Thursday, March 20, 2008

I have a mandolin, I play it all night long...

Last night Cary took the kids to a St. Joseph's Day table at our friends' house. Our friends had hired a band - two musicians in their eighties- to play at the party. According to Cary, Henry plopped down in front on the band with a huge grin on his face. The mandolin player came up and handed his instrument to Henry, who started to play it, and the guitarist did his best to play along.

This morning at breakfast I said, "Henry, Daddy said you really liked the band last night." He replied, "You got the story a little bit wrong, Mom. I played with the band."

I skipped out on the event because I've had a terrible cold. It turned out to be a wise choice because Lucy woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, and I was up with her off and on all night.

Should be playing "100,000 Fireflies" by The Magnetic Fields, but I am posting from the laptop and it's not in iTunes on this machine.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Boy next door makes pants

I'm really excited to have a Staff Favorite on the Venus website today. Check it here.

What's fun about this piece is that I have known Matt, half of Swrve, since I was in first grade when we were about the only kids living in the same apt. complex. We used to get together and play with Matchbox cars.


I remember that he could always make me laugh. Somehow it doesn't surprise me at all that he went on to start his own DIY clothing company. They were even featured in the NYT last year.

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Now playing: The Breeders - Bang On

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

What I learned on the streets

If you lock your keys in your car at your daughter's pre-school it will take AAA over an hour to arrive, but less than 45 seconds to unlock your car.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Client 9

I do not accept your apology, Gov. Spitzer. I voted for you.

If you haven't already heard, read what the NYT has to say here.

I will now resume my regular blog programming: I have a migraine, and I am searching the house for a three-dimensional rhombus and something that is "not a polygon" so that Henry can complete his homework.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Newer Dumb Things

1. I packed a sandwich for Cary in his lunch that contained two-week old deli turkey. This was in no way intentional -- and thankfully he did not get sick! I didn't even notice until I went to add the fresh turkey I had just purchased to the fridge that we actually had two packages from previous weeks that I had failed to throw out, and I had made his sandwich from the oldest one. Now, you might ask, "What if Cary made his own lunches?" The outcome would have, in all likelihood, been the same.

2. Last week I called the cable company and announced to them that I had failed to put a check in the envelope along with my payment coupon. OK, no problem. We did an e-check over the phone and I felt slightly silly until yesterday when the bill was returned to me. I had put the payment coupon in upside down and backwards, so the Postal Service couldn't read the address, BUT I had also included a check This lead me to panic and think that I had not sent the credit card company a check. After calling, hearing that we owed no money at this time I decided to do what I should have done in the first place -- scrutinize the check register. Actually I just skipped ahead and wrote down the number so it looked like a check was missing, but everything was fine all along. I'd like to point out that I also use Quicken to do all of the math for the bills, or we would never have a balanced check book.


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Now playing: LCD Soundsystem - Disco Infiltrator (Fk's Infiltrated Vocal)

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Jeff Tweedy's Migraines

The New York Times continues its valiant effort to offer up comments from more famous and interesting migraine sufferers. So considering migraines and music are two of my favorite non-kid topics, I would be remiss if I didn't link to what Jeff Tweedy has to say.

After reading it myself I have two comments. No one has ever offered me Vicodin for my headaches - as he says it worked no better than Imitrex. It completely amazes me that most of his headaches are now treatable with Advil. One thing I have learned by reading these accounts is that we migraineurs are a heterogeneous bunch. Also, I have had headaches two out of the last three days.

Obligatory Henry update: Things seem to be going better. Nowhere to go but up, right? The school psychologist, who appears to be competent and helpful, and somewhat contrite, has gotten involved working with his teacher more directly. We shall see. I am not going to pat anyone on the back just yet.

My favorite Wilco song: Jesus, etc. from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which preceded Tweedy's detox.

Interesting side note - it is now easier for me to post songs than to link to what I am listening to because I can no longer open iTunes without crashing the computer after installing our router and linking to TiVo. Ironically, I can listen to all my music through my TV.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Digging Out

A few good things have happened that have helped take my mind off of how upset I have been.

1. I realized that I may be willing to consider selling our house and moving to a different school district, or taking a menial job to fund a private school education for Henry, but I draw the line at home schooling him. That's kind of funny on some level.

2. At swimming Henry's teacher (and sometimes babysitter) was absent. He got put in a random group that included Lucy and about 8 other kids (too big!). He perceived this as a slight. He climbed out of the pool, found the buffoon in charge, explained the situation -- we could see a couple of tears while he was talking but there was no tantrum-- and got himself put in a new, smaller group. He had a fantastic lesson. Six months ago he never could have done that.

3. If anyone is curious about my first printed review in Venus you can read it here. They didn't put every single review up on the web from the last issue, but they chose mine. While this may be the tiniest indication of praise, I'm clinging to it.

4. I spent a good part of yesterday getting ready to work on what the school laughingly refers to as "a family project." We were supposed to create a time line of our child's life, which they claim somehow ties in with their Math curriculum. Hurray! My first idea was to do a version of Chutes and Ladders, but I rejected that because I can't draw very well and because I didn't think the school would appreciate how I placed a gigantic chute at the beginning of every school year. I settled on doing a clock because I could leave the "hours" from 7 on empty, and we could look to the future.

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Now playing: The Books - The Future, Wouldn't That Be Nice?