, his jacket already on and his voice Dopplering away toward the exit. Trash was indeed set up with a pair of aluminum crutches (which don't really go well with an owie in your armpit) and an inflatable cast that she could tell within an hour was doing more harm than good. She called the next morning to see if she could have her X-rays looked at again by somebody who wasn't already mentally out the door, but apparently no such medical professional was available because we never heard back. Fortunately, when Tara and Dave arrived for their previously planned but fortunately non-truncated weekend visit to Minneapolis, they were very cool about not getting to walk around as much as they might have hoped. They were very cool period. All five of us (including the cats) loved having them around. But that's a different entry. Or possibly other stuff, somewhere else. If so, I'll let you know. UPDATE: Dave and Tara have put up photos, more photos, a GlarkBlog, and even a podcast! If you don't feel like you were here with us, it's your own damn fault. posted by M. Giant 8:19 PM 8 comments 8 Comments:Best holiday weekend involving a broken foot ever!
By Oh, OUCH, Trash!! I hope that things heal up as quickly as possible - ankle/foot injuries totally suck and seem to take forever to heal. Stupid stick and stupid, rude urgent care doc!!
By
Ouch. Can I suggest getting the half-crutches (they attach to your lower arms) rather than full crutches? They're much easier to manage, especially with things like coffee cups, plates etc and they won't cause problems with the under arm injury. (One ankle fracture, two sprains and three calf muscle tears gives you a suprising amount of experience with crutches).
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EYARGH. I am impressed by Trash's manners. It's pretty damn good to be able to say please when getting your significant other off the phone because your armpit is perforated and such. I don't know if I would have done it, but I think that the piercing scream I would likely have uttered when all that stuff happened would have covered it.
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Yeah, wasn't the ear specialist a dillhole to Trash, also? What happened with that (if it's not too early to tell)?
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Ouch,
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Ouch. Hope Trash heals soon and Dr. Charm gets some karmic payback.
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@momof3: Get the Xrays looked at again. Urgent care told me I had a sprain and 2 days later, I was told to go to an ortho for new x-rays and it was broken!
By Friday, May 23, 2008 Rocket Science M. Small's new Montessori school teacher, Mr. N., has noticed something about him: his disproportional interest in science. Particularly anything having to do with space, rockets, or volcanoes. He was telling Trash about this when she picked M. Small up from school yesterday. A bit concerned, Trash asked whether he was acting up in the other segments. Which we were already pretty sure he wasn't; as demonstrated by the brand he put on our garage door last week, he's clearly been paying attention to the parts of the day where they practice letters (and I hope that's all they're practicing). Mr. N. assured us that M. Small was not misbehaving; he simply wasn't as engaged. A clear signal of this was his tendency to go to the bathroom a lot during parts of the day he wasn't interested in. Like the other day, Mr. N. was telling the kids about camels and their humps when M. Small got up to go to the bathroom for the fourth time that morning. Mr. N. asked if he was sure he needed to go, and M. Small insisted that he did. But then Mr. N. did a little experiment: about half a minute after M. Small disappeared into the bathroom, Mr. N. made the rocket sound that signifies the beginning of a rocket lesson. M. Small came tearing out of the bathroom so as not to miss anything, which clearly proved the difference between his levels of interest for different units. But speaking of units, when M. Small came running out of the bathroom for rocket time, his pants and underwear were around his ankles. So at least he wasn't totally faking about needing to pee. I guess we should be grateful that he didn't leave a trail. In any case, he's clearly not faking his interest in rockets. That's why Mr. N. was a little surprised at first when M. Small started talking during the rocket lecture. But then he realized M. Small wasn't trying to interrupt; he was trying to help. So he invited M. Small up to the front of the room to teach the other kids about rockets, and M. Small said "Okay," and did just that. To hear Mr. N. describe it, M. Small gave a full and quite accurate lecture about the Saturn V rocket and the space Shuttle. Trash and I have heard this same lecture any number of times at home; it's one that he's pretty much memorized. Mr. N. insisted that he didn't just know the words; he knows what they meant. Like, when he got to the word "atmosphere," Mr. N. asked him to define that for the other kids, and M. Small did. He kind of asked Trash why we've been concentrating so hard on teaching M. Small this stuff, and she quite truthfully says we haven't. He just likes to watch the NASA Channel. "I watch the NASA Channel," Mr. N. said. Trash suggested maybe putting M. Small in with an older group for science, and was told that he had been teaching the five-year-olds. Some of them even said, "Bye, teacher," as they left. So I'm calling it, right now. I predict that one day, M. Small will be the first kindergartner in space. posted by M. Giant 1:24 PM 11 comments 11 Comments:That is just completely awesome. You go, M. Small! And please bring my kiddo back a moon rock, will ya? :D
By He's the coolest little kid ever, I swear! I love that. My three year old still confuses up and down - LOL.
By Awesome! And what a great teacher to let him do that.
By It's amazing how early this kind of stuff is formed. My three year old nephew is totally obsessed with figuring out how things work. He's like a mini-engineer. This, to the utter despair of my husband's sports-obsessed family. They keep giving him sports equipment. He just wants to figure out how that whiffle ball pitching machine works.
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Ground Control to Major Small!
By When you thought he was worshopping fans, he was just psyched about their potential as a propulsion system.
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That sounds exactly like my oldest brother.
By I don't believe I've ever commented here before, although I've been lurking for years. I think your writing is wonderful, but I just wanted to say, on this particular post, that you can't do better than encourage your child to do what he loves. Mine are just finishing and just past college now and this was the best advice I gave them (they tell me): Follow your bliss. It's your bliss for a reason.
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That is hilarious (in a good way). My own interest in aeronautics is entirely casual, but I have a history of dating men who are extremely interested in this sort of thing. The good news for you is that, if M. Small turns out like I suspect he will, he will have a variety of respectable careers open to him. My husband, who watches TV programs about rockets whenever possible, started taking computers apart (and putting them back together again) when he was 7. He's still doing it today, but now he gets paid.
By Ha! Your five-year-old sounds like mine. His teacher has commented that he's much more involved in class and reading when the topic is non-fiction. He tells everyone he's a scientist, although he's unable to articulate which area of science he loves best - he loves them all! I couldn't be more proud of my wee geek/nerd. He's gonna be just fine!
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Dude, M. Small in Space would be the most adorable TV show EVER. I think you should start pitching it right away! :)
By Monday, May 19, 2008 My Best Friend's Wedding Late in eighth grade, a new kid showed up at my school. This was the nothern suburbs of Minneapolis, which meant there were too many Erics and Eriks already, so everybody just called him by his last name. I only actually went to school with him for a little over a year, but we enjoyed hanging out so much for so long that it didn't really matter. He was my best man when I married Trash, and although we were at different departments at the U (me in English and he in Theater), we still saw each other all the time. Theater people are more fun than English people anyway. That play I published a few years back was inspired by a show I saw him in, but we can go even further back -- passing notes and jokes back and forth with him in junior high made me realize how much fun can be had with words, and is undoubtedly a big part of the reason I'm a writer today. Then a couple years after we graduated I was a giant asshole to him about something stupid and we didn't talk for a few years. I'm glad it was only a few, but it was a few too many. He got married this weekend. I'm sorry to report that as far as I know, nobody got too drunk or made a giant ass of themselves or started a brawl or stripped naked on the dance floor. This bothers me for two reasons. The first is that it makes it hard to write something funny about it. The second is that since I didn't notice anyone else doing those things, it makes it fairly likely that I was the one who did. It was a remarkable day for it. It takes courage to plan an outdoor wedding ceremony in Minnesota in mid-May, without even a canopy overhead for insurance, but clearly fortune favors the brave. It ended up being a totally TV-friendly event, with bright sunshine and just enough of a breeze to make you glad you were wearing a jacket and tie, with the Mississippi River flowing by not fifty yards away (but with the site of the 35W bridge collapse well out of sight beyond the next bend). I was an usher, which meant I got to stand behind the back row wearing a suit and sunglasses. If I'd had time to dummy up a fake earpiece for myself I totally would have. The reception was held indoors, with heaping plates of food served family-style. We probably should have planned better for the feeding of M. Small, because after he'd had a dinner roll and some raspberries out of my salad he kept asking passing servers, "Can I have more stuff to eat?" Not really used to the pace of dining you get a wedding reception. Eventually he gave up and started tearing around the dance floor with the other kids, confident that there would be Chicken McNuggets in the car later. My parents were invited, of course, because they've known and loved Feb almost as long as I have. This was an additional benefit because not only did this mean additional eyes on the kid at any given time, it also meant that when they took off after the cake, they could take the kid home with them. Which meant that Trash and I got to spend some quality time partying with some people we haven't seen for a long time (them living in different cities and all) without having to rush home to put somebody to bed. Plus M. Small was spared the mind-warping experience of watching daddy perform "Baby Got Back" during the karaoke reception jam. You don't come back from that if it happens to you at three years of age. I know I was never the same. Feb and Teslagrl stopped by earlier today on the way to their honeymoon. I'm helping out with some marriage license-related stuff and our house in Minneapolis is on the way from her parents' place in the suburbs to Las Vegas anyway. And after that they're going home to Evanston, so I was glad to have a chance to say goodbye to them and wish them the best in a quieter setting, i.e., next to my front door. They deserve all the happiness in the world. When getting married, they decided to merge their two last names to make one new one. But I hope he won't mind if I still slip and call him by that old last name once in a while, the one I've called him by for 25 years. posted by M. Giant 8:20 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:I read somewhere recently that as a person gets older, they begin to realize the value of people who knew them when they were young. And as I am now in my thirties, I realize how true it is... no explanations of your past needed, old friends who knew you before you were a parent, before you weren't able to play backyard football without injuring yourself, just you as you grow up together. So glad that you started talking again, it's a tragedy that so many friends don't find each other back after something like that (especially men, so extra props to you and Feb). Congrats on a long friendship, and keep it up because you can't go back and get new childhood friends.
By Aw, so glad it went well. Good for everybody involved.
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Awwww. Right back atcha, man. Let it be known that you were an usher only because the way we put together the ceremony, there was no Best Man.
By Friday, May 16, 2008 Finally, they're listening to me. posted by M. Giant 11:06 AM 2 comments 2 Comments:Thank goodness!
By Please pass on my congratulations as well. You and he were responsible for most of my brain-warping during that time...and thank God for that!
By Thursday, May 15, 2008 Analyze This M. Small has known how to spell his name for going on two years now. One summer day in 2006, he and I were out on the deck when I picked up a piece of his sidewalk chalk and wrote the first letter of his name while pronouncing said letter. He immediately spelled out the rest of his name by himself. That's not to say he can write his name; when I gave him the chalk that day, the only thing he could seem to write out for himself was ///||\/(( Writing has continued to elude him, even as he's learned the entire alphabet, every letter by sight, and how to verbally spell out "mom" and "dad" and "no" and "Saturn V." There are a few letters that he can form by arranging sticks or straws on a flat surface, but skills to write a letter of his own just aren't there yet. At least not until he started school. Suddenly, last night, without warning, he wrote a couple of capital A's in pink chalk on the garage door. I think he might have been trying to spell his own name, but none of the other letters he formed are in it. I just don't think he's learned those letters yet, not that it kept him from trying. You know how people sometimes say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?  So, do you think I should be worried that the my son's first written word is ANAL? Also, do you think I should hose down the garage door before people start showing up to answer the ad? I guess I've been posting public writings that embarrass him for the last three and a half years. A bit of turnabout seems only fair. posted by M. Giant 12:32 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:Delurking to comment because that's probably the funniest thing I've seen all week. M. Small is awesome.
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Quick! Teach him to write 'OGY' and then show off how smart he is.
By Also delurking to say I am laughing so hard right now. Especially the part about hosing off the garage door before someone shows up to answer the ad. Can't... stop... laughing...
By Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Out of Sight Today during lunch I brought my glasses and my new prescription into the local wholesaler and asked if they could replace my scratched, outdated lenses with new ones. The lady behind the counter said they could, but they'd have to send them in somewhere and they wouldn't be back for at least two weeks. So I said, "*All righty," and handed them over. Sure, I don't have a backup pair, but how had could it be to go without for a while? After all, I never wore glasses at all before I was three. While I was at the store, I figured I might as well pick up some batteries. So I headed over to a black-and-copper blur to pick up a brick of double A's. It yelped and popped me upside the head. Probably shouldn't have worn that sweatshirt in the first place, lady. When I finally found the batteries, or at least a package of vitamin supplements that felt a lot like batteries, I got in line to check out. But instead of taking my credit card, the lady at the front of the line handed me a paper cup full of granola. Which, along with the glowing white clothes she was wearing, made me wonder if she was some kind of cultist. Someone directed me to the checkout lines, and I waited patiently, pressing my watch to my nose every five minutes or so in an effort to get someone to notice my impatience. Finally I spoke up to the dumpy individual in line in front of me: "Can you believe how slow this line is?" When he or she didn't respond, I tapped him or her on the shoulder and realized I was touching cardboard. I had been waiting in line behind a stack of discarded boxes blocking a closed lane. And I bet it didn't even have its credit card ready, either. I decided not to go to the bathroom. There's such a thing as pushing your luck. On the way out to the parking lot, I was tackled to the ground. Oops, forgot about the person at the exit who checks everyone's receipt with a highlighter. I had been wondering what that pink slash floating in the air had been. I've already told you how much I hate this store's parking lot, but today it was even worse. The wind was as harsh as ever, and it made it difficult for me to get a fix on my car's location. Every time I pressed the panic button on my key fob, the sound of my car alarm would either get distorted by the wind or drowned out entirely. And that was when I was in range, which was only about a quarter of the time. I was also lucky in that my office is a straight shot down the road from the store. All I had to do was drive slowly, keep one foot on the curb, and dismiss the honks of the ignorant Anglophobes who objected to the side of the street I was driving on. Parking was a little tricky -- I decided to park in the empty area at the top of the ramp so I wouldn't accidentally bump into someone's door getting out of the car. The parked vehicles I'd already blundered into while trying to drive past them were quite enough, I thought. Once inside the building, I finally got to test my theory that I can make it from the front door to my desk with my eyes closed. And I can. But that touchy prick with the personal space issues who's sitting in my chair is going to have to go. After feeling my way to an empty corner cubicle (or maybe it's an office, or the mailroom) I figured I could borrow for a few hours, I sat down and wrote this entry by feed. By expanding the text size to 500 parent, I was able to zero in on the red squiggly lines that abdicate a typo and illuminate all of them. Thank Golf for spell check. I’m not sure how I'm going to drive home, to be honest. I can almost read my cell phone screen if I hold it right in front of my face, so maybe I can figure out something using its GPS function on my cell phone. I really hope it has one. * Everything after this point in the entry is false. posted by M. Giant 11:53 AM 5 comments 5 Comments:
Oh my god. This is totally what would happen if I left my house without corrective lenses. Lying in bed, I can't read the big red numbers on the alarm clock with my glasses off. And the really sad thing is that I am far from the blindest person in my family.
By
2 weeks? Really? WOW.
By er... glasses.
By This entry made me lol several times. Thanks, dude!
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You must have the same stupid insurance I do, where they have to send them out to the insurance company's lab to make the lenses, hence the two-week wait (which turned out to actually be less than a week for me last month). Always good to have the back-up glasses for when they want to take your frames away. An old pair or a cheap pair of "one hour" lenses and cheap fraimes to get you through waiting for the quality stuff.
By Sunday, May 11, 2008 Graduation Last Wednesday I picked up M. Small from school for the first time. I met one of his teachers, who really likes him. "He's so good and quiet, and he plays nice, and he always puts everything away," she said. "Oh, I didn't make myself clear," I clarified. "I'm M. Small's dad." But no, there was no confusion. That's who he is at school, and I probably shouldn't complain. Anyway, he's clearly adapting well. He's going three days a week, but still going to his old day care on Thursdays to ease the transition (Fridays continue to be Mom and M. Small days). It's Trash and I who need to work harder to adapt. It's not just that the new place is a lot further away than the day care place (not that this is hard, with the day care place seven blocks from our house) and we have to remember to pack his lunch the day before. It's that he's in school, and he's expected to be there. Like, the guy who runs the place forgot that he doesn't come in on Fridays, and he called the house to see where he was. And that's not all. Next Thursday is a big graduation ceremony at the school. Unlike us, a lot of the other parents apparently don't use Montessori as a year-round day care center, and when the school year ends next week, that'll be the last day for some of the kids. When Mr. N. called on Friday, he was very clear that M. Small was expected there that day. We thought it was a little weird that our son is supposed to graduate from Montessori three weeks after starting it, but then he's always been a little ahead of schedule. Still, it's weird. We're used to being able to call up the Day Care Lady at 9:30 on a Thursday and saying, yeah, M. Small isn't coming in today. And also not yesterday, which we forgot to tell you. She doesn't care -- she gets paid the same and it's not like she has a curriculum going on. Hearing from his school about when he's supposed to be there makes it feel like he's just a tiny bit less…ours. You know? But that's okay. He'll graduate next Thursday and we'll go back to normal. posted by M. Giant 9:13 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:Isn't it funny how kids can be so different at school and at home? I used to think they were talking about someone else's child at school, that they had mixed me up with another child's parent. I didn't recognize the sweet, cooperative, neat, sharing child they described; they didn't recognize the kicking, fighting, biting attitude-filled little heck-raiser I described. We called them Home Boy and School Boy (with his name instead of Boy).
By My mom is a kindergarten teacher, and she calls some kids "Road Angels and Home Devils."
By Thursday, May 08, 2008 War of Attrition We've hated the carpet that came with this house ever since we bought it, sixteen years ago. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Before we moved everything in, we had it professionally steam-cleaned and it looked pretty good. For a few weeks. Then we realized that we were probably going to have to break down and buy a vacuum cleaner. But even that wasn't going to keep it looking nice for more than a few days after our increasingly frequent visits from the guys with the van and the big hose. Tearing out the carpet in the study six years ago was liberating. Doing it in the living room four years ago was also liberating. By that timeline, we were probably due to take care of the back bedroom two years ago, but we had a one-and-a-half-year-old back then and the only liberation we were getting in that period of our lives was naptime. But this past Sunday, I talked Trash into taking on that final room with me. Normally she's the one who motivates us to do these big household projects, whereas I would rather sit around and read or watch movies or play computer games than spend my weekend renovating the garage, or fixing an electrical outlet, or unloading the dishwasher. But as I pointed out to her on Sunday, we're going to have visitors for the next few weekends, plus Sunday was a nice, warm sunny day, perfect for taking all the shit out of that room through the back door and piling it on the deck for a few hours. That did it. So by ten o'clock, the spare bed was in pieces in the living room, and the rest of the furniture from that room was piled on the deck along with about half of M. Small's toys. Trash and I tore the carpet out, leaving the back door open so we could keep an eye on the kid in the backyard (or, more accurately, call out to the next-door neighbor every few minutes to make sure he wasn't bugging her too much). I only slashed my thumb on a rusty carpet tack once in the process of getting the carpet out of there, and Trash was almost entirely uninjured. Even better, after almost a week without experiencing any symptoms, I'm fairly confident that my tetanus shots were up to date after all. Except I kind of tricked Trash. I had more or less implied that we'd just take out the carpet and be done. But before we moved everything back in, I wanted to also take the carpet out of the closet, fix the closet door that's been sticking (a sawdust-intensive process), paint the inch of newly-exposed puke-beige baseboard between the floor and where the carpet used to be, and then sweep and Swiffer the hardwood (which, by the way, is in the best shape of any room we've done this to). Anyway, short story long, it was late afternoon and all that stuff was still out on the deck. We were kind of putting off the restocking, you see, each for reasons of our own. Trash wanted to leave the bed out and replace it with the futon and frame. The only problem with that plan was that we own neither a futon nor a frame. Whereas I was procrastinating because my usual laziness had reasserted itself. But a neighbor family up the street happened to stop by, and when they wondered if the sight of all our crap out and exposed to the elements meant that we were being evicted, we both abandoned our reservations and loaded everything back in. Well, we abandoned them temporarily. Which is to say that Trash is still looking for futons on Craigslist and I'm still lazy. But I'm still declaring victory, because as of now, every bit of that hateful, awful, depressing, stain-magnet carpet is out of our house forever. Except for one scrap in the basement. I'm keeping that for the cats to pee on. posted by M. Giant 8:53 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:
"Normally she's the one who motivates us to do these big household projects"
By I just don't understand the point of wall to wall carpeting. Congrats on ridding yourself of it.
By Hooray for hardwood floors hiding under carpet. And that is a TOTAL victory. I can't believe you busted your ass like that all day and then claimed your "usual laziness" is what kept you from doing more. I just blogged last week about how how laziness doesn't exist, and you are just proving my damn point here!
By Monday, May 05, 2008 First Day M. Small picked out his own lunchbox for school. It's plastic and shaped like a ladybug. If a kid makes fun of M. Small's lunchbox today, I will bury it in that kid's head. Which will be okay, because M. Small will probably want a different lunchbox anyway. Yes, it's M. Small's first day of Montessori school. We knew this day was coming, and so did M. Small. That didn't make it any easier for us. Trash and me, I mean. M. Small was just fine. We went together to drop him off, because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to handle it. It was hard enough watching him jauntily snag his lunchbox off the center island without being asked and trundle towards the car like he's been doing this every morning. "Look at him!" Trash and I whispered to each other. "Doesn't he realize this is killing us? Couldn't he take pity on us and act a little worried?" I'm not sure why this feels harder than his first day at day care. Maybe we just don't remember that as well, because it was three years ago and we were sleep-deprived. Or maybe it was because back then he was a powerless blob who experienced the world as one might experience a particularly chaotic screensaver and today he's a person who can walk around and tells us what he's thinking about and what he's feeling and what each stage of a Saturn V rocket does. He chattered happily in the car the whole way there. He did ask me to carry his lunchbox into the school, but while we waited outside to be let in, he told us he was excited. And then, inside, he kind of wandered around quietly, not sure what to do with the three or four other kids who were already there. The early-shift teacher showed him his new locker, into which he wanted to put everything he had. He put the toy jet he'd brought in there. He tried to put his lunchbox in there. He took off his sweatshirt and put it in there. I think he would have happily gone home to get more stuff to put in there if we'd offered. He'll probably want to pack a suitcase tomorrow. While Trash talked to the teacher about logistics and business stuff, I squatted down and quietly talked to M. Small. "Are you nervous?" I asked. "Yes," he said, barely audibly. "That's okay. New situations are always nervous, and this is really new. I know you'll do great. I'm so proud of you." "Okay." He wasn't crying when Trash and I left, but his solemn blue eyes were fixed on us as the door closed behind us. The crying took place after the door was shut. And I couldn't even tell you if there was any crying on his side of the door. It was 8:00 a.m. It was going to be a long day. Trash called me on my cell phone at 8:15. "I'm going to go get him," she said. "Not if I get him first," I responded. Eventually we talked each other down. But it's still going to be a long day. posted by M. Giant 11:20 AM 14 comments 14 Comments:Hang in there guys!
By Hey, we're in sync...today is Miss Kelly's first day of daycare. We're where you were three years ago! Hugs all around.
By "That's okay. New situations are always nervous, and this is really new. I know you'll do great. I'm so proud of you.".....these are words you will utter for the next 12 years! I am a longtime reader, and love reading your blog, and this post made me cry. My "baby" graduates high school in 3 weeks; it does not get any easier! Best of luck and congrats on this newest milestone in his life!
By
Ohhh man, this made me cry. Beautiful post.
By
Don't worry--I've got a friend with two girls in Montessori pre-school, and the girls LOVE it. (You're in MN, right? It's the one up in Shoreview.) They come home talking about the "work" they did that day and the kids they played with and the songs they sang. It helped my friend get over the separation anxiety pretty quickly, knowing that her kids were having such a good time.
By
Our 5 year old basically left us in the dust when she started pre-k 2 years ago.
By If he's in school isn't it about time to upgrade his nickname to M.Edium?
By
Awwwwww mannnnn... I just had a flash.
By I hope you all survived the first day and had a tearless morning. I of course having just read your blog of yesterday have done enough crying for you and the Mrs.
By Add my tears to those of "me at 6:02am". Now, please to post and tell us how it went!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By
Aw I was all set to be melancholy and sweet with you and then I saw KG's comment and I can't stop giggling!
By
Aw, he'll do great, and so will you!
By
I remember the first time the wife and I left our daughter with "strangers"...
By I didn’t go to daycare or any pre-K school, so I was very excited for Kindergarten. I got up that first morning and put on my dress, but couldn’t zip it up in the back. So I just put my jacket on over it and decided I would ask my teacher to help me. I went next door to meet up with the kids who were going to walk with me to school, but they weren’t ready, so I carried on alone. I was just getting to the school when my mom showed up, opened the car door and growled “Get in the car.” I guess Kindergarten didn’t start at 6 a.m.
By Thursday, May 01, 2008 Green Telecommuting Of all the things I like about my current day job, my favorite would have to be the fact that I get to work at home on Wednesday. It's not only convenient, it's a huge moneysaver. And it's good for the planet as well. Here's how: When I telecommute, I don't have to drive to work. That means that I save money on gas, and reduce my carbon footprint, all at the same time. This became even more true when I stopped idling my car in the driveway all day just in case I was called into the office for an emergency. I don't have to dress up to work at home. I can be just as productive in my pajamas, or in the previous day's clothes. This means we don't have to do as much laundry (which saves money on our gas and water bill) or buy as many clothes (which are expensive, and which I hate doing). I also save money on our electricity by fully recharging my laptop at work the day before and then using the battery to do my work at home. This also has a twofold benefit: I'm able to work until about 11:30 in the morning or so before my battery punks out, and then I spend the rest of the day napping. Which, again, reduces my carbon footprint. It's now getting nice enough that I can work outside on the back deck during the day. I just bring my laptop out, borrow the neighbors' wireless connection (it's not stealing if they know I'm doing it), and do my thing. That's not really economically or environmentally advantageous; I just like it. Another cost benefit of working at home is the absence of vending machines tempting me with their overpriced, overpackaged wares. If I get hungry, I can just raid our own pantry. Which is free. I would go even further, but since Trash usually works at home on Wednesdays as well, she insists that I flush the toilet every time I use it. I just hope she'll still be able to look our son in the eye when he's old enough to ask, "Mommy, what did you do to save the environment?" posted by M. Giant 8:31 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:
Working outside lets you save electricity and keep an eye on all that nature you're saving. It also promotes physical well-being since you have to walk back into the house for supplies. Unless you're working in the middle of a veggie garden, in which case you can just graze.
By
If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down.
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