Category Archives: random tidbits

Random Tidbits

1. My normally awesome-sleeping daughter is currently up in her darkened, white-noised room yelling “I can’ SEEEP, Mama!” and “Jump! Jump-a-me!” and “Oh, sooooo nice” at random intervals, and has been doing so for the last, oh, twenty minutes or so. She’s not crying, just fussing, so I haven’t gotten her up … because holy CRAP will she be crab-tastic if she doesn’t have a nap. But I hope she gives in and goes to sleep soon.

2. I finally succumbed and joined Twitter.

3. This looks pretty damn yummy and awesome, though I admit the chest hair freaks me out a little.

4. WHY won’t Apple let you pre-order the iPhone? Why??!?!

5. Now she’s yelling “OPEY DOY! [open door] YAY! YAY! YAY! OPEY DOY, MAMA!” Is it possible that Target’s vanilla yogurt has caffeine in it? Or meth? Grrrrrrr.

6. I don’t understand how we can pay a premium for the extra-geeky-fast DSL, and it STILL hates me at certain times of day. I have *no* signal right now. WHAT UP, QWEST?

Is voicemail really dead?

Some people are saying that voicemail is dead, and we should all be emailing or texting instead. Not sure how I feel about this. I have family members who are ONLY accessible via text, and sometimes this is a pain in the ass, frankly. I have an ollllllllld cell phone (counting down to my new iPhone!!) and I HATE texting. I’m an old-school grammarian, y’all, and I just cannot make myself send messages to people without proper spelling and punctuation. On the other hand, texting is sometimes the most convenient option, and it certainly can be a pain in the ass to retrieve and listen to voicemail. And I know I’m much faster in responding to emails, myself.

On the third hand, sometimes tone and expression are important. Text and emails are notoriously difficult to contextualize – we’ve all had the experience where someone tries to crack a joke and it just comes across as hostile, for example. So I feel like voicemail should at least be an option, no? Am I hopelessly out of touch?

What do you think?

Questions for a Fourth of July Weekend

1. How is it that I only found out that H&M carries kid’s clothes, like, two days ago?!?! Fortunately I found out at the same time that they’re having one of their huge sales, so I STOCKED UP.

2. Why can I never think of anything more interesting to send my sister for her 4th-of-July birthday than a damn amazon.com gift certificate? I mean, besides the fact that I put it off until the last minute? HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MELLIE!

3. How much do you want a piece of the s’mores cheesecake I just made for the picnic I’m going to tomorrow? A frickin’ LOT, that’s how much. My whole house smells like creamy chocolate. Mmmmmm … creamy chocolate.

4. What is it about a french pedicure that I find so satisfying? Is it the chic style or the illusion of clean toenails? Either way, mama like.

5. Who should I be rooting for to win Wimbledon? The men’s game is easy: Roger Federer, all the way. But I can’t decide for the women’s game.

That’s it, kids. Have a happy 4th and don’t let the fireworks scare the toddlers or pets.

A story in pictures

Like many people, we have a birdfeeder in our yard. (Largely for the benefit of the cats and the Hatchling.)

Your average, nondescript birdfeeder

And, like most people with a birdfeeder, we have squirrels who like to partake:

Your average, common, rascally squirrel

This one, in particular, likes to get a little acrobatic in his seed-seeking endeavors:

An impressive commitment to food

But when I saw him do THIS I just about busted a gut:

What are you, a MONKEY-squirrel?

I mean, what IS that? And it’s not an anomaly: this little dude repeatedly spent entire minutes in this position, hanging upside down like a possum or monkey, nibbling on sunflower seeds all the while. Trust me to get the freak rodents in my yard.

Updates of a Hatchling and other random stuff

1. You know what’s nice? Having friends who invite you over for dinner and make pulled pork, macaroni salad, baked beans, and fruit, followed up by homemade blueberry pie, all of which is so good it’s probably illegal in several states. YUM. (Thanks, Eric and Scott!)

2. Funny Hatchling story: so we’re having brunch with the sibs this last Sunday, and the Hatchling is playing on her own in the living room while the rest of us gorge on bacon and pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. Mr. Squab, who is sitting where he can see the Hatchling, starts to chuckle. “What’s she doing?” I ask. “She’s pouring herself shots,” he says. We all turn around, and sure enough, she’s taken the cap from one of her bottles (which is shaped remarkably like a shot glass), set it on the coffee table, and is pouring out little tots of water from her water bottle into the “glass,” downing the shot like a seasoned pro, and then pouring herself another one. I swear to god, I don’t know where she gets it.

3. Toddler grammar is weird, and the Hatchling’s especially so. Like lots of little kids, she substitutes “me” for “I,” but she also tends to invert the usual subject-predicate order when she’s making requests or statements. “I want” comes out as “Want me”; instead of saying “I eat” or even “me eat” when she’s hungry, she says “Eat me.” (I know, I know.) There’s also “Up and down me” (when she wants to get down from the table or out of her crib), “Outside me,” “Book me” (when she wants you to read to her), or “Stuck me” (when she needs help getting out of or off of something). The emphasis is definitely on the “me,” and she adds in a little helping syllable between the predicate word and the “me,” so “I’m stuck” comes out sounding like “Stuck-a-ME” It’s the damndest thing I’ve ever heard, but she’s perfectly consistent about it and I guess it makes a weird kind of sense. I’m putting it down to her superfluity of Kraut blood. Stupid Prussians.

4. Mmmm … iPhones. The new ones look so very yummy. I think Mr. Squab and I will be getting some, as a combo Mother’s Day/Anniversary/Father’s Day present to ourselves.

5. And speaking of the anniversary: we went to a great Cuban restaurant for dinner where we ate delicious food and drank Red Stripe beer while sitting on the patio. We then went to see Indiana Jones 4, which – well, you know what I thought of that. You will be pleased to know that I did, in fact, wear underwear. As to whether or not I had to use my snakebite kit … a lady has to have SOME secrets, dammit.

6. Finally, and I can’t believe I almost forgot to blog this, today while running errands at Target someone mistook me for the Hatchling’s GRANDMOTHER. Admittedly, it was a grandmother herself doing the mistaking, so … maybe her eyesight wasn’t so good? And she felt terrible about it afterwards and kept apologizing and complimenting my hairdo (which is a total joke since I had literally not washed or combed my hair in two days), BUT STILL. Fuck. I either need to invest in some trendier clothing or start applying cover-up to my chronic under-eye bags or SOMETHING. Do I really look as tired as I feel? Y’all would tell me, right?

I don’t think I even want to know

So Mr. Squab and I are discussing the weekend plans, and I suggest that we ask BFF about watching the Hatchling on Saturday so Mr. Squab and I can go out somewhere to celebrate our anniversary (six years on Sunday!).

“It’s already taken care of,” Mr. Squab says smugly.

“Oh really?” I’m intrigued. “Is there anything I should prepare for?”

“Hmmm …” Mr. Squab thinks for a minute. “Don’t wear any underwear.”

I snort. “Uh-huh.”

“And bring a snake-bite kit.”

Fatigue and Funny

Holy Jeebus I’m tired. The Hatchling got up at 4:15 this morning and would not go back to bed. I’m beginning to question whether she’s actually my child. Except I know she really is, because a) stretchmarks, and b) she’s just waking up from a nearly 4 hour nap, in which I could not join because I had stupid adult crap to take care of while she refreshed herself. I hate adult crap.

In completely unrelated news, this is fucking awesome. (via eWAC)

Old Friends

This evening I had dinner with The Caffeinated Priest (a.k.a. Sarah), who is – literally – my oldest friend. By which I don’t mean that she herself is old (god forbid), but rather that we’ve known each other since we were in utero, which is about as early as you can get. We were born a mere two months apart, and she was my very bestest friend for the first decade of my life. We lived on opposite sides of town and went to different schools, but hardly a week went by that one of us wasn’t spending the weekend at the other’s house. For me, Sarah’s house was a wonderful oasis of sibling-free existence, where life was more exotic (shopping at health food stores! making our own yogurt! eating out at restaurants! OMG!) and we could spend hours playing make believe in the huge backyard or the upstairs attic suite. I remember choreographing dance routines to John Lennon songs, or watching as Sarah’s mom put on makeup before going out for the night. Sarah’s house had crazy modern art on the walls and she slept in a canopy bed – soooo glamorous. Sarah’s father worked for the Public TV station in Athens, and one year we got to ride the trolley from Mr. Roger’s neighborhood in the huge 4th of July parade in Atlanta. Sarah had that effortless self-confidence that some only children have, and I was happy to follow her lead in our many adventures. She was cooler than I was, and I knew it. When my Dad finished his PhD program and got a job in Minnesota, Sarah’s house was the last place we stopped by on our way out of town. We hugged and cried and she gave me a UGA t-shirt that I wore for nearly ten years, until it finally disintegrated in the wash. We kept in touch regularly for a few years after I’d moved. She called me when her parents split up; I called her a few years later when mine did. We kept track of each other sporadically through high school, and I saw her randomly on a summer trip with my parents during college, but we’d mostly lost touch my the time I graduated. Occasionally – and this might sound a little weird – I’d have dreams about her and her family, and I’d wake up and wonder what she was doing. I tried googling her a few times, but never came up with anything. Then, earlier this year, I got an email from her. Seems she’d been doing the same thing, and found my blog and my Flickr site and there it was – we were back in touch again. It’s probably my favorite thing about the internets, how I’ve made new friends and gotten back in touch with old ones, but this was something extra special. Sarah was at a conference in Minneapolis this week, so we arranged to get together for dinner. You can never be completely sure how it will be with someone you haven’t seen in nearly twenty years (and haven’t really seen in over twenty-five years) but something told me that we’d be ok, and lord! Were we ever! I’m sure Mr. Squab felt a little out of it with all the reminiscing, but I think Sarah and I could have kept talking into sometime next week without much of a pause. So much to catch up on! So many people to ask about! What was nicest of all, though, was to confirm that this person who was so incredibly important to my childhood is still someone that I really like, that I feel comfortable around and would choose to hang out with. We’re surely different people than we were as ten-year-olds, but we’ve both become pretty damn cool women, and I feel lucky to know my oldest friend once again. (And sorry mom, we forgot to take a picture!)

Whoa. Interacting.

This week, I am hosting: a playdate Monday morning, a brunch Tuesday morning, another playdate Wednesday morning, dinner with my oldest friend Wednesday evening, and a cookout at some point over the weekend. This is in addition to our regular ECFE class on Thursday morning, various errand running, and probably several impromptu trips to the park. Call me Butterfly. Social Butterfly.

In other news, in case you were wondering, periods SUCK. Thanks to the wondrousness of my IUD, I basically haven’t had one since before the Hatchling was born. Which was, how do I put this, TOTALLY FUCKING GREAT. But now the IUD is gone, and I’m on the rag, and christ I forgot how much of a pain in cooter it is. I’m not one of those three-day no-cramps blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of gals. More like seven days, massive cramps, emergency run to Walgreens for feminine products,* cursing my reproductive system raving bitch. So it’s fun for the whole family! I hope to hell it doesn’t take as long to get knocked up this time as it did last time, because I am OVER the menstruation.

Ehm … Happy Monday?

*Or, as Mr. Squab fondly refers to them, “your lady blood sponges.” Sorry, did I just overshare?

A series of brief, possibly trivial, announcements

1. (potential TMI warning) The IUD has been removed. Let the fertility rites commence. Operation Hatchling Siblification has been initiated.

2. Against the advice of people who probably know better, I cut my hair. SHORT. I figured two straight months of viscerally hating my hair every damn day was enough. It is gloriously carefree.

3. After 5+ years as a happy iPod owner, I *just* figured out that there is a sleep function on the damn thing. How did I not know this before?

4. Soy chai lattes are good.

That is all. You may now resume your normal weekend activities.