the poolroom

i'm a genus

2008-10-17T14:17:00.000-05:00

First day of school

2008-08-26T11:11:00.004-05:00

Oh my god. Wow. She's just getting to be such a big girl. There were no tears (though a little bit of the whine as we got her up this morning), just sweet hugs and kisses goodbye. We walked into the school and she saw a friend from her pre-k and they ran up to each other and started jumping around excitedly, then we went on to her classroom (because today's the only day we are allowed to take her all the way into the classroom) where she said hello Mrs. Carter to the wrong person. Mrs. Carter came in behind her and helped her put her backpack into her cubby, which she has to share with another student and frankly I don't see how two backpacks and lunch boxes are ever going to fit in there. Then she announced that she was going to the drawing table to "work on her letters." Oh. My. God. And that's exactly what she did.

So me and T end up just standing around, feeling abandoned, and yet very glad she's so excited to start school. We were out of there by 7:30am.

Course this is all pretty normal for Z. She's always excited about something new, and is eager to experience it. In a couple of weeks, she'll probably start exhibiting more clingy behavior at drop off, which T will have to deal with (poor guy, it's going to break his heart). It always takes a few weeks for reality to set in. In this case, I think reality will be, "wow, we have to do so much work!"

I'm really glad that she already knows and is friends with some of the kids in her class. She's good friends with two boys in particular, and will probably get into some trouble with at least one of them.

After writing down the letters A-F, she took the piece of paper and shoved it into the teacher's face. Wow. I hope Mrs. Carter can deal effectively with Z's enthusiasm. You know, I'm excited about her learning, and the free school, and that she's a healthy and happy, extremely well-adjusted kid. But I'm nervous about her behavior in school. Will she listen to the teacher (she has listening issues)? Will her enthusiasm and energy be hard to contain and get her in trouble? Will her daddy get her to school on time? Will she ever learn how to navigate that large building? Will the Stepping Stone school bus ever forget her?

Sheesh.

Update

2008-07-09T08:28:00.001-05:00

Whew, Zoey pulled the plug on Hannah Montana after about 10 minutes. "Mommy, I really don't like Hannah Montana, now."

I love my awesome kid!

Oh NOS!

2008-07-08T20:07:00.002-05:00

She's watching Hannah Montana! Even though before today she would always say, "oh, I HATE Hannah Montana." But today she says, "Well, maybe I'll try it..."

Hopefully, she'll say in a few minutes, "Okay, Mommy. I tried it, and you know what, it sucks."

In other news, she's finally putting her head under water when she swims. This is huge, as she's had a phobia about it since she was about 3 1/2 and went underwater during swim class, and then tried to breathe. It's been two years of coaxing her back into the big pool, but she finally did it. And of course, now that the light bulb has gone off (Oh, that's how you do it!), she finds that she loves it. I'm so proud. It's hard to get over a phobia.

2008-05-31T11:50:00.002-05:00

Just a couple of quick pictures of z's pre-k graduation ceremony. I'm on my way to Houston to play a show tonight at Rudyard's, and I wanted to get the pics up so I can write more about it when I get to my parent's house.

Oh, and if you're in Houston tonight, and looking for something to do, come on out to Rudyard's and say hello. Srsly.

As seen on TV

2008-05-13T13:28:00.003-05:00

Hey, been a long time. How are you? We are fine.

(Awkward moment of silence.)

So, Z has finally been drifting away from the toddler cartoons toward more advanced kid stuff. Her current favorites are "Growing Up Creepy," about a human girl who was adopted as a baby by a couple of bugs. She's a "little different, not everyday" as the opening song, which Z loves, goes. It's cute, and the little girl is real goth.

Another favorite is "Grossology," about a brother and sister team who work for the Department of Grossology. Yeah, they investigate gross stuff, like the one episode where they all got stuck in school for the weekend while a mad scientist uses the empty building to work on his giant external colon experiment. They defeat this...thing...by feeding it lots and lots of prunes. Oh, and the mad scientist uses tapeworms as weapons.

I don't mind the new shows all that much, as I've gotten really tired of Dora, but unfortunately they are on a channel that also shows a lot of commercials, and Z's been quite taken with a number of them. But not the ones you would suspect. She's not bugging me about all these toys she wants. No. The commercials she likes are infomercials. This kid suddenly knows the name Billy Mays, and keeps telling me that we need to buy things from him. I keep telling her that we shouldn't trust Billy Mays, as the stuff we see on TV commercials doesn't always work as well as they say.

Having said that, after taking a quick inventory of some of my stuff, I realize I do actually have a tub of Oxyclean. And frankly it works pretty well when you add it to a load of colors. But I get it at Target.

So now, she tells me that we really need to buy the "Awesome Auger," which "takes the hard work out of yard work" (scam report here), and the "Pancake Puff" maker (which supposedly can be quite tasty). Now, the Pancake Puff thingy isn't a Billy Mays product, but it is an infomercial. Why these sales shows are so interesting to a five year old is curious to me. I mean, sure, especially when we didn't have cable...or hell, who am I kidding, even now...they can be fascinating things to watch. And yes, sometimes I do want to buy, but you should almost never buy these things off the TV because the products are almost always extremely cheaply made, and the shipping and handling charges are outrageous. The Awesome Auger link above lists countless stories of idiot consumers, obviously tired of all the hard work from their yard work, were charged twice as much or more in shipping and handling charges as for the products.

People, Walgreens almost always has shelf space devoted to these products. Go there sometime if you really want to try something out. Also, Big Lots. They sometimes have lots of them.

And if I see a Pancake Puff maker, I just might buy it.

Milestone

2008-04-23T16:42:00.002-05:00

Today I registered my daughter for kindergarten. Gulp!

playing with the blog design

2008-03-13T01:29:00.002-05:00

but it's really late and I need to sleep. Not too happy with the header, so I'll prolly do it over.

party pictures post

2008-02-28T09:49:00.005-06:00

Zoey had her 5th birthday party last weekend, and she pronounced it "The Best Birthday Party Ever!" Which was great, because frankly, I didn't put a lot of planning into the production. I just had a vague idea of kids, house, chaos, pinata and cupcakes. And it was all of those things.

I kept it small, and really only invited my friends' kids, but they're all kids she knows and plays with. My friend Kelly came up from Houston with her two girls, whom Z has known since their birth. And then there were my Austin friends: Janet and her family (literally my oldest friend--we met freshman year of high school and were briefly roommates when I lived in Austin for a year, oh, over 20 years ago); our neighbors from down the street; Z's best friend from her old school; and her new best friend from her new school; and Trey's business partner's family. See? just a small party.

Oh, and my parent's came up. They'd been meaning to come up to visit ever since my sister moved her for her new job. She's been staying with us, but just yesterday filled out an app for a new apartment in a great central location. Though I have to say, it's been fun having her live with us.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, the party. It was fun, for the adults as well as the kids. I mean, the kids just ran around the house, playing with anything they could find (including the Wii, which kept the older kids and some of the adults entertained). Kids always find something to do. I was happy to talk with the very cool collection of adults--it almost made me feel like I have something of a social circle here in Austin. Plus, the adults seemed to enjoy each other as well, even though most of them didn't know the others. I think there might have been a fair amount of, "who's your kid?"

In addition to the slightly scary-looking Dora pinata, I got the kids to play "Press the tail on the donkey," a game I found at Party City for $2. They enjoyed playing, but it was a challenge keeping them all from peeking. We had a couple of disqualifications...

The pinata was also a big hit. Kids love hitting pinatas. Did I mention she was a little scary looking? I find the idea of pinatas somewhat odd--I mean, you buy one in that resembles one of your child's favorite characters, and then they get to beat it to death. What fun! The kids did manage to destroy her, but somehow the candy ended up all in her head, so when the last kid took a solid swing at her midsection, and ripped her apart...no candy. Many confused faces all around. No matter. Mommy to the rescue. Besides, I was aching to get my hands on that stick and give her at least one good whack. It took two to the head, actually, good solid swings that reminded me of my softball days. And of course, I reveled in it, but I let the kids get most of the candy.

And I made cupcakes (ahem, my mom made cupcakes) and let them decorate it themselves, which went over extremely well. The kids really loved icing and then covering their cupcakes with an assortment of sprinkles and whatnot. One creative kid even grabbed some Nerds candy from his pinata bag and put them on top of the cupcake! That's a little thinking-outside-the-box--not bad for a 6yo. And yes, there were many, many sprinkles on the floor and table-top--big piles of them, but that's why I put a plastic tablecloth on the table. Clean up was surprisingly easy.

In any case, I have to be honest and say I didn't really take that many pictures. My friend Janet grabbed the camera to take some pictures of the gift opening (thanks!), but other than that, I pretty much just kept to keeping the party running as smoothly as possible.

I do, however, have a number of pictures to put up on the Smugmug account, though I didn't take them. My Chicago friends, Kilian and Tricia, sent Z a kid digital camera. And while Z was far too busy being the belle of the ball that day, her friend Olivia just went nuts and took about a hundred pictures. Even though the quality of the pictures is substandard, I have to say many of these pics are interesting in their own, low-rez, out-of-focus way. She really got some artistic shots, and I just have to share some of them with you.

new sad like crazy site design

2008-02-04T15:15:00.000-06:00

I redesigned the slc site this weekend. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Sad Like Crazy reunion show!

2008-01-03T09:40:00.000-06:00

Hey guys, especially Houston people, sad like crazy is playing a reunion show this Saturday at The Proletariat in Houston. Not sure what time we're going to go on yet, but if it helps to get you out, the show is free, and, um, so are the drinks. It's actually their "Holiday Party", as well as a celebration of Bill's birthday (he helped Denise start the club).

The show actually came together rather quickly. We decided to start playing again together, to get us out of the creative quagmire we'd been stuck in lately. And since Thane had also moved to Austin, it was more of a "why not?" kind of thing. We found a drummer on Craigslist who seems to be working out swell, and started trying him out with the old songs. The idea is to eventually have a number of new songs, but you know, it was easier to just let him listen to the CDs and see if he was into it and could pick up the songs. In any case, after The Proletariat found out we were going to start playing again, they offered us the show (sudden cancellation left an opening) and we took it. It's a great opportunity to get a show in before they tear down the place (sad sad sad). Plus, Denise has always been a great supporter of ours.

We do intend to get some shows in Austin in the near future, and to write some new songs. It's a very exciting and energizing thing for me and Trey. We need music. You know we do.

Oh, and can anyone get me Piam's number? We don't have it anymore and we'd love to see him.

Happy Holidays!

2008-01-01T11:34:00.000-06:00

I hope you and yours had a nice Christmas and New Year. We've been doing okay at the Pool Room...just okay. Zoey's been great, healthy, got over a cold, got lots of presents and was really excited about Santa coming to our house this year. Christmas Eve seemed to start off well for me and T, as Z had fallen asleep at 8 pm on the couch. We thought maybe we'd have a nice evening together either watching a movie or playing the Wii (our big Xmas gift to ourselves). But no, an hour later, Miss Z woke up and started talking about how Santa was going to come to our house, and how she was really looking forward to saying hello to him. I had to explain that Santa didn't come to houses if the kids were awake--only if they were sleeping. "He knows when you're sleeping, and he knows if you're awake. You can't pretend." This would settle in, for about 15 minutes, after which she would again announce that she was going to "stay up all night and wait for Santa Claus." It was a vicious cycle, made worse because she had essentially taken an hour-long nap at 8.

We finally got her back to sleep, around midnight. I had told her that Santa had already ridden past our house and didn't come in because he knew she was awake; and that he would probably come by one more time, but that was it. After all, he's a very busy man on Christmas Eve. Luckily for all of us, she did finally go back to sleep, and I got to put her presents under the tree. We'd only gotten her one big toy for Christmas (and a number of smaller ones), because we'd spent all our money on the Wii, but it was a Princess Storybook dollhouse I knew she wanted.

And of course, she woke up at the crack of dawn in the morning talking about Mr. Claus. I was upstairs and awake at the crack of dawn too, though not in anticipation. I was in pain from the toothache, and unable to sleep without taking more pain pills. So I had gotten up even earlier and groped my way to the medicine cabinet for some Advil. I took two, and then thought, no, I need more than that. So I took another one. Then I thought about my empty stomach, and thought to myself, "Bad idea." And it was. Children, don't take large doses of Advil on an empty stomach, because it won't stay there. Trust me. You can hopefully imagine how I spent the early part of the morning. Fortunately, I was able to eat soon after (a dry tortilla...yum!), and I think enough of the medicine had gotten inside me to subside the pain to make the morning tolerable by the time Z woke up. Because she had a blast. "This is the best Christmas Ever!" she exclaimed a number of times. And since she can't really read yet, she gave Santa credit for all the gifts under the tree. Actually, if she'd had the patience to look at the labels, she would have been able to tell who the gifts were actually from, but no, at her age, it's just a wonderland of wrapping paper.

The best part was when she opened the Princess dollhouse and said, "Wow! It's just what I wanted! How did Santa know?" How indeed, little one.

I know you're not supposed to lie to your kids, but lying about Santa was just so much fun this year. And hopefully for a few years yet, because he's such a helpful little story. We got her to behave using naughty/nice threats a number of times--it's really effective now. At least in December. I guess we need to come up with another lie to get her to behave the rest of the year. I don't know, maybe Satan, hell, and eternal damnation.

The rest of the day was a blur for me. We drove to Galveston, where Z got more toys (and play makeup! oh god--do not want. but of course, Z loves it). After a few hours there, we drove to Houston for yet another christmas. The whole time, my jaw throbbed with nerve numbness and I was in a vicious pain pill vs. pain cycle--It was a lovely and only slightly effective combination of high doses of advil teamed with old, expired vicodan. Yum. So we decided to give my old H-town dentist a call to see if he was open and could fit me in. Turns out, by 10am I was sitting in a dentist chair, and by 10:30 the doc had started in on my emergency root canal.

Can I just say, root canals are not fun. Sure, you're numbed to high heaven and your mouth doesn't feel the endless drilling and digging, but the smell is sickening, and after about two hours your jaw is so exhausted of being pried open. After she finished, it was difficult to even close my mouth. But whatever, the pain would go away, right? Wrong. It lasted for another 5 days. It wasn't worse, but it wasn't better. So we decided to let me stay at my parents house and recuperate while T went back to Austin. This worked pretty well for me and Z, as she had lots of people to pay attention and play with her, and I got to veg out on the couch and rub my sore jaw. I think I left the house maybe two times: once to go to Target to buy a few more shirts (we'd only packed for one day away), and once to go to the Proletariat to see Thane's other band play. Otherwise, I just sat around and watched TV, and even read a whole book. Which isn't too bad, really. Except for the pain, that sucked.

Here is the Christmas card you would have received

2007-12-24T19:56:00.000-06:00

If I had gotten around to sending them. It feels like this month has just zoomed by, and I'm constantly playing catch up to the days. One might imagine that I've been super busy, but I really haven't. I just let the time sneak up on me while I was staring blindly at something else.

So, here it is, Christmas Eve, and we have presents that I just wrapped sitting under the tree. Presents I bought last week. It would be nice to say we're having a mellow Christmas eve together sitting in front of a fire, but frankly I have such a tremendous toothache nothing is mellow tonight. I'm loopy on pain pills, and grateful for it. It's better than the dull jaw ache. icky.

In any case, I just wanted to wish my precious little readership a very, Merry Christmas. I hope you all have a good one, and a happy one, and get to spend some time with the people you love. I love a lot of you out there, and please know that I'm thinking of you. Merry merry every body!

2007-11-30T10:47:00.000-06:00

Trey and I watched “Transformers” last night. He was a bit surprised I’d gotten it from Netflix, but hey, I’d heard it was good from some people. Well, from some random younger people on the HandsUp Houston board. And every now and again one needs just some fun movie where a lot of sh** gets blown up amid stupid dialogue. It is, after all, a Michael Bay movie. And he really knows how to blow up stuff with cool camera angles catching the well-lit results.

It was a very stupid movie—and I’ll admit to being way too old (as were my siblings) to have ever played with those toys. There were plenty of shots that were perfunctionarily cheesy. (That’s a made up word, according to Microsoft. Perfunctory is the proper word.) Shot’s like close-ups of the hero and (totally unnecessary) heroine with golden light shining on their faces while sh** blows up in the background. (Why their faces were lit up when the light from the explosions is behind them is a question best-left unasked. Because the answer is: It’s a Michael Bay movie!) Or another random shot, again amidst lots of sh** being blown up, of their hands reaching for each other for a gentle caress (also with that golden-rosy light of first young love).

And the dialogue was gloriously silly at times. I mean, only in Hollywood do people have the wherewithal to come up with such catchy slogans in the middle of running for their lives. I haven’t done much running for my life while being chased by alien robots (except in my dreams, where it’s happened more than I’d like), but if it were happening to me, I just don’t think I could come up with much of anything to say, except maybe, “AHHHHHH!”, “Oh my god!”, and “Somebody help me!” Well, actually, that was self-edited, as there would likely be a fair amount of unprintable words that I really try not to use very often (little ears are listening).

My favorite line: “I bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?”

And the transformers themselves, at least the good ones—the Autobots, which they were called even though they likely didn’t need automobiles in their native planet, and seemed to randomly choose cars as their personal transformable vehicles—each had distinct personalities that seemed to be based on generic human stereotypes. Then again, maybe that name wasn’t meant to be associated with cars...but hey, they were named by some random toy marketing genius in the eighties, so it probably was.
(Internal voice: “It’s a Michael Bay movie based on toys! Do not expect realism! Stupid, Gah!”)

Okay, so “Transformers” is basically a movie created for young boys in 4th or 5th grade, with dialogue to match, and so much product placement if you tried to play the product placement drinking game, you’d be pitch drunk before the movie was a third over. Unless you’re me, and you don’t drink, in which case you’d be drunk 10 minutes in and have to stop the movie to go vomit (so you could keep watching the movie). Even so, it was a little bit fun, but definitely not recommended for kids under 6, unless they really like cars and trucks and have the maturity to realize it’s all fake and daddy’s truck is not ever going to suddenly rise up and start walking. Because it’s not. Daddy’s truck is just a truck. And the Transformers are just toys that are probably covered in lead paint and have parts that can break off and choke someone.

On an unrelated note: Thanks so much for the virtual hugs from the last post. It was very much appreciated.

Bean kitty--RIP

2007-11-24T11:33:00.000-06:00

Our little Bean kitty just passed away. We came home and found her lethargic and cold; turns out her body was in shock. Something inside her just started shutting down and we had to have her euthanized. It was either that or they could run a bunch of tests and still probably wouldn't be able to save her. So we didn't run the tests, and don't really know why she died. But I could tell she was very, very sick.

This just sucks. My eyes are red and swollen from all the crying, and I'm going to cry even more when I have to explain to Zoey why her "sister" Bean is gone.

My sweet little black Bean. In Houston, we loved to watch her climb the walls in the old music room. She'd go nuts chasing the red light from the laser pointer and follow up right up the carpeted wall to the ceiling. She would do flips jumping after that little fishing rod toy (we called her the jumping Bean). She loved to play fetch with little crumpled up bits of paper. And when it was cold, she would cuddle up on the bed with us, even if Zoey was in the bed, too. I loved that little kitteh.

2007-11-20T11:04:00.000-06:00

Last night I finally watched an old Orson Welles film noir flick that I'd been curious about for years. It's called "Touch of Evil," and I wanted to see it as it had been featured in the film noir section of "Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography," which is a fantastic video I used in my old Media Lit class. It included a scene of a a fat, crazed Welles, jowls shaking in the blinking light, attacking some unnamed villain. The Noir was striking, with the sparse hotel room full of dark corners, lit intermittently by some outside blinking light source coming through half-opened blinds.

Well, it took me two tries before I got through this film, and after staying awake the second time, I'll report that it's a pretty good film. Except Welles isn't the hero, which is one of the good things about this film--Welles plays the baddie with his typical scene chewing presence. The hero is a character named Vargas, a Mexican cop. See, the hero is the reason I had trouble watching the movie the first time around, because he's played by Charlton Heston. In makeup.

Even writing that sentence gives me the creeps.

No prying a gun
from Heston's dark-skinned hero
no accent either

This morning Zoey woke up humming the Toreador song from Carmen. Her love for the Little Einsteins often introduces her to snippets of some of the more famous classical music pieces, and on the one hand it's wonderful to hear her embrace these works. On the other hand, she really watches too much TV. But then, so did I, only at her age there weren't nearly as many choices--and they weren't all paired with massive marketing machines pushing plastic, lead-covered toys. In any case, I happily started singing along (who doesn't love the music from Carmen?). Only instead of the words to the actual song (which I honestly don't really know aside from "Toreador, en guarde"), I sang this:

"Do not forget, stay out of debt.
Think twice, and take this good advice from me,
Neither a lender nor borrower be.

And there's just one more thing,
I say to you,
To thine own self be true."

Whoever guesses where that's from will win a prize.

Okay, no prize. Just an electronic gold star.

2007-11-16T09:58:00.000-06:00

Last night I watched "Who Killed the Electric Car," and it made me really sad to see all those perfectly good cars destroyed (oh wait, did I just ruin the ending for you?). One of the things that struck me was that I had never heard of these cars before. The only all electric cars I'd ever known about where those boxy, futuristic-looking, microscopic concept cars that I'd see a photograph of from time to time on news sites. They all looked completely unrealistic, and frankly, ugly.

But according to this doc, there were stylish plug-in electric cars available for lease in California during the latter half of the nineties, up until 2004, when the last electric car was forcibly ripped from it's proud and happy leasee's hands. The GM EV1 was a sleek 2-seater coupe, admittedly not family friendly at all. But they had Rav4 EVs! and truck EVs! And gas costs $3 a gallon here now!

I'm not one to really bother with conspiracy theories (not because I don't think they exist, I just don't care to waste mental energy on them), but this doc made me think about corporate control of our lives, and how they really don't have our best intrests at heart. Which, of course, is something we all already know. And we just pretty much accept it, don't we?

2007-11-05T12:03:00.001-06:00

Don't freak out, but I've got a new post.

Okay, a few of you are freaking out. I'll wait a sec until you calm down.

That's better. All apologies for the lack of Pool family info, but there's really not been much going on to report about. And I've been extremely lax taking pictures, so I haven't put any of those up lately either. I promise to do better. But I make no guarantees.

We're all doing fine, though (thanks for asking!). I saw some of you very recently at Tricia's baby shower and the Axiom Reunion show (lots of cool baby gifts, Tricia is a gorgeous pregnant lady, deSchmog slayed with enthusiasm and timeless cool). It was especially nice to finally meet Bethany's two cutie pies--I even got to hold baby Ruby for a time. Zoey had a blast playing with Susan's Evan (who has the most to-die-for hair in the world) at the baby shower. And for those of you who didn't get to see the personal little book Bethany made for the baby, I think I can find a link online and direct you there at some point in the near future. (Or maybe not, I need to find out from BB.)

I've been oddly busy, for an unemployed SAHM, as I've transitioned to a WAHM creating Web sites for some small businesses. Mostly dent companies, of course, but I did get a non-dent company client recently. I hope to put some links up here in the future for you guys to go check out my work, but what I really need to do is buy a domain name and set up my own site for potential customers. Still, it's been fun, all this learning the jobs entail, as there's nothing I love more than learning new technology. Except maybe problem-solving, but then, the two tend to go hand in hand.

And I finally got around to taking some more pictures, and going through some of the pictures I took over the year that I never got around to posting, so there's a couple of new galleries on my smugmug site. As a teaser, I'm dumping a number of pictures below.

Oh, and I promise to try and update more often (Wednesday, I'm calling you out!).

Zoey and her cousin Myles freaking out for the camera.

Obligatory pumpkin shot.

"Give me some candy!"

"Boyfriends"

2007-08-03T12:34:00.000-05:00

Z's just discovered the word, and so now has a few. No, it's not her best friend Aidan, nor the adorable, tow-headed Sam, who would love to be considered as such. He's the cutie who, just about everyday upon Z's arrival at school, runs up to her with a huge grin on his excited face. "Zoey are you my, my, my friend today?" he asks.

"No," she replies. But then eventually relents and runs off to play with him.

The other morning, I dropped her off at the school playground; Sam runs up with his usual expectant face, looks up at her and again asks his question. Again, she replies, "No." Sam turns around, sits down at the edge of the deck, and buries his face in his hands. He is despondent. He looks around at her again (there are no tears) when he hears me chastise her for being mean to him.

"She'll play with you in a little bit, Sam," I tell him.

"No, I won't," Zoey says.

Sam then falls down onto the deck, almost writhing in, I think, feigned agony. Still no tears, just drama. It's too cute, so I have to share this with their teacher. She comes over and comforts Sam, telling her also that she'll play with him, she's just not ready yet. And she's not, but about 10 seconds later she hands him a leaf, he takes it, and they run off together.

But he is not her boyfriend. No, her boyfriend is Tyrone. He's a moose, a cartoon moose from "The Backyardigans." Oh, and also Austen, a kangaroo. She'll tell anyone that they are her boyfriends, including the sacker at HEB. She had asked him if the cashier was his girlfriend, to which he snorted, laughed and said, "no, she's just my friend."

I'm still wondering where she picked up this boyfriend business.

2007-07-02T11:19:00.001-05:00

Not much to update these days. We're still settling in, quite nicely thank you. There's still nothing on the walls but some curtains, including some half-hung curtains in the bedroom. And by half-hung, I mean, one curtain up, holes in the walls by the other windows. I've given up on painting the bedroom anytime soon, due to time constraints and the fact that T doesn't want me to right now (smell issues). Oh well.

Z has almost finished her second round of swimming class. She gets braver every day. I regret not working with her more seriously when she was smaller, but I never thought nerve would be in issue with her. She's usually pretty fearless, and when we lived in the apartment we'd go swimming all the time. She's wear the orange arm floaties and go all around the pool, sometimes accidentally dunking herself under water with no problem whatsoever. All that changed last summer, when during her first swim class session the teachers had her go underwater. Something happened, water aspiration I suspect, and since then my fearless little girl has been quite timid--sticking to stairs and baby pools.

This year, I bought her a nifty Dora kickboard and a pink noodle and she'd been using it in the baby pool to quite successfully kick around the water. But even at swim class they've been having to encourage her to move away from the steps (well, at the school pool, step). Even though that meant only going into two-feet deep water, she rarely moved away from the step. They'd say, "Zoey, do you want to use the milk jugs? (these help them float)"

"No thank you," she'd say, and keep to her kick board.

"Zoey, you want to jump into the pool? I'll catch you."

"No thank you." She can be very polite sometimes.

It's been frustrating, especially watching all of her peers starting to swim underwater. But she loves going swimming. She loves going to the pool, and we have a nice one in the neighborhood that's rarely crowded. She's already got a savage tan, even though I slather her with sun block. Still, it took her several weeks before she would even go down the little frog tongue slide into the baby pool. She's tall enough so that she wouldn't even have to go underwater. She was just that concerned with the possibility that she refused to go down the slide. Even after she braved the mini-water slide at our friends YMCA (which only went into about three inches of water, and which she absolutely loved once I coaxed her down). And when she did go down the slide, well, it was slowly, little hands gripping the sides to control her speed, and with just a little dip into the water.

Even more odd, she tells everyone that she's a "very good swimmer," and that she can swim underwater. I think she really believes it. Maybe she's starting to practice The Secret.

Anyway, the point of this blather is to brag. Yesterday she finally, under her own initiative, went with me into the big pool. The deep pool. And she let me carry her all around while she pretended to swim. Sure, there was much neck-choking and tight-gripping of me, but overall she did fantastic. We floated with the noodle, she let me grab her sides while she practiced her swimming arms. She sort of jumped into the water from the side of the pool. And (drum roll please), she put her head underwater. Twice. Sigh, I'm so proud.

The lesson from this story, which I give to all my friends with younger children, is to teach your kids to go underwater early. Use the old blow-air-into-their-face-to-get-them-to-hold-their-breath trick so that they're prepared and unafraid. It's much, much easier to introduce these things to them when they are smaller.

2007-06-18T18:38:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday Z and I took a little trip to the south si-eede to the Sunset Valley Farmer's Market and oh, it was so nice. We came home after about an hour with plastic baggies full of fresh fruit (blackberries and plums) and little tomatoes. The tomatoes are so plump and juicy that Z has almost eaten all of them--she's popping them in her mouth like candy. The plums were only purchased after tasting one, they too were too sweet and smackalicious to ignore: skin tasty and sour, flesh dark maroon and dripping. We got a whole bunch for only $2.50. The tomatoes were only $3.00; and the blackberries were $4.00 a container. Unfortunately, we should have also tasted the blackberries, because they're really too sour to enjoy. I smothered a bunch with yogurt this morning and they went down fine, but otherwise they really pucker the lips. Live and learn.

It was all so lovely, I think we'll make the farmer's market a regular activity. I just wish they had one further north.

2007-06-09T13:09:00.001-05:00

About two weeks ago, my dad was in town and bought Z a life-size mylar Dora Balloon who's been hanging around the house ever since. Of course, as balloons do, she's been slowly leaking air (er, I mean, Helium), and though she used to soar to the top of the 20-foot ceiling in our dining room, she now just floats at about Zoey eye level. Which means, her feet touch the floor, but her head still has enough helium to keep her upright. This is weird, kids. I mean, I turn around and think, oh! Who's that? It's like we have a silent, skinny, giant-headed ghost hanging out in the house. She'll slowly float upstairs, or hang out by the window, looking like a little person. Don't let the picture (and your regular knowledge of normal balloon behavior) fool you--Zoey is not holding Dora down.

Last week, when she was still in the 7-8 foot float range (I'm talking about Dora), Zoey developed a cute little game. I was finishing up my shower, when I heard her say outside the bathroom door, "Dora, ya wanna fly?" Then, (crinkle crinkle), "Okay, FLY!" Silence.

Then I hear this strange sound, ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk, "Mommy look (giggle guffaw)! Dora's flying!"

I wander into our bedroom and find Dora, flying. Kind of. Instead of describing it to you, I will use the animated gif format:

Z's current favorite song

2007-06-05T15:31:00.000-05:00

"Spiderman Theme Song" performed by the Ramones. We have to listen to it over and over and over again. "Only one more time," I say, one more time, and she always agrees, and then says, "Only one more time," as a way of asking to hear it again.

I finally tell her that we have to listen to all the songs on this particular compilation CD and Spiderman will come on again in time. Which she's eventually cool with, but then a few songs later, she'll ask for Spiderman again.

Or the Jackson 5's "ABC" will come on and we'll have the following conversation:

"That's a girl, right?"

"No, that's a boy singing."

"No it's a girl."

"No it's not a girl."

"yes it is"

"No, it's not. It's a really young boy singing, so it just sounds like a girl."

"What's his name?"

"Michael Jackson."

"Michael's a boy's name."

"Yes. He's singing."

"But which one's the girl?"

"None of them are girls. It's a band of brothers."

This actually goes on for quite some time, until I decide to just give in to her headstrong insistence that there is, somewhere, a girl singing in this song. I give in because she starts to whine and pout, apparently seriously disappointed that there is not a girl singing this song. And I acknowledge and accept the fact that to a 4-year-old, facts are pliable, bendable to their will. Why not? Soon enough they will find out otherwise--I'm in no hurry and neither is she.

She did, at one point, ask further about this Michael Jackson character. Aaawkwaard! I told her he'd grown up and moved to Dubai, and became a very, very strange man. She didn't seem to care. But you know, that song really rocks. A lot of his songs are great, catchy songs, and it's easy to see why a kid would gravitate toward them. I would have no problem with her loving to dance to, say, "Off the Wall," or any one of the Jackson 5 collections. But geez, what do you do about the inevitable questions?

Oh, and when I do get around to gardening...

2007-05-31T09:01:00.000-05:00

I'm going to use this guy's fertilizer! Not only because its all natural, organic fertilizer (made from worm poop!) packaged in recycled plastic soda bottles(!), but because I'm a sucker for the little business guy trying to "think outside the box" and come up with something creative. Seems like the big corporations just can't stand it when someone tries to come up with an innovative way to do business, or with a truly innovative product. Or rather, they can't stand that they didn't come up with it.

In this case, Scott's, maker of Miracle Gro, is suing the 25-year-old founder of Terracycles for copyright infringement. They are claiming that consumers will get confused and accidently buy Terracycles instead of Miracle Gro because the packaging is too similar. You see, Terracycles is also packaged with a green and yellow motif, and has a picture of blooming flowers. After hearing about this product, I decided to support the little guy and bought some of his fertilizer at my local Home Depot. And it did take me a moment to locate the fertilizer amongst the many varieties of fertilizer and other products on the shelves at HD, as I had to really look at the labels to find the Terracylces among the dozens of products with blooming flowers on the front of the packaging, many also in green and yellow. Oh, and there's a lot more Miracle Gro product on the shelves.

But I found it, and bought a bottle of spray on fertilizer for me, and one for my mom (who knew nothing of the lawsuit but was quite taken by the use of recycled soda bottles for packaging). It's not much, but hey, cute 25-year-old entreprenuer guy who's getting sued by Scott's, here's $6 for your cause. Not only do I support your cause, but I'm never going to buy Miracle Gro again (even their new organic brand!)

2007-05-26T14:16:00.000-05:00

In keeping with the pretty flower theme from the previous post, today's post will ruminate on the type of gardening I would like to do in my yard. We'll call it "Dream Gardening" or "Future Gardening Plans." First thing I want to do is get some containers going for the patio. While it is a covered patio, there should be enough sunlight hitting the edges between the houses to sustain some healthy plants. I'm thinking rectangular planters with herbs and flowers. Well, right now, maybe just flowers, as it's a little late to be starting any herbs.

Another backyard project that I don't want to wait too long to do is to is trim back all the freakishly overgrown trees back here. At one point, the previous owner planted a number of small trees; the next door neighbor says she had intended for them to be hedges. Only the resident after her didn't keep up with them and we have massively overgrown trees with branches strangling each other left and right. A lot of the trees have branches brushing up against the house as well (they were causing roof damage, but the roofers trimmed back some of those). Not to mention, the overgrown trees are blocking my view of the backyard.

We also have this lovely area in front of the stone wall, currently occupied by some flimsy, skinny trees. I think most of these trees will eventually be removed--especially the two that are falling down. I'd like to expose the wall a bit more so that I can use it aesthetically somehow.

The vivid oleander bush will stay, but in the fall I'm going to cut it way back so that I can use the existing planter space in front of it. This is a prime area that gets good sun, so I'm actually thinking vegetables here. Not sure which, but man, I really want to start a vegetable garden. Especially now that grocery prices seem to go up every week. Of course, as the only real vegetable eater in this family, I'm gonna have to get very creative with my cooking. I mean, Z eats veggies, but not as much as she used to--she now has to kind of be "in the mood." It sucks.

These trees here grow way too close to the side of the house and need to be cut back by the wall.

So, anyway, container gardens and tree trimming--my first year plans for my backyard. That, and ruminating on what to do next year...

Backyard surprise

2007-05-17T22:11:00.001-05:00

I have a passion flower vine hiding in the bushes. It's actually an escapee from my neighbor's yard, but who cares? It's everywhere. I've only seen a couple of flowers, and a couple more buds, but I'm hopeful for a nice little flowering vine in the near future. It's a gorgeous flower, almost alien-like with its tendrils, and it smells divine. Yea neighbors that garden!

I did finally meet the nice lady next door. She's lived in the hood for 15 years, and seen lots of people come and go, mostly due to "divorce," spoken with eyeroll. Really, I think she's mostly noticed yards, as she's an avid gardener. Her backyard is nicely landscaped, with a cute little pool and a fountain that has a resident turtle. She's working on a butterfly bush that she's training to run up the fence between our yards, which, if successful, will be quite the beautiful barrier.

Of course, the reason I finally introduced myself was because she'd stealthily mowed my front yard. I thought that was a little weird. I mean, it was a little long, but I'm pretty sure the nice high school boy next door (the other next door) was planning on mowing it this weekend for me. Did she already think us slackers? How could she tell? Hell, I don't even own a lawn mower--I was so happy to have the high schooler come over and offer. The plan actually had been to buy a mower (it's still in the long-range plans) and start to do my own lawn, but hey, if a 15-year-old boy wants to do it for me for $20, I'm going to let him. Besides, he could use the money (probably on dope, but hey, he's 15...)(Not that I suspect my nice new neighbor boy of being a pothead; it's more like I suspect all high school boys to be potheads. I was a high school teacher, after all.) (sometimes I go a little crazy with the parentheses.)

Anyway, while I'm not 100% sure she didn't mow my lawn because she thought it looked like crap, I don't really care. The lawn looks much nicer. The backyard still looks like crap, but I'll let the 15yo have that one.

Speaking of backyard, here's a picture of part of mine:

The oleander bush in the back corner is out of control, but I'm probably just going to let it flower all summer before I cut it back. In fact, the whole gardening thing will probably have to really wait a year before I can attend to it. But I am very excited about the potential of the yard. It's a good size, though not the typical giant-size of many Austin backyards. It's defining feature is the large, white masonry sound wall that blocks some of the noise from McNeil. Surely one can do something really special with that, I'm just not sure what. Right now, there are a line of flimsy trees in front of the wall--seriously, one is actually only propped up with a piece of wood. Another is at a 45 degree angle. It's stupid. I need to attack the trees with a pruning bush (the neighbor mentioned this as well, as some of the trees are rubbing against the fence). Of course, I know squat about pruning, but arborists can be pretty expensive, so I'll probably go the instant internet expert route. And good luck to me when I do.

Oh, one more thing: Tricia requested more pictures of the my kitchen to accompany my last entry, so I'm going to add them to the previous entry in the appropriate places. Why not?

I see floor!

2007-05-09T23:33:00.000-05:00

We are settling in, even though there are still many boxes full of CRAP! surrounding us. Really, so much freaking CRAP!, I don't even know what all of it is. I had a couple of boxes of kitchen stuff that I'd not bothered to unpack for a couple of years and found a few things I'd totally forgotten about. Like the fancy silver serving platter. For all those fancy dinners I host. It was still in the box, a 7-year-old wedding gift. (My apologies if you gave it to me.)

In any case, I've actually run out of storage space in the kitchen. The kitchen is big, but it's mostly empty square floor space. There really isn't much counter space, and actually one counter seems to have gone missing. There's a wall cabinet, hanging over nothing. Surely there was something there at one time, no? No matter, I'll just have to buy something, or find something, preferably something with drawers, because I'd like more drawers. There are only two decent sized drawers in the kitchen, and two skinny drawers that hover over their matching skinny cabinets. Really, what are you supposed to put in these 8" wide things? Right now i have linens and CRAP!.
(Seriously, dish towels and a plastic bag full of empty, unmarked spice jars.) There's another 8" drawer over an 8" door that opens into a bigger cabinet, but since the opening is so thin, I only have thin things in there. Like my narrow blenders, and that espresso machine that I've used maybe 30 times in 8 years.

WTF were the builders thinking? Were they laughing when they installed the cabinets? I think they were.

So, some day, when I have money, I'll find something to go under the wall cabinet, and I'd also like to get some kind of kitchen cart/island on casters, to get more counter space. I'll need at least one largish space to roll out the dough for all those homemade pies I make. Mmmm pie.

Just kidding, I've only made two homemade pies, and they had graham cracker crusts.

Kitchen bitchen aside, I really love this house. It's got a great, wide open and welcoming vibe to it. I love the cavernous living/dining area with it's pretty wood floors (even though there are still way too many boxes in it). I love the master bedroom and even the craptastically huge master bathroom with the ugly wallpaper. And I really love the upstairs gameroom/office, where I spend much of my time working on the computer in front of windows that overlook nothing but tree branches and the neighbor's roof, and nothing looks back at me except sky and eaves.

house before/after

2007-05-06T18:39:00.000-05:00

Wow! Look at all that room for the boxes!

New Pool House

2007-05-02T21:13:00.000-05:00

My first thought upon writing is, "Thank effing gd April is over." It mostly sucked hard--I spent most of its days writhing in my own innards. It was ridiculous, really. And even after all the mortgage-related stress, there was the typical oh-my-god-we-just-spent-a-crapload-of-money anxiety.

But now May is here, and while it still hasn't hailed, we are all slowly starting to calm down and get a grip. I mean, we're moved! And hopefully we won't move again anytime soon, because I'm over it.

I know, you all want pictures. Well, I don't have any yet, but will soon, I promise.

In any case, if you need a new address, shoot me an email. Phone #s are the same, though one of these days I swear I'm going to get an austin # for my cell phone.

Oh, and my friend Debra had her baby! Check out the picture on her blog.

New address coming soon!

2007-04-21T09:08:00.000-05:00

No, not web address. After next week, we will be living in a new house--a bought one--and scrambling to pay the piper. Well, hopefully not too scrambling :-) In any case, we will have new contact info coming soon to anyone who cares (as long as we know who you are).

It's very exciting. Now. See, there was about a week there of mortgage anxiety hell. Our timing is, as per usual, slightly off, slightly late, as what would have been an application that sailed through got snagged on a detail and put us on extremely unsteady ground. Things were bad. No, things were sh***y. A sh**tiness heretofore unknown and experienced by a woman who thought she'd been quite exposed to shi**ty. Frankly, for five days we weren't sure if we were going to move into this house, or perhaps the first fleabag cheap apartment complex that would take us. It sucked. I basically lived in the pit of my stomach, barely able to take a full breath.

You know, mortgage and real estate people greet you with a smile and tell you they just want to make you happy. And happiness comes with four walls and a shingle roof, maybe a chimney. but the actual underwriting process is always, always painful, unless your loaded. I had a friend go through this a few months ago and remember meeting her in the park so our kids could play. She was in agony. There's always some scrambling it seems, some tricks you have to show you can do before the dark-suited figures peering down at you from behind their big desks open their checkbook.

Ah, but I guess that's the key. It's their checkbook, not mine, not Trey's. At some point we need to remedy that. You know, just have enough in our account that if we want to buy another house (a bigger, shinier house!) we can just take the money from the bank and bypass these sinister figures. yeah. I know--it's not the American way. Oh well.

I'll post pics of the house soon. I guess it's safe enough at this point.

april is the cruellest month

2007-04-12T09:12:00.000-05:00

It's really been a stressful time, and the month's not even half over. Still, by the time we hit May, things should be so much better, so different, and we'll be so much poorer.

But first things first, it's time for the annual Texas bluebonnet photo:

There, that's over with. I should say, it's been a banner year for the wildflowers here due to all the rain we've gotten this spring. They say the lakes are filling up again. Yesterday I took a walk in the woods behind my house, as was treated to the wet weather creek full and flowing--there were waterfalls and streamly gurglings that sounded like little songs. Zoey and I are used to scrambling over these rocks, and we can follow the little paved trail all the way to Duval street, but yesterday the way was too full of water. Lucky for me, I brought my camera and took pictures.

Here's what the creek bed usually looks like:

Here's how it looked yesterday:

It was a lovely, tuneful, scenic walk. Sad that I'm going to be moving away from this place at the end of the month, but the house purchase seems to be going through. Well, even if it wasn't, we'd still have to vacate the house at the end of the month because my landlords were not the least bit flexible in terms of move-out notification. There were about five days there where we were not sure if the house was going to go through or not, though we were sure enough to put in our move out notice. It was either take a chance and do that or fork out another 1100 or forfeit our deposit. what would you do?

In either case, so far so good, though they're still going to have to put a new roof on the house, like soon, and the sellers are galavanting about in europe somewhere so they're papers have to be emailed and then fed ex'd back, all this by the 25th. Which then gives us 5 days to move out and clean up this old house--which, by the way, they are already showing to people and advertising a May 1 move in date.

I'm actually praying. To something vague and powerful.

There's about 3 other stressful things going on right now, that I really don't want to blog about. They are not earth-shattering--just not worth mentioning.

I did get to spend some time Easter weekend with my good friends the Sweeney's who are in from Chicago, and also Susan, who just moved back to Houston and who promises to come and visit me in my new house as soon as possible!

2007-03-25T08:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the quietude this month, but I've been pretty busy. I went to Houston for almost a whole week to let the grandparents see Z for her bday, and also to go to my SIL's beach house for a day so Zoey could play with her cousin Myles. They had a blast, and for a brief moment, the weather even cooperated. The sun peaked out and the water, while coolish, was still full of those "scary waves," that chased the kids back and forth on the beach. It's a lot of fun watching those two play together. In their own, preschooler way, they seem to know they are family. Course, it helps that we tell them they're cousins, and that cousins are family. It's nothing too deep.

We also spent a day at the Houston Zoo, our old stomping grounds. I miss that Zoo. I especially miss walking in free through the member's gate and not paying $8 to get myself inside. Oh well. Z had a blast, and really seemed to get more out of seeing the animals at the wise age of 4. I think maybe she'd just gotten a little jaded from going to the zoo so much when we lived there. Still, when she got hungry, she got distracted from the zoo and started pretending she was looking for Dora. And when we tried to get her to go look at the spectacled bears, she balked, whined, and walked away from us, yelling the precocious phrase, "Leave me alone! I'm not happy!"

I swear, a 4-year-old girl is like a window into the future world of a middle-schooler. I hear it gets better. Supposedly.

Anyway, we (me and my sis) decided she was hungry and bought some of the deep fried food at the snack bar, after which she did feel a bit better. Well, after the food and the cup of Dippin' Dots ice cream, which I had to promise her as a bribe to get her to eat some of her lunch. Sigh. I did such a good job of keeping her away from sugar for the first three years of her life, but now she knows what it is, and that it's tasty, and that she wants it.

So, anyway, we came back from Houston, then T and I decided to buy a house. So that's what I'm doing now, with much hand-wringing and agonizing over such a huge decision, and much glazed-over eyeness at looking at pictures of houses (which always seem to look better than the actual house). Yesterday I went to look at 7 houses, and only the last one was decent. Oh, and everything is so freaking expensive here, even far out in the burbs (where, yes, we are going to have to live: far out, tho not far, far out. Well, maybe far, far out, but not far, far, far out.) It's exciting and scary and depressing all at the same time. I will, of course, keep you updated.

New Zoey pictures posted

2007-03-08T11:24:00.000-06:00

It's been awhile, but I finally posted some recent Zoey pics to my smugmug site. Lately I've been so focused on Trey's work site, I haven't had time to mess with my pictures. There's still much to do with the dentworks site (mostly link building), but man, I've learned a lot about web sites and SEO optimization this past month.

Go ahead, visit the site and learn a little about paintless dent repair in Austin. You'll think that the site itself doesn't look all that different (if you've seen it before). That's because most of the changes are in the code. I mean, there's more--and hopefully more informative--text on the site (b/c google loves it some context), and the navigation bar has been simplified because the old one was a java-scripted nightmare of fireworks code that took up way too much code real estate. Also, I lost the original PNG file when our old computer went kaput, so recreating would have been a PITA. I added a sitemap, too. That was easy enough.

The real changes were behind the scenes. I took out all the CSS style codes that were on each page, and put them all on an external CSS file. That cleared up a lot of space at the top of the code. This way, when the robots go a-searchin', they don't get bored halfway down the page and give up. They can find those dang keywords right near the top. I also took advantage of Header tags, which I hadn't been doing. And I validated most of the pages as valid XHTML files. We are still waiting to overtake the #1 spot on some of our keywords, but overall we are doing pretty well with the search engines. I do expect our rankings to keep improving.

This Search Engine Optimization stuff takes a lot of time and effort--and apparently there's still no guarantee you'll get results. Fortunately, there's isn't a lot of internet-related competition for us yet, as we're so specialized regarding service and location. But I have some bigger plans in the works, that mostly involve Trey and I writing articles and blog entries on related subjects. Because it's just a matter of time before all PDR companies everywhere have a web site.

So, back to the Zoey photos, you'll notice a princess theme. I'd been wanting some pics of her in one of her princess costumes for awhile now, because I think it'll be one of those memories down the road we'll be happy to see in a photo. You know, "Remember when you were all into princess stuff? And you used to wear your costumes every day and make me wear a costume too so we could play princess?" She'll be all like, "God, mom, why do you have to bring that up, I was just a little kid. Geesh! Leave me alone!" And I'll say, "No, come here and look at this picture of you nakad in the bathtub!" Then she'll run screaming from the room. And I'll laugh.

p.s. The other photos are from one of the little hikes Zoey and I take in the woods behind our house, and from the Zilker Kite festival. I will also add some birthday party pics in the very near future.

Cuteness

2007-03-01T09:13:00.000-06:00

The quality is crap, yes, because I took it with my digital camera in very poor light and was not able to adjust the contrast in Windows Movie Maker. But still. I mean, sure, I'm one of the parents, and it's extremely self-indulgent, but damn, it's cute.

BTW, this was taken the night of Zoey's birthday party. Her friend Olivia spent the night (along with her mom and sis), so Z got her first friend sleepover. They had the best time playing princess, shooting hoops (seriously), candyland, more princess, band, and watching the Little Mermaid. The next day Olivia didn't want to leave.

The party itself was also a success. The kids ran around for an hour at the Little Gym, then went into the party room for cake. All the parents made happy comments about how tired their child would be later. I've got some rudimentary pics, but I'll post them later on edit because the GUY IS FINALLY COMING TO LOOK AT MY BROKEN OVEN!!!

Some things I am grateful for on my daughter’s 4th bday

2007-02-25T15:05:00.000-06:00

1.Potty Training: Oh my god, you did it! It boggles the mind, really, that we have to learn how to do this. And it’s not just a natural progression, one has to be cajoled, bribed, encouraged, discouraged, and sometimes downright yelled at before one finally accedes to this particular nicety of civilization. Man, it was one long, long year. I remember that first day being particularly trying. But eventually it got better, at times got worse, then got better (then worse)—I don’t think I’ve ever done more laundry. I was always having to clean the kid’s clothes. After 6 months, she was pretty good with the pee, but seemed hopeless with the poop. I resorted to toy bribery and thus have a play room full of Dora the Explorer toys. I threw away countless pairs of panties, I mean, they cost about 50 cents each, and some messes weren’t worth that much. Oh, there was so much poop. I’m really grateful she’s an evening pooper, which saved me some embarrassment at her school. But somewhere along the line, really in these past three months, she’s pretty damn good with using the toilet. There are times I wander into her bathroom and just see some poop in the toilet. Of course, after I see it and congratulate her on a job well done, I feel a strong need to wipe her butt just one more time. You know, skid marks are so unattractive. And stinky. So one year later, hooray, she’s potty trained. (Now if I can just get her to remember to flush the toilet.)
2. Dressing Yourself: Sure, sometimes you want to wear a skirt when it’s cold out, or pants when it’s boiling hot, but I love the fact that I can just say, “Go get dressed.” And you’ll do it.
3. Telling me where it hurts: Oh, I got so tired of guessing. I mean, mom’s intuition usually led me to the right boo boo, but it’s so much nicer (and less time consuming) when I just ask if your tummy hurts. We do still need to work on letting me know in advance when you’re going to vomit, ok?
4. You will finally, albeit briefly, smile for the camera.
5. You like to go on hikes with me, and don’t balk too much when I tell you you’re too heavy to carry all the way home.

Of course, there’s so much more to be grateful for, and much to be just joyous about in general, but Z, you’re the bees knees. The best thing that’s ever happened to me and your daddy. Thank you for being so sweet.

Hot Hot Hot!

2007-02-20T09:20:00.000-06:00

I'm talking about the Montgomery Ward brand electric oven that came with the rent house. Sunday afternoon I thought it might be fun and tasty to make this snack. I found the recipe on the Family Food blog, and as I happen to have a 3/4 full can of chickpeas sitting in the fridge (left over from my vegtable barley soup), I thought, "A ha!" and then sang a little song. The recipe was super simple: just put the chickpeas on a roasting pan, cover with oil and spices, and roast at 350 degrees. So easy, even a caveman can do it!

Well, I threw the roasting pan into the oven and put the timer on 10 minutes. The recipe called for 20-25, but our oven generally cooks a little hot, and for the past week even more so. I thought 10 minutes on the timer, then take a look/taste to see how much longer. In the meantime, play with kid (lately, we do a lot of Ariel/Eric make believe. guess who gets to be Eric. It's a little disconcerting to tell your daughter to do something and she says, "Okay Eric. I will Eric." Ten minutes later, the oven has worked itself up to a scorching 475 degrees. Hmmm. Turn off oven. The chickpeas aren't done, so I keep them in for about 30 more minutes. When I take them out for the last time, the oven is still 300 degrees hot. And it's off.

The reason I know the exact temp is because I have an oven thermostat in there. One of those little ones you hang off the racks, bought because there was always something a little off about the oven. Trey always cooks things about 5 degrees below the called-for temp, and that seems about right. But for the past week, we'd been referring to the oven as demon-spawn. Everything was getting burned. You get used to your appliances working at a certain speed, but when the timing gets wonky the change can be so subtle you don't notice it. I made a pie for valentine's day and burned the crust--really, this was probably the first real sign it was truly broken. I mean, you only cook the crust for less than 10 minutes, really just to set the butter and graham crackers. Well, my crust was burnt, and when we ate the pie (a chocolate, cream cheese thingy), well, while the crust was still very tasty, it was a lot of work to cut through. Like the sugar was transformed into glass (Trey's description).

In any case, oven's broke. I tested it one more time when I made a shepard's pie thingy that night, and yup. It's tricky to bake things when your oven quickly heats up to Hell temperature. The landlord knows, and the girl who takes the info down said something about needing to check whether it's under warranty or not. HA! It's a Montgomery Ward brand electric oven. It's probably as old as my sister. Hopefully, we'll get a new one (albeit the cheapest new one they can find). That would still be pretty exciting.

slc myspace is back up

2007-02-17T17:35:00.000-06:00

http://www.myspace.com/sadlikecrazy

Heh heh, sorry about the confusion, kids. I found some old pictures in a box, so I'll scan them in and add them a little later.

Come be our myspace friends!

Dratz

2007-02-14T19:07:00.000-06:00

Zoey: (Staring intently at a Bratz valentine) Who is this?

Me: I don't know.

Zoey: Say it!

Me: I don't know, sweetie.

Zoey: (more insistent) Say it! Who is this?

Me: (sighs) I think they're called Bratz.

Zoey: (With a touch of awe in her voice) Bratz. Bratz.

She continues to stare intently at the two slutty-looking characters on the card. One has long, thick brown hair, brown skin and those trademark ginormous cat eyes and botox lips. She's wearing a pair of tight jeans with knee-hi red leather stilleto boots. The other is blond, but with her tan skin, one might suspect a bottle was involved. She too has the large cat eyes and pouty lips. Her eye shadow is a pale lavender. She's got a micro denim skirt with a chain belt, and ballet flats.

Zoey: They're beautiful. They're cool.

Me (in my head): Oh shit.

I sense danger up ahead. I do not like these dolls. She got a Groovy Girl for Christmas, Natalya, whom she loves, and I love that she loves this doll. Natalya has thick black yarn for hair that's wild and barely contained by a ponytail. She wears a hip, vintage-y looking outfit, and she's soft and squishy. Really, she seems like such a nice young girl. Can you imagine a six-year-old Zoey going about in cool, vingage outfits. That would rule! I'm afraid the Bratz dolls would inspire her to want to wear short hoochie skirts and belly-button revealing, tight shirts.

(Okay, mea culpa, a lot of her shirts already reveal her belly, but that's only because they're too small for her. She just grows so dang fast. Sometimes you don't realize something is too small for her until after she's had it on for a couple of hours. Seriously.)

Oh well. We shall see what happens. Right now, she's walking around the house pretending she's Dora, singing the adventure song. Right now, Dora Rules.

Oh, and really, I hate dora too.

(Sigh.)

i'm a techie autodidact

2007-02-13T12:22:00.000-06:00

Well, not just a techie one. Lately I've been filling my limited Me time with various online tutorials, you know, to get some skillz. (Girls got to have skillz, ya know?) I'm trying to teach myself CSS, so that I can create more websites, maybe some for some blogs or something, who knows. Also, I've updated a couple of myspace sites: one for Trey's work (http://www.myspace.com/dentworksofaustin) and ~~one for sad like crazy (www.myspace.com/sadlikecrazy)~~. (Just cancelled the slc account so I can set up a musician account with them. duh. feeling stupid.) So you can go check them out. They're both pretty basic at this time, ~~tho I do plan to upload some songs onto the slc site.~~ Of course, the customization of the myspace sites require CSS knowledge. Well, let me clarify that: it requires absolutely no real knowledge besides knowing how to copy and paste and follow directions from the myriad of sites available out there. Seriously, there's apparently a great need currently for glittery text. It's hot. I thought about using some for Trey's site, but nah. What I mean by requiring knowledge is if you happen to want to actually know how to do things yourself, you know, go beyond the cut and paste route. But that's not why I'm studying CSS. I just think it's a good thing to know. Like Flash, which I took a class on, but haven't yet had much of a chance to work much with it.

Yep, still scatterbrained. Still completionally challenged. Still wanting about 6 pots on the stove at the same time. Oh well.

Oh, and I also learned how to make animated gifs. Those were pretty easy, tho time consuming. Below is my masterpiece:

Z's doing fine, tho she's still snot-nosed and coughie. Hopefully she'll get better soon, and then NEVER BE SICK AGAIN!

Merck is looking out for you?

2007-02-08T09:58:00.000-06:00

Gov Perry’s mandating the HPV vaccine, Gardisil, for all incoming sixth graders, a seemingly progressive issue on it’s face, until you look at some of the hidden strings.

Now, I consider myself pretty progressive for the most part, but I’m not too keen on jumping on this vaccine’s bandwagon. Lucky for me, my daughter is many years away from the mandated age, so it’s not a pressing issue. But if she were 11, I sure as heck wouldn’t be thrilled to be forced to give her a brand new vaccine. Don’t misunderstand, on its face, the vaccine seems like a fantastic thing. Who doesn’t want to do every safe thing they can to avoid cancer, especially in their daughters? But, let’s be realistic. This is a relatively new medicine—we don’t know what, if any, the far-reaching side-effects may be. I mean, people thought Vioxx was a life-saver, until it turned out to be a life-killer. How do we know the same thing won’t happen with Gardasil? They’re both from Merck, and frankly, I just don’t trust Big Pharma. In fact, Merck is hoping the vaccine will help them out of the financial hole that Vioxx dug for them. It’s $360 price tag certainly would generate a lot of revenue if insurance companies were forced to pay for every girls vaccine. Then think about how much money that would be if all the states mandated the vaccine! Jackpot! You know they’re thinking this.

Of course, the biggest, loudest opponents to this new mandate is Perry’s own religious conservatives. They think (at least, I think they think) that this vaccine will encourage young girls to be sexually active. Cuz, you know, middle schoolers are soooo afraid of catching cervical cancer. “Whoopee! Now I can have sex and not get cancer!” I think it’s just a smoke screen so people don’t look too closely at Perry’s political connections to Merck. According to this article on msnbc.com:

“Perry has ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff. His current chief of staff’s mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government.”

Merck really does stand to make millions. I don’t know, call me cynical, but I just don’t believe their in it for the good of the people.

Zoey's bike ride

2007-02-06T20:37:00.000-06:00

I just whipped this up whilst experimenting with this new video editing software I bought a couple of months ago (sony movie maker). There's something horribly wrong with the rendering, but Z's still cute so I'm sharing with you anyway.

2007-02-05T20:48:00.000-06:00

I've decided to try and do some more serious blogging. Well, that's what I've decided to do this week, anyway, or rather, last week I decided this. Which of course entails research, so I've been actually trying to find some time to read other people's blogs besides those of my good friends. (I will continue to read those, I promise!) The impetous behind this decision is my desire to earn some money this year, be it from a full-time job, part-time job, or free-lance. However, as I've been ~~unemployed~~ an overworked SAHM for the past three years, I feel the need to update my skillz. Because right now my skillz correlate a lot more to the preschool set. Ergo, wanting to do more serious blogging to enhance my writing skillz. (Which apparently have gotten so bad I can't even spell.)

Of course, reading all these other blogs, some of which actually make some money(!), really juices my insecurities, as I've been in a writing funk for, oh, about 8 years or so. See, I used to think I was a pretty good writer. I wrote articles, journaled like a woman obsessed, spewed poems out of my ass on a regular basis. But then I had to go and get happy, and as any artist knows, that's often the death knell for creativity. (GONG) So now, writing is sometimes a struggle. My mind reaches for words that it used to fall into. And when I find that words aren't drooling out of my fingers, I get ... I get ... (damn, see what I mean?)... discouraged, and go back to playing Dora the Explorer with my daughter. Because, I'm a mom, and that's what moms do. They take care of kids. That's it. ("Troll bridge, Tree, Tall Mountain, Troll Bridge, Tree, Tall Mountain...c'mon mom, keep playing with me!")

Okay, so, I'm wrestling with my identity this year. I don't know what's going to come out of all this, but who cares, really. It's the wrestling that will what counts. The fact that I've decided to look for something else out there, some other identity for myself beyond what I've backed myself into right now. Not that I don't love being T's wife or Z's mom--that part of my life is the happy part that makes it hard for me to write. It's just that I miss the creativity. It's something I need in my life. And it doesn't have to be writing. I'm hoping to dabble in some art, some graphic and web design, technology, music, and photography. You know, whatever. It's not like I've ever been one to focus in the past anyway. And who knows, next week I might forget all about the blogging idea.

Back to the blog research, I was directed toward this one by the austimama's yahoo group. The topic on the group was food blogs. I guffawed a number of times, and wanted to copy it. Kind of. But not really. To give you an idea of what this guy was blogging about, I humbly submit this picture, that was stolen from his site:

Interesting, Real Fact

2007-02-01T20:15:00.000-06:00

From this site, I stumbled upon this "interesting, real fact": The average four year-old child asks over four hundred questions a day.

This fact is interesting. And it is very, very real. I don't know when it started, but oh my god the questions. They are constant, and not usually about something deep or important, like, "why is the sky blue?" or "what happens when we die?" No, these constant questions tend to be things like, "did you think I didn't want to get up?" "What's Bean doing?" I'm really sorry, but right now I'm just blanking on her questions. But whatever they are, they're prosaic and redundant. Zoey's friend Aidan's mommy put it best, "It's not the questions themselves; it's that they're the same questions over and over and over."

Have you seen that Volvo commercial? The one where the little girl is getting strapped in by her dad and she's talking and talking and talking? That's Zoey. I don't even know what she's saying sometimes, okay, and sometimes I stop listening (because hey, it's not like she's telling me something important or anything). But then I'll suddenly tune in when she bursts out with some random bizarre phrase. Which I also can't remember any of right now. I know, total letdown.

On completely unrelated news, Trey's about to run a Dentworks commercial in Austin. It's pretty clever, and I've linked it below.

The ice is melting!

2007-01-18T10:35:00.000-06:00

Hooray! We get to leave the house today! I'm very excited to be able to go to a store, as we're out of a lot of food. Since we were just stuck inside, I actually did a bit of cooking. At first, it was fun. I made a slow-cooker roast on Sunday. A nice curry-tinged vegetable barley soup for lunch and a delicious mashed potato and cheese stuffed meatloaf for dinner on Monday. Tuesday we had spaghetti and meatballs (mmm, comfort food). Actually, I had planned on eating leftovers on Tuesday, thinking it would be the last day of our confinement, but by dinnertime, Trey insisted on fresh food. It was good, though. But by wednesday, really, I was over it. We ate leftover soup for lunch and frito pie for dinner. (Frito pie also qualifies as comfort food in this house.) But today we get to leave the house!

It's not raining outside, but it sure sounds like it. Every now and again there's a heavy "kthunk" sound on the roof from a larger chunk of ice falling off the tree. There are two big trees in our yard, and I'm very grateful they didn't break.

Since my only entertainment these last few days were the brief periods I snuck outside to take some pictures, I'm going to a small portion with you. Because, I have to do something with them, since I never bothered to submit them to any news sites. With little fanfare, I give you:

The ice storm of 2007:
Day one (or, Hey-we're-gettin'-an-ice-storm-day):
Little baby icicle

A smattering of ice by the big tree in the back yard

Just the tiniest bit of ice surrounding a tree seed

The field behind our house with just a touch of ice and a fair amount of puddled water

Day two (or, whoo-hoo-lookee-it's-snow-falling-from-the-sky day):
Ice covered branch and leaves. It's still just a little bit of ice.

Ice-covered tree seed from my neighbor's tree

Our backyard: Note the tiny little bit of snow on the ground, and also note the absence of tree limbs hanging close to the ground.

Look! Snow! (and oh, hey look! I've switched from uploading to blogger to linking to them from my smugmug site because it's faster)

Icicles at night
javascript:void(0)
Publish

Day three (or, the seriously-it's-icy-out-there-but-oh-my-god-I-need-to-get-out-of-my-house day)

Ice covering the ground

Remember the neighbor's tree with the little seeds?

Same tree, close-up of seeds (also, cooly snake-like)

Pic of the backyard: remember the big tree and the neighbor's from the other photo? No? That's because the limbs were way high up out of the picture. Now they're weighted down at least ten feet.

Icy field behind my house:

Icy twigs

2007-01-17T15:18:00.000-06:00

Ice storm, day 1:

ice storm, day 2:

ice storm, day3:

Help me. I'm going completely stir crazy. Husband is sick, kid is a little bit sick, I'm dying to just go to the grocery store because I had only anticipated being stuck inside the house until today. But I'm not taking the kid anywhere in the car, that would entail far too much work. I'd like to take her for a walk to explore the icy goodness outside, but she doesn't seem to want to do anything but play around the house in her pajamas. Not even to play with a two-foot long icicle. I've been begging her for the last hour to go, but she insists on playing more princess. I don't care, I'm going for a walk anyway. I hope.

a little bit of snow

2007-01-16T17:24:00.000-06:00

and a little bit more ice

Z and I have been cooped up inside for two days, and looking at at least one more. Hopefully, it'll full on snow by tomorrow, and we'll be able to go outside and play in it. I've been out a couple of times, taking some pictures, but for some reason, Z has shown almost no interest in going outside. Tomorrow, if there's snow on the ground, she's going outside whether she likes it or not. ("You will go outside and play in the snow and you will like it!")

We are a bit stir crazy. I can only play princess so many times in a day. Trey's been working at his shop, though not too busy as most of the town is hunkered down. Maybe after all this blows over he'll get a little run of people with minor dents.

Working on an ice storm gallery here. And wishing we'd gotten our fireplace checked out so we could start a little fire. Oh well.

2007-01-13T17:58:00.000-06:00

It's one of those cold, gray days that we don't usually get in Texas. 40 degrees, rainy, ice and possibly snow in the forecast. There was flooding in the morning due to all the rain. My sister's in town and we went to Ikea just to get out of the house; it was packed. The funniest part about it was all the people who, like my sister, were completely unprepared for the cold weather. Lots of thin hoodies and shocked faces in the crowd.

I'm working on the video for Zoey's first dance/gymnastics recital. It's probably going to take me a little while to get it together, but I did want to report that Zoey absolutely stole the show. And I'm not just saying that because she's my kid. (Okay, maybe I am, I don't know.) She had enthusiasm beaming out of her pores, and wasn't the least bit affected by stage fright. Rather, she seemed to eat up the attention and spit out smiles. Except for when she got distracted by the big mirror to the left of the stage, because she also seemed pretty enamored of her own reflection dancing in her recital. It was all just too adorable.

A big hug and thanks to Kilian and de Schmog...

2007-01-02T14:50:00.000-06:00

for letting me sing with them Saturday night. It was the most fun I've had in a long time. I didn't want the night to end. In fact, I still relive it sometimes in my head. Ah, the glory. And thanks to all who came out and didn't seem to mind too much that I wasn't Diane :-) I felt a little like Mark Wahlberg in "Rockstar," minus the leather pants.

There's more pictures that my sister took here, and K's got some up on his site here. Also, some video:

2006-12-21T13:09:00.000-06:00

Gosh, I feel kind of bad about the lack of recent posts. For some reason, I've been busy this month--doing what I just don't know. Everything and nothing. I still have some xmas shopping to do, but since Zoey's taken to the couch with a cold (though really, right now she's feeling fine, if listening to her shout in spanish along with Diego is any clue) I'm kind of stuck here at home. Oh well. I really need to go grocery shopping as well. I'm hopeful we can get out at least a little bit later on today.

I'm getting excited about Christmas, as this is the first year Z is really excited about it. She can't wait for Christmas morning, can't wait to get presents, couldn't wait to put the tree up, and is still waiting for me to decorate the outside of the house. She told us what she wanted this year: a princess bicycle (got it) and a Dora Talking Kitchen (didn't get it, got a nice wooden one instead, one that doesn't talk). Hopefully, she will forgive me for being so selfish as to refuse to buy her the Dora kitchen, but really, in our house Dora talks enough. Even though Z doesn't really watch that much Dora anymore, she's absolutely obsessed with the toys. We have the Dora talking house, which was a super-expensive reward for pooping in the potty, the talking Vamanos Van, the talking swimming pool, the talking greenhouse, and a couple of talking dolls. I'm tired of hearing Dora talk. She talks too much.

So instead, she gets a nice, sturdy wooden stove that I'm sure she'll play with constantly, as pretend cooking is currently one of her favorite activities. I'm such a bad mommy!

Her other fav thing right now is to play band. I'm fortunate to have been invited to sing some songs with de Schmog on Dec. 30 for their reunion show, as Diane can't make it due to her recent mommyhood (and maybe New Town Drunks has a gig NYE? Maybe?). Much congratulations to her and Roberto. So, as you can imagine, I've been listening to de Schmog constantly, which means Zoey has been listening to de Schmog. And she loves it. She remembers Kilian, and knows that it's Kilian's band. But she's only heard Diane sing. Even so, she now loves Diane, and is fascinated by her voice. So much so, that she sometimes makes me shut up so she can hear Diane singing. I have to ask her permission. There's something inherently disheartening about having your own child, who's grown up listening to your singing and according to all the baby books will LOVE your singing no matter what you really sound like (and hey, I actually can sing, unlike hundreds, nay thousands of singing mommies out there), tell you to stop singing. But what can I say, she loves Diane. Last time we played band, Diane "came over" and sang with us. So did Kilian. And Z and I played instruments. It was fun. Then Z got to sing her current favorite song, "John Hinkley." Yay band game!

Oh, and Kilian drew this neat poster:

Good Witch

2006-11-01T21:55:00.000-06:00

For the record, Zoey was a good witch this Halloween, not a bad witch or a scary witch (and especially not a green witch, an idea that was planted in her head but fortunately didn't stick--thanks mom). I got a simple $5 witch costume and hat at the Party Pig almost two months ago, so you see, I was prepared, but not overly ambitious with the costume. But then, I'm rarely costume ambitious. Hell, I'm rarely costumed.

She was an adorable witch though, and on cue would rock out the "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too!" I had though to get her a little broom to carry around, or her little stuffed grey cat, but was glad I never got around to it, because you see, while accoutrements are cute with our little costumed ones, we are the ones who end up carrying these things around. And I had my camera with me, so I couldn't be bothered with carrying anything else.

We did manage to get a few days use out of the costume though (I mean, besides all the times at home when Zoey just wanted to wear it around the house). On Saturday, we went to the neighborhood elementary school Fall festival. Pretty much your standard school festival, lots of game booths (including a cake walk! Wow, hadn't even thought of that one for years), inflatables, and sweets. It reminded me of the old St. Vincent festivals we had every year, only there was no apparent gambling and no Vietnamese nuns selling delicious things to eat. Zoey had a blast in the moonwalk--oh she loves the inflatables these days, and got a few little stuffed animals as prizes.

My favorite part of the festival was the classic rock cover band they had. Oh my god, these guys did spot on renditions of Kansas, Rush and Journey, etc. Spot on. It really enhanced the overall 70s flashback of the experience. For me.

Halloween night, we went for the second year over to my friend Kelly's friend Amy's party in South Austin. She (Amy) lives in this really cute little neighborhood just south of 71 in the 45 zip code, and has an annual Halloween shindig that, as she says, just keeps getting bigger and bigger. We go so Zoey can trick or treat with her friend Olivia--you know, her oldest and dearest friend since birth.

Course it helps that Amy and her husband and two kids are all really cool. This year, being the oh-so-experienced Austinite I now am, I opted to drive down early to miss the traffic, as last year I'd left N. Austin at 5:30 and was in stop-and-go traffic all the way down MoPac. At 4:30, thankfully, it was merely slow most of the way, but at least we were moving.

Some of you may remember that last year, trick-or-treating was a bit too scary for Zoey to handle--we had to quit after about three houses. It didn't help that one of Amy's party guests had painted his face like one of the Misfits. Every time Z saw him she ran into my arms and buried her face in my neck, whimpering, "no more! no more!" This time, she trick or treated as well as any overly excitable 3 year old: more than a little bit confused and overwhelmed by the lights and spectacle of some of the houses, thrilled at being allowed to actually walk on the street untethered, distracted by all the strangers around her, and bewildered to find that no, she couldn't just walk into any of the houses. Still, she got candy. She and Olivia both had their "Trick or Treat" down, though Z preferred to reach in to grab her own candy, while Olivia was happy to just open her really big bag. It was fun to watch them have such fun. (I actually didn't watch her all that well, because I kept trying to take pictures, most of which didn't come out because when you have a DSLR, you can't see a thing when you look through the viewfinder. and I didn't have any little light to see what settings I was using. It was truly a total crapshoot. Oh well.)

Overall, a very fun and exciting evening for the little ZIPster, and I am more than happy to have it behind us. Her little pumpkin is keeping me flush in sweets--I'm going to try and eat them all before she realizes what has happened. (Also, there are more pictures up at my smugmug site, including a smattering of Halloween pics, and some pictures from zoey's Dance class.)

Harry the Pumpkin says "Bye!"

Autograph

2006-10-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

More Zoey outfit pics

2006-10-18T11:27:00.000-05:00

Because I can...

I think she's getting the hang of it. She looks pretty sharp in some of those pictures, IMHO.

Yesterday we went to this inflatable playground in Cedar Park. It's in a big mall, right next to the Sear's, and on Tuesdays it's 1/2 price and not full of bigger kids. Z had a blast (she loves to jump). It was fun for me, too, as we met another mom and her two kids and she and I enjoyed the adult conversation mixed in with all the, "Can you see them?" "where're the girls?" "hang on, I've got to follow Henry." etc. After she left, though, I was left to my own devices in the place, sort of meandering among the giant inflatables following zoey around and checking out the scene in a bored housewifey kind of way. Now that I had some time to actually look around the place, I was struck by all the pro-god stuff they had lying about and on the walls. Like, lots of church pamphlets, cutsey pics of illustrated kids with "thank God for..." sayings next to them ("thank god for friends" etc), and most creepily, the entire Left Behind series available for the bored moms (or non-mom caretakers) to read whilst the kids romp around. Hind sight being perfect and all, I really wish now I had taken a pic of the books lined up. In any case, I started looking at all the other moms there with just a tad more suspicion than normal. I saw a group sitting around a table, normal enough looking, maybe too normal...They must be rapture waiting fundies for sure.

And then I realized I probably looked a lot like them. Which made me a little bit sad, and contemplating hair dye. Sigh.

Oh, and I'm trying to do stuff with this.

2006-09-30T09:53:00.000-05:00

Zoey's taken to dressing herself these days, with mixed results. Sometimes the outfits are, hmmm, not really frightening per se, at least not these examples, but she does seem a little challenged when it comes to coordination.

But we've been working on it. And sometimes she manages to choose things that match.

Initially, we had some issues with her insisting on wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts (she's especially fond of the blue long-sleeved tee in one of the above pics, as well as her "snow" pants, which are the long leggings). But since September weather has been so freaking nice this year, the long sleeves and pants haven't really been a problem. And she's really gotten better and coordinating her outfits. Though, honestly, it's a little amusing to take her out in some confusing mishmash of an outfit to watch the curious stares of other people. I don't have enough amusement in my life--I have to use my child. Oh well.

Oh, and the first two pictures are from the same day. She likes to change her clothes. A lot.

She does love dressing herself, though, as she's on a "I can do it myself" phase. I'm not complaining. It's nice, sometimes. The other night, Trey and I took her bowling for the first time, and she insisted on bowling the ball herself. She'd carry her pink 8 lb ball to the line, put in on the floor between her legs and gently roll it forward. This worked, somewhat with the 8 lb ball, but it would take about 5 minutes for the ball to roll to the pins. Then the manager of the bowling alley got her a 6 lb ball, but it just didn't have enough weight to make it down to the end of the lane, and after about 5 frames of us having to get one of the employees to fetch the stalled ball, we switched back to the 8 lb ball. As she was still very determined to do it herself, we came up with a little illusion to play out for her. She would carry the ball to the line, and roll it down, but just as she pushed, he or I would give the ball a sneaky little push--just an extra oomph--from behind. It was the only way we felt we could finish the games. She had a blast. It was fun for us too, as the alley had bumpers that would come up for Zoey and go down for us. The enchiladas from the cafe weren't too bad either.

She's also been working on basic spelling, reading and letter recognition. With great pride I report that she can spell CAT and STOP (and CAT can be spelled using sign language as well!) and a small number of other words. She can also figure out what letter most words start with, though I have to usually remind her to sound it out. Ahh, phonics.

Anyway, it's Saturday today, and we're going grocery shopping, then maybe to a park. We live exciting lives here. Trey managed to go see a band last night (ex-Silkworm Bottomless Pit). We had planned to drive to Houston to see them at Rudz together, but there was a slight fire-related incident next door to Trey's shop that kept us here. Oh well. I do have tickets to go see Broken Social Scene later in October. Woo hoo! A night out for mommy!

My spider

2006-09-10T14:01:00.000-05:00

In response to Little Miss Messycovers post about her spider, here are a few pictures of the nocturnal spider that lives right outside my backdoor. Every night he comes out of his hiding place and builds a big web.

I don't know what kind of spider it is (it's not the same as Miss Messycover's spider). I had previously suspected it was a wolf spider, but she didn't think wolf spider's made webs, so who knows. She (the spider) also doesn't have a name yet. She does have a nice little spot for herself, though, as I see her eating some tastly little morsal almost every time I go take a look at her.

On edit: I'm pretty sure it's a garden orb spider. Still haven't named her.

jerk

2006-08-31T10:22:00.000-05:00

Someone looked at my video of Zoey dancing on Youtube.com and left a comment. all it said was "Garbage." Jerk. He also gave my video a one star rating. If you have some time today, go look at the video on you tube and rate it higher.

Oh, and I deleted the comment. Still. Jerk.

Dance About It

2006-08-21T18:59:00.000-05:00

It all started when I bought her a new DVD/CD combo by They Might Be Giants called "Here come the ABCs." She loves it. We can watch the DVD and listen to the CD in the car. Fortunately, the songs are pretty catchy--the kind of good kid songs you don't realize is still on even after the kid is out of the car. I mean, I'll drop her off at school and will suddenly come to the realization about halfway home that I'm still singing along to them. The CD is great for all you parents that get a little tired of listening to various versions of "The Wheels on the Bus" or "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Oh, but the DVD is another story altogether. Sure, it's pretty much the same songs that are on the CD--the CD I just gushed about in the previous paragraph--but watching the DVD just got really old really quickly. See, Zoey discovered that she really, really loves to dance. And the music is just so darn dance-able, that she just dances and sings her way through most of the songs. Which is great, cute and adorable and all that, but she insists that I dance with her. Now, this was fun, for the first week, and great exercise. But now I'm really tired of dancing to these songs over and over and over again. She's whittled down her repertoire to about three songs that we must watch, which means I'm also constantly playing VJ. I tried to teach her how to use the remote, but she wasn't interested. So we have to fire up the DVD player, wait patiently for the unalterable and unskipable opening bits (she especially loves it when the Disney Sound logo comes up), and then I have to operate the menu using the remote's really, really small buttons so we can pick and choose the songs she wants to hear. And here's the thing about Zoey: She takes forever to make up her mind sometimes. It tries my patience, and I have to remind myself not to get exasperated with her. Anyway, we inevitably listen to the D&W song, Fake Believe and E Eats Everything many, many times in a row, with Zoey constantly hounding me to "Dance about it" with her.

So, to sum up, CD good, DVD tiring. Additionally, Zoey's really taken with D and W. I mean, the actual letters, D and W. They're her new best friends. I can't help but wonder what some other people are thinking when they see a little girl having whole conversations with a letter. I have drawn a million D's and W's this past month, because she makes me. "Mommy, draw D! Make a sad D--draw his tears! Now make a happy D--because he found his crown!" "Draw W with D! Make him sad! Now make him mean!" It's a little bit odd.

This dancing thing doesn't seem to be going away. Now we have to also watch "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" over and over, of course, skipping through most of the actual movie to get to the way more entertaining Oompa Loompa songs. They have some keen dance moves we've adopted. Otherwise, meh on the movie and Johnny Depp's way to perfect teeth.

I have taken what I feel is the most logical course of action: I enrolled her in a dance class. Specifically, it's 1/2 dance 1/2 gym, which is perfect. I had to get her tap shoes, ballet shoes and a leotard. It's insanely cute. And she loves her new tap shoes. Actually, the tap shoes are a hand-me-down from my old department head and mommy mentor, Cara. She gave two pairs to me before Z was even born, and one of them fits. (Thanks, Cara!) Now, thankfully, we haven't watched TMBG in over a week. Not that I'm out of the dance macabre yet--she's now obsessed with wearing her tap shoes and dancing noisily with them in the front hallway (one of the few rooms in the house without carpet). And I have to put music in her CD player so she can dance to it, and so I can "dance about it" with her. But hopefully, with this new class she'll get to channel some of that dancin' fool energy at least once a week without me.

She's only had one lesson, and spent a lot of time during that lesson running madly around the studio while her teachers yelled, "Zoey, Zoey, Zoey! Wait your turn!" over and over again. But her hearts in the right place. At least for now.

"Wildlife" photos up

2006-08-10T14:11:00.000-05:00

Heh, these guys are hardly wild. I can easily imagine them leisurely walking up and down the road gorging on feed pellets all though the night.

Zoey talks to Sarah while on Safari

2006-08-07T20:07:00.000-05:00

Sarah took this video while we were on "safari" at the Natural Bridge Caverns Wildlife Ranch in New Braunfels. It was just a daytrip, and it was a pretty neat place to see. Lots of so-called wild animals, mostly of the gazelle/antelope type, with some deerlike animals and some ram thingys. Oh, and a few zebras as well.

The animals are car feed sluts--they know where the food is coming from if you know what I mean. They're not shy about looking you in the eye and sniffing up your hand. Unfortuntely, the passenger side window was stuck, so we could only feed them from the driver side, which means at times I was driving (no more than 5 mph), taking pictures, and feeding animals all at the same time, and sometimes with Zoey on my lap as well. Because we did what every other car was doing, and that was letting her out of her seat and into Sarah's or my lap while we drove through. Please don't call CPS. We had plenty of Brittney Spears jokes going already.

Anyway, I thought you guys might get a kick out of Zoey here. I know a lot of you haven't seen her in a long time, so you'll be surprised at her mastery of the English language. You get everything in this one little clip, some singing (to a They Might Be Giants song--more on that later), some gesticulating, and a right smackdown directed at my sister Sarah, who had the gall to suggest that Zoey sing a different song. Zoey really enjoyed the safari, especially getting to ride up front and play DJ. She did feed some animals, too.

West Beach, Galveston

2006-07-28T12:08:00.000-05:00

The bridge over the dunes

Zoey and Olivia run to get more water

The beach at sunset

My parents rented a beach house last week and we all went down for a little vacation. Yes, Trey went too! Zoey and I went down on Tuesday and had a nice, mellow time playing in the water and just hanging out. She loved the beach, was fascinated with the waves and enjoyed digging in the sand. The water was actually quite lovely while we were there, which, for those of you that don't know, was pretty fortunate. Galveston water is kind of a crap shoot. Sometimes it's smooth and pretty clear, but oftentimes it's a muddy and uninspiring brown. That week, there were only small waves, more like a lake than the ocean (er, gulf). And once you got past the really shallow part, it was a decent greenish-blue. Of course, while Zoey did enjoy getting in the water, she didn't go very far out at all. In fact, one of the most exciting things to her was that she could experience the waves without it getting deep (so she couldn't "fall in the water"). She spent an awful lot of time playing in the sand though. Can I just say, while sand is nice, I get a little sick of it being everywhere, and getting into every part of your body. You can't come back from the beach without rinsing all the sand that's oozed its way into your bathing suit. Luckily, there was a decent outdoor shower at the beach house, and an even more convenient garden hose, which worked exceptionally well on little kids. I think some of the kids that came to visit us (Olivia and family, Zoey's cousins) had as much fun after the beach playing with the water hose and shower as they did on the actual beach--which is good, because it's just not fun coming up with creative ways to convince kids that it would be good to go back to the beach house.

Trey came down late Thursday, and on Friday he took me fishing off a pier for the first time since I got pregnant. I had a blast staying up all night throwing out line after line, even though we only caught small trout that we had to unhook and toss back into the water. I did luck into catching one decent sized flounder, which we kept and my mom cooked (deliciously). But other than that, just small trout, which, if you've ever been fishing, is much better than catching nothing. At least you get the thrill of the catch. Honestly, that's all Trey really fishes for these days anyway, as he generally practices catch and release. He used to bring home fish, but had to stop when we found ourselves with a freezer full of fish and no more stomach for them. I do enjoy fishing, though, and wish I could do more of it. He says he'll teach me to go out in the kayak, but we haven't been able to find the time to do it yet (and besides, it's super hot out there).

Speaking of heat, it kind of cracked me up when I was watching the Weather Channel and they were talking about the deadly heat wave. No, I'm not laughing about anyone's death. That's always awful. But the weather person (or maybe just one of the stiff looking ladies that deliver that information) made a comment about how the heat was going to be just dreadful this next week, "rising up to the 95-100 degree range." Again, it's not funny when it gets really hot in places where they don't have AC in every building, but 95-100 degrees is just summer in Texas, and summer lasts at least 5 months here. It should be a good summer for the AC industry folks. And the energy companies.

In any case, I did take lots of pictures at the beach. I don't think they're particularly great, but here's a link to them. We spent one afternoon at Moody Gardens, but mostly we just hung out. It was very relaxing.

Cheesy Zoey video

2006-07-05T07:53:00.000-05:00

So, my new HP computer comes with this cheesy program called Muvee Maker. All you have to do is import your pictures or video, choose a song, and it does the rest for you. The results are pretty cheesy--but I made one anyway. And now I'm going to share it with you:

Zoey Muvee!

Our fourth was pretty uneventful. Zoey had a playdate with her friend from school, which she enjoyed very much. They swam and played with all of his toys for about four hours. After which we came home and just hung out until Trey got home. We had thought about taking Z to see some fireworks, but it started raining so we watched some on TV. Fortunately, we had seen some from our backyard that Sunday night--which, really, was enough for us. I'm still looking forward to the day when I can take Z to see some fireworks and watch her stare up in the sky in awe and amazement. Maybe next year.

2006-07-03T18:33:00.000-05:00

Zoey loves to get in the pool, any pool, but after about a week of swimming class, she's become a little afraid of the water. She still loves to go in, but now she prefers to sit on the steps--she doesn't even want me to carry her around the pool. No thank you. It took me a little while to figure out that one day in swim class, she put her head under water, either accidently or on purpose, and it frightened her. She "fell into the water," she says. And since then, she's only been to one swim class.

Ever since I've discovered this new phobia, I've begun taking her to swim as often as possible. We've been to a few neighborhood park pools, and I really like the one that's right around the corner. It's L-shaped, and the short end of the "L" is a 2 foot-deep wading pool. But the best thing about it, is that its stairs run all along one side. There's about 15 feet of stairs--it's perfect for a kid who only likes to stay on the stairs! Still, the idea I have is to keep her around pools until she gets over her fear of "falling in the water," and starts going back to swim class. It hasn't happened yet.

We're going to spend a week in Galveston this month, as my folks have rented a nice beach house there. While I'm not the biggest beach fan, I'm sure Zoey's going to have a blast. Plus, we'll get to experiment with letting her spend the night at her aunt's and/or granny's house. I'm hoping she'll do fine, and we can start letting her spend more time with them (and them her).

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately, working on things like composition and depth of field and such. It's about the only creative thing going right now. I still mainly take snapshots of people (mostly Zoey), but I've enjoyed taking my camera to some events and getting some nice shots of the people there. You can check out some new galleries on my smugmug site. If you're feeling motivated, you can even leave comments on some of the pictures to let me know if you like them or not, or if you think they could be better--after all, I know a lot of good photographers read this blog. Well, not a lot, but I know there are some out there.

2006-06-26T10:22:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like I've been averageing one post a month these days. We just aren't doing that much to speak of, so I haven't had much to say. I did get out one time this month, though it was in Houston, when we went to my mom's family reunion (thus I had a babysitter for the evening). My sister and I went to see IBP's Speeding Motorcycle and thoroughly enjoyed it--it's really one of their best productions ever. They did a great job arranging Daniel Johnston's songs into a cohesive narrative, and the performance of those songs were just out of sight good. No one does rock opera like IBP. I'm really grateful we got to see it when we did, because the last two weekends were totally sold out (probably due to the rave review they received in the NY Times). My friend Cathy was amazing as Laurie, the female love interest to the main characters--it took me awhile to even recognize her due to the frumpy blond wig she was wearing. It's so nice to get to hear her sing solo as I really do love her voice. Also amazing were the three guys who played the main "Joe the boxer" character. But I think what really drove the whole thing were the strength of the songs. I've never been a huge Daniel Johnston fan myself, but after seeing the play I have a new found respect for his songs. I think this'll be the play that really makes IBP (and Jason) famous. It should, anyway. Well, I guess with the NY Times article, it kind of already did....

Other than that, we've just been chilling here in Austin. Zoey just seems to be slightly sickish most of the time, with her constant runny nose and chronic ear and sinus infections. I swear, with this kid, it's just a short hop from congestion to infection. It's driving me crazy. This, plus the Texas heat, has been keeping us at home more than I'd like, and I'm afraid to say I think she's watching too much TV. I'm also starting to think that she is having more fun playing with her imaginary TV friends than actually playing with real kids. She was moved up into the bigger kids class this month, and now dropping her off at school has become a heartwrenching process. She just would rather stay at home with me. Every morning we go (three times a week now), I have to leave her there in tears. Fortunately, when I go to pick her up, she's in great spirits and seems to have had a good time. I know she likes it there, and likes the kids in her class; she just doesn't want to leave me. I don't know what is driving this behavior right now, but all I can think to do is to keep her going until she gets used to it again and realizes that school is fun. I mean, she's got another 20 years (at least) of school in her future, so she'd better get used to it. Right?

Updates

2006-05-27T08:49:00.000-05:00

We're doing pretty well here in Austin these days. Trey's still very busy working, but he's busy working in Austin, which is great. Zoey loves having her daddy around. We actually put her in daycare five days a week for the month of May so I could be available to help him out with miscellaneous stuff, but we're dropping back to three this month because it's just not necessary. Besides, I really want those days during the week to spend with her doing stuff in town when it won't be weekend crowded.

Zoey and her beloved teacher, Miss A at the Violet Crown Festival at Brentwood park.

She loves her school, though, and really loves her teacher, Miss A. However, she's just been moved up to the next class, so she's getting a new teacher. She loves the new teacher as well, but honestly, Miss A will be hard to beat. She just truly loves her kids--she even spends her weekends going to their birthday parties and her kids just gather around her with stars in their eyes. Speaking of parties, Zoey's been to a few the past month, and she's had a blast. One was at this amazing place called Crowe's Nest Farm, with all kinds of animals to look at, peacocks running around free in full plumage, real live longhorns (as you might guess, longhorns are extremely popular with kids in Austin), even a milking barn where the birthday boy got to actually milk a cow. (And then we all got to see them do it the modern way, which was kind of gross. Has anyone used an electric breast pump? Imagine one that was megapowered....)The other party was at one of her classmates amazing backyard, which was extra cool because a lot of Zoey's classmates were there.

Donkeys and goats at the farm.

Zoey and birthday boy Nico.

Zoey has been making friends in town, and we've started doing some playdates with one of the boys in her class. I think he has a little crush on her. His mom is really cool, too.

During the round of severe spring storms that hit Austin, one power surge killed the hard drive in our old computer. And of course, I don't have a recent backup. My last full backup was done before we left Houston. Most of the stuff on there is still replacable, except for hundreds of pictures of Zoey I had taken since moving to Austin. I'm hoping I can take the hard drive in somewhere to recover them, because it's killing me.

I've updated the pictures on my smugmug photo site, though I only had pictures I'd taken that were still on the camera disks. See, now that I've actually had a real hard drive failure (first time ever), I can see the need to update the site on a regular basis, because I still have those pictures.

Okay, my resolution for June is to post more, even if it's just random stuff. Bethanyblog and dislextington just put me to shame.

Hail YES!

2006-04-21T10:02:00.000-05:00

As you can imagine, we're suffering through a pretty heavy dose of schadenfruede here in Austin due to three hailstorms in the past two weeks. Yes, that's right, three. After the first one, Trey came home from his miserable trip to the midwest to see what he could eke out. He booked a couple of cars, and then Boom! Tuesday's hail storm in the suburbs north of Austin. He wasn't even finished doing his happy hail dance/overwhelmed freak out when we got hit again on Thursday--this time literally in our own backyard. I couldn't even wait for the rain to stop before I ran outside and grabbed a few souvenirs (though I did wait for the hail to stop). It didn't hail hard here, but the ones that did come down were pretty big.

So who knows. No me.

Spirited Away

2006-03-30T11:53:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to recommend this movie to anyone out there who's looking for an entertaining and magical way to spend a couple of hours. Kilian and Tricia told me how good it was a year ago, and I just recently got around to watching it. Actually, I happened upon it on cable (Turner Classic Movie channel) and couldn't finish it due to Zoey's demands that I play with her. I was so mad at myself for not recording it then and there, that I joined netflix just to get a hold of the movie (besides, two weeks free trial). I got it in the mail yesterday, and couldn't wait for Zoey to go to sleep so I could watch it.

It's about a 10-year-old girl named Chihiro (Japanese, of course, it's anime), a spoiled, whiny, lazy little thing, who's parent's take a detour and mindlessly (stupidly) wander through a long, dark tunnel to see what's on the other side. Once there, they explore, thinking it's an abandoned theme park. Then they smell food, a smell so delicious they just can't resist, and find an open, unattended restaurant full of goodies they can't help but dig into. The whole time, Chihiro is frightened of the place and refuses to eat. She wanders away from the restaurant and comes upon a grand bathhouse, where she runs into a young man/boy named Haku, who tells her she needs to leave, now, before night falls. Too late, the lanterns are lit and the spirits come out. Chihiro runs back to her parents, only to find they've been turned into pigs. The world is no abandoned theme park, but a fantastical other world run by a crazy, big-headed witch. The bath house is for spirits.

I'll stop with the play-by-play, because the story needs to unfold upon you itself. But just let me say that this is an incredible journey for Chihiro, as she is forced to dig deep within her self to learn to survive in this world, and hopefully save her parents from becoming bacon (mmmm...bacon). It's a beautiful film, full of frightening and funny creatures, but even more amazing is the story itself, and the characters that inhabit this world. Especially Chihiro.

This is the kind of movie I would have adored as a little girl, who read a lot of fantasy and science fiction novels, even at 10-years-old, imaging incredible worlds where I could have real adventures. And yes, I was probably a little lazy and spoiled as well. The movie tugged at my heart for this reason, but I wonder how much it affected me emotionally having a daughter. Chihiro reminded me of Zoey (after all, Z looks a little like an anime character herself), and because of that connection I really wanted things to turn out well for her, for her to grow up and learn that she's strong and capable and smart. It still kind of gets to me just thinking about it now.

Of course, if you don't have a little girl, you should still see the movie. Seriously. Ask Kilian and Tricia.

2006-03-24T10:11:00.000-06:00

Z and I went to Houston for a couple of days so I could take her to her doctor. She's basically had a chronic ear and sinus infection all winter, and the doc was concerned about a build up of icky, puss-y fluid in her ear. She needed to see if the fluid was still there, and if so, was going to send us to a specialist. The very good news was that the fluid was gone. But the poor kid has been through so many rounds of antibiotics. She's mostly pretty good about taking the medicine, though, and only sometimes runs away and lies down prone on the floor, face down, to hide her mouth from me. Sometimes she would just cover her mouth with her hands. Poor kid, but you know, I'm bigger and stronger than she is. It's not fun manhandling your child to force medicine down their throat.

The other fun thing I did was go see the last installment of Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre and Two Star Symphony's collaboration, Danse Macabre III. I've been lucky to see all three shows, just managing to come into town for the last two. They've all been amazing, but this last one was the best. Joel kept the puppetry to a minimum, allowing the music to be the anchor for the show. And the music was wonderfully, creepily melodic. Two Star is doing some amazing things.

The story was sparse: a man gets buried alive on the same night his grave neighbors rise up from their plots to tell their stories. The man tells his story in a series of occasional monologues, switching between the actor standing in an upright casket and a puppet in the background (also in a casket). The music would be accompanied by video, some of which incorporated ideas and imagery from the two previous shows. The dead told their stories, some of them funny, some of them sad, some of them just plain sick, in a series of disembodied voices, with the occasional dancer sneaking onstage to act out a particular death. As the music lead up to the last piece, Camille Saint-Saens symphonic piece "Danse Macabre," the dead finally get to do their dance. It's a powerful performance.

I enjoyed all the different media and art elements incorporated. Far, far more than just a puppet show, it was performance art. At first, I kept thinking, "where are the puppets?" But as the piece progressed, I forgot about it and just enjoyed the atmospheric music and the visuals, and let the whole of the experience take over. I'm really glad I got into town on the right night.

Oh, and here's the obligatory Texas kid bluebonnet picture, taken with my camera phone:

a night out

2006-03-16T13:52:00.000-06:00

I finally got to see my first ever sxsw show last night--thought even more phenomenally, I finally got to actually go out for the first time since moving to Austin. Luckily, I won free tickets to the Matador's SXSW showcase. Unfortunately, it meant I had to get there at 6:30 and wait and wait and wait until I got to see the bands I liked (New Pornagraphers and Belle and Sebastian). My new friend Steph went with me, and we sat around for three and a half hours, just talking to each other. I don't think I've had that much adult conversation for that long in three years. It was great! So were the two bands I waited to see, even though we basically watched NP through a tree. It was so effing crowded at the showcase, so many people wearing badges and talking on Cell phones ("where are you? I'm on the steps over here (arm wave)" "who do you want to go see next?" "do you know this band" "dude, I'm already so wasted"). Even funnier were the scores of people walking out of the portapotties on their phones ("dude, I'm totally taking a sh*t right now"). On the one hand, I scoff at those people. On the other hand, I totally almost did it myself because, well, you can hear in there. Oh, and I had a Stubbs bbq sandwich. It was good, or maybe I was hungry. No, it was pretty good. I was hungry, though.

I was surprised by B&S, the sound was terrific and they're such cute, pastie-white scottish boys. Sure, all their songs sound terribly similar, but it's such pretty music. Some short Danish guy next to me helpfully explained that they have a rep of sloppy shows, but that last night's show was really really tight, so I was lucky. And really, chances are pretty good I'll never go see them again. I mean, I don't have any of their albums, and only recognized one song. But it was the end of a long night and Steph and I were cracking each other up and having a blast. We left before Mogwai, though, cuz it had been such a long night and we were done drinking.

After leaving Stubbs, we wandered down sixth street to check out the circus. It was pretty crowded, people were pretty wasted, but steph informed me that on a normal weekend night the crowd is usually mostly drunk coed types stumbling down the street, whereas this crowd was seriously male dominated. And not particularly young, either. But yes, still they were drunk.

I don't know if I'll make any other SXSW events, though I'm real tempted to try and go to the Spoon/Echo and the Bunnymen free show tonight. I probably won't go, though, cuz I don't want to deal with parking and taking a potty-training Zoey. I can only imagine what kind of reaction her first glimpse of the inside of a public portapotty would elicit. I'm thinking horror, horror, and then wetness all over my clothes. Hmmm.

Hi ho!

2006-03-09T09:43:00.000-06:00

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly, you get along well with everyone you know.You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems.Don't worry - everyone know's it's not easy being green.Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies!

The Muppet Personality Test

Thanks to Bethany for the link.

Been Awhile....

2006-02-27T12:54:00.000-06:00

So, I thought I'd start out with some must see ZoeyTV. It's called "Tomorrow," and, well, you're just going to have to click on the picture to see why. (If you are a Mac user, here's the quick time link.) Then I'd follow up with a dry, itemized list of what all we've been up to these last few months.

The holidays were good. We actually got to spend a leisurely Christmas morning with just the three of us in Austin. In the afternoon, we went to our friends Steph and Paul to have Christmas dinner. Zoey likes presents.

We moved out of our little aptartment into a much bigger house in far northwest Austin. I looked for two months for a suitable house closer in town, but never came across something that would work. They were either in bad shape, or they were too much money, or they didn't want cats. So, as we were closing in on our move-out day, I expanded my search and found a nice little 3/2 that backs up to a big park. It hadn't been updated, so it was under $1000, and was absolutely filthy when I looked at it, but I really like the layout and the quiet neighborhood. Of course, once I put in our application, a nice lady with a cute 2/1 in Crestview called to offer me her house (she had been iffy about the cats). Oh well. I'ts for the best, because even though it's not the neighborhood I wanted, it's a neighborhood I like, and it's bigger and has a dishwasher. So there. For the record, we are still in Austin's Travis County (but just barely). I'll send a separate email out with the new address. Eventually.

Zoey just had her third birthday. Hard to believe. She can do so much now, but you know it's really hard to tell how far she's come unless you are able to look back at where she was a year ago, because the change is so gradual, and you get a little lost in the daily dramas to notice. I just spent a few minutes looking at video from her second birthday and was amazed at how well she talked then, and how far she's come.

Potty training sucks! We started cold turkey yesterday, and even though I know she knows what to do and basically when to do it, she resisted the whole day. What a long, messy day. Today she has school, and hopefully her teacher will have more luck. I'm afraid to call and check up on her. I want to. I should. But I haven't yet.

First fishing trip

2005-11-28T11:57:00.000-06:00

As you can imagine, this was an exciting moment for Trey. I found a cute little pond in a park that supposedly has some fish, so T and I took her there for her first fishing experience. We stopped by Academy to purchase a brand new Dora the Explorer fishing pole and some "extra large mealworms" for bait. On the way to the store, we witnessed a small grassfire on the side of I-35 ("Should we call 911?" "No, someone's already called, I'm sure."). By the time we went around the freeway to get to the store, the two small, 12 ft diameter fires had spread up toward the actual freeway! Fortunately, the FD had showed up and were spraying them with water. I can't imagine what caused the fires. Cigarettes? Probably not, because there were two, spaced about 20 feet apart. It was weird. But I digress.

We got the fishing supplies and headed out to the park. It was a beautifully windy, if a bit warm for November, day--perfect for a nice family outing. Trey set up the line with a hook and a bobber, because Zoey wanted a ball on the end of her line. She'd seen a little boy fishing the first time we went to the park and really liked that there was a ball on the string. T cast out a number of times as we moved along the shore, trying to find a good spot, you know, where Zoey could actually catch some fish. The whole time, Zoey is way more interested in putting her hand in the water, or splashing a small branch she had found in the water and then taking it out to show me how wet it was. She stepped into a hole near the shore and soaked her tennis shoe in mud. (Note muddy right foot in picture) Trey kept casting. Zoey and I pulled out an extra large mealworm and watched it writhe on the ground. Zoey kept inching toward the water to grab leaves and pine needles floating near the edge. Everything was right with the world for a few minutes, even though there were no fish.

Then Zoey leaned over to grab at something in the water, and fell completely in. The look of shock on her face was priceless. I reached over for her, and wondered for a second if I could just grab her hand and pull her out; then thought better of it and went into the water halfway myself to get her out. She was soaked. I was halfway soaked, and she started to cry so I just held her for a minute and told her everything was all right. "We're finished," Trey said. I agreed and we walked toward the car with a whimpering, wet Zoey; me sloshing through the grass in my wet tennis shoes. Halfway to the car, Trey and I started giggling, because it was really very funny, and perhaps a necessary thing for Zoey to experience. See, every time we take her to some kind of watery body, she just wants to walk right into it and we have to pull her back forcibly and tell her she can't just walk into the water. But she doesn't ever really understand why. Maybe now she does. Does that sound harsh? It isn't, really. I mean, the water was only about two feet deep. She was never in any real danger. And the look on her face really was priceless. It's too bad I didn't get it on video, but the camera was in my back pocket--on the side of my butt that fortunately did not go into the water. Unfortunately, my cell phone was in my other back pocket, and it stopped working completely.

I had been planning on ending this entry with a little aside to the people who may care about how I was going to e-mail them with a new phone number, but this morning I put my phone back together and it seems to be working fine (please call me again BB!).

Oh, and happy 6 months birthday to Lucas!

The Happiest Place on Earth

2005-11-11T14:40:00.000-06:00

Or so they say. And it was, honestly, a pretty happy place for Zoey, who was so excited about meeting Mickey Mouse, even though we had to stand in line for over 30 minutes for the priveledge of a 2-minute meet and greet. Little kids do not understand waiting in line, or waiting at all, much less the concept of "get out of the way kid your time is up." Still, she spent the rest of the day saying, "Did you give Mickey Mouse a hug?" (She's currently conversing in question mode.)

It's amazing how an oversized rat in ridiculous clothing can make little kids so happy. I know that underneath that costume there's a tired wannabe actor who makes the same 10 poses over 300 times a day and is damn thrilled no one can see his face. But to Zoey, wow, he's a superstar. Along with every other big-headed character roaming around the place.

Needless to say, she had a fantastic time. Me and Trey, well, we got alternately tired, irritated, overwhelmed, and cynical, but it was hard not to feed off some of Zoey's intense joy. We didn't ride all that many rides, because Zoey was too small for many of them, and the wait was just too long for the rest. But we did enough to make a small child happy. We rode the Cinderella Carrousel, with its smiling white horses, first, because Zoey loves her some carrousel. I should correct myself, because we actually went to Toontown first because Zoey really wanted to meet Mickey Mouse. He was there when we walked in, and we got in line to meet him at the front gate, but the line moved slowly and Trey got impatient so we bailed and headed past Cinderella's castle to toontown, where the map promised Mickey likes to hang out. (Wait a minute, if he's in ToonTown, how come we just saw him at the front gate....) We mistakenly went through Minnie's House, and it's long crowded line of people walking past and just looking at stuff. But Donald Duck's park was just next door and we were able to let Zoey run around there for a few minutes before getting back into a line to meet Mickey.

I'm such a nice wife, I let Trey go wander around and find some coffee and aspirin while I took Zoey to meet Mickey. And while it probably took us 30 minutes to get in to see the mouse, get our picture and get out, Trey still hadn't returned. So I let Zoey play some more in Donald's park, which was a pretty happy place for many of the smaller kids, until they fell or ran head on into another kid and started crying (I saw this happen at least three times). Because the kids, you know, they're crazy at Disney World. Crazy or tired. Or crazy tired.

Trey finally made it back, though for a minute or two I was really worried that he was lost. He brought me an iced coffee that I immediately dropped in the restroom stall, much to the surprise of the mom and kid in the adjacent stall (heh heh, I left rather quickly after that). Oh well. We decided that the first ride of the day should be Cinderella's carrousel (see above), and that the second ride should be "It's a Small World," because I remember when I went to Disney World, oh, back in 1981 or so, my sister really, really loved that ride. And she was pretty much the same age as Zoey at the time. After a 40 minute wait, we boarded the little boats and floated through the disney-fied world of multiculturalism. It was great, mostly because it's just so much fun to watch Zoey be amazed.

Oh, and there's video of it here. It's very dark, but I think it conveys some of Zoey's excitement. ( quicktime version )

Then we ate a surprisingly good lunch: a turkey bacon pannini, which Zoey and I shared because she didn't like her turkey and cheese wraps. After lunch, we got fast past tickets to the Winnie the Pooh ride. Fast Pass is Disney's alternative to waiting in their giganto lines. You get one fast pass at a time, and it tells you when you get to come back to the ride, where you get in the fast pass line right onto the ride. The ticket told us to come back between 5:55 and 6:55, and as it was only about 3:00, we had some time to kill, so we went into Piglet's park, which, like Donald's playground, is an enclosed space especially designed for the smaller kids. She played around in Pooh's house for a bit, and went down the slide, and all was well and good until she discovered the water fountain feature in the park. She jumped right in to the fountain to play in the water, because, like all kids, she loves to get wet. And me, like all parents, just cringe at these fountains because it always induces such a contradiction of feelings. On the one hand, I really want her to have a good time. On the other, I don't want her to run around in wet clothes and I didn't bring a change of clothes with me into the park. But oh well, because the kid always wins and gets to get soaked. And then Disney wins, too, because we had to buy her a new shirt, but that's okay, because I wanted her to get a shirt anyway.

At this point, I'm wanting Zoey to take a little nap. She's tired and getting alittle fussy. She doesn't want to ride in the stroller (did I mention that renting a stroller was the best thing we did that day?); she wants me or daddy to hold her, but her shorts are soaking wet and it's not really comfortable to hold her. Trey and I need some more coffee, because we're getting a little tired, too, so we start walking toward Tomorrowland. Zoey's starting to cry because I've belted her into the stroller thinking she'll just eventually fall asleep. I mean, there were hundreds of other kids sleeping in their strollers (or parent's arms). There were also hundreds of other kids in various states of unhappiness--so much for the happiest place on earth. This kid was tired and overstimulated; I was just sure she'd pass out in the stroller. But she never did. She cried through much of our walk through tomorrowland (there were no good rides for little ones there). We finally just let her out of the stroller to run around a bit, which not only stopped her fussing, but also woke her up. Oh well.

We exited tomorrowland and came upon Cinderella's castle with about 10 minutes until the next showing of the Cinderella show. It's not that much of a show, just a little song and dance and into of the princesses who all came to watch Cinderella get crowned a princess. But it was Cinderella, and Zoey loves Cinderella, so we had to stay and watch it.

After the show, we still had some time to kill before our fast pass tickets were valid, so we went into adventureland and came upon a deserted Pirates of the Carribean ride. There were people streaming in, but as we walked up a disney employee pointed to the other line and let us know there were two, so we went into the empty line and literally onto a boat. Yeah! Another boat ride! Zoey loves boat rides. But uh oh, tunnels. Dark tunnels. Zoey hates tunnels. I had forgotten how frightening that ride can be. It starts out really dark, and then the boat drops off about three feet. Zoey started with the "no more! no more!" cries that she uses when she's scared and both Trey and me are starting to think we made a mistake. Fortunately, the ride livens up quite a bit once you get past the fake gun battles, and start seeing all the mangely animals interacting with the drunken, dancing and laughing pirates. By the time it was over, it had become one of Zoey's favorite rides.

We then got in line for the Jungle Cruise ride, but after about 30 minutes we bailed on the line. It gets frustrating to wait and wait and then watch all those fast pass people walk right in front of you. We meandered into Frontierland, but all those rides are too big, so we headed back to Fantasyland and the winnie the pooh ride. On the walk over there, I noticed the line for small world had gotten smaller, and so had the one for the Snow White ride. It was getting dark, so maybe a lot of the crowd had left. We walked right into the Winnnie the Pooh ride, which is one of the typical get-in-a-cart-and-wheel-around-a-track-to-look-at-scenes-from-a-story ride. It was cute, but really, meh. Then we rode Snow White, which really scared Zoey. Do any of you really remember Snow White? That story is terrifying, really terrifying. Everything about it is dark and sinister.

Surprisingly, Zoey wanted to ride the Dumbo ride, which she called the elephant merry-go-round, so I took her to stand in line while letting Trey sit down for a while. It was a long slow line, exacerbated by the fact that you could easily watch people get on the ride. And with Zoey, you just have to pick her up and hold her while in line, because otherwise she would wander off, maybe try to walk to the front of the line. She kept saying, "first they finish, then Zoey." Yes, that's right, first they finish. ANd then they finish, and then them and them and them.. Then Zoey. But it was worth it because Zoey loved the ride, which is a good sign for amusement parks in our future. I rather like riding the faster rides, and it would just suck if Zoey decides they're not for her, because I'm really looking forward to taking her on some.

Anyway, we're almost done with our day at Disney. We rode the carrousel again, because there was no wait (and again, Zoey loves her some carrousel), same with the small world ride. Then we found a place to watch the SpectraVision parade. I don't think I've ever seen Zoey's face more full of awe as during the parade, with it's millions of lights and every Disney character you've ever heard of riding electrical floats in front of you. She waved frantically to Mickey, who waved back to Zoey's sheer joy. She saw Cinderella and Snow White and Arial and Belle and all the princesses she's never heard of yet but will someday probably worship. And Donald and Goofy and Pluto and electic fairies and crazy looking creatures with funny faces, all dancing and fake singing to this really stupid, typically Disney orchestral soundtrack. For an adult, it's horrifying and magical. But for Zoey, it was just magic.

We got more pictures. Go here.

2005-11-02T12:37:00.000-06:00

Zoey was a princess/cinderella for Halloween this year. She wanted to be Cinderella, though she's never seen the movie and only knows about Cinderella from a certain Blues Clues episode. In any case, as they've recently released the DVD, target was overflowing with Cinderella stuff. You could actually buy a kids Cinderella costume for less than $16 (for an extra $10 you could get the glass slippers, too). I, however, didn't really like the official costume, thought it would probably be too big for her anyway, and instead bought a random princess leotard I found discarded in the costume section for $20. My thinking sort of was that this way she could play dress up ballerina or princess with it for the next two years (provided it doesn't get destroyed before that). Besides, it's Texas, and one never knows whether it's going to be hot or cold on Halloween. When I bought the dress, it was hot. The picture is actually from the weekend before, at the Houston Zoo's "Zoo Boo," where we went with Kelly and Olivia.

Zoey had a good time at the Zoo Boo; she got to ride the carrousel and dance to the DJ spinning in front of the monkey exhibit. Halloween, unfortunately, was a different story. She was excited to wear her princess costume ("I am a princess!" she'd say, her arms raised high over her head in exclamation.) She wore it to school that day, and to Kelly's friend's Halloween party in South Austin, where the plan was to take all the kids trick or treating together. I was excited about the trick or treating, because even though I don't really let Zoey eat candy, I certainly allow myself some sugar and the idea of having a plastic pumpkin full of sweets sounded pretty good to me. Plus, I thought Zoey would get a kick out of seeing all the other kids playing dress up. Except, sometimes the parents play dress up as well, and well, they like to be scary. So, at the party, there was an adult who dressed up like one of the Misfits, complete with scary face paint. He absolutely terrified Zoey. Everytime she saw him she ran into me and squeezed me so tightly I almost choked, tears streaming down her face. "No more! No More!" Poor guy. He felt so bad. The other adults kept telling him to go away from her sight. Supposedly he's actually a really nice guy. But after seeing him, Zoey was pretty much done. Even the kids started scaring her. We had to curtail the trick or treating after three houses (which means very little candy for me).

We went back to Kelly's friend's house to wait for Kelly and Gerry and Olivia (who, btw, was having a great time trick or treating), but even that was too long of a wait for my scarred little girl. Some kids came up to the house and tried to make her feel better, but one of them was dressed as a witch and Zoey wouldn't even look at her. She was a sweet witch, though, promising to not put a spell on her. So it was back to the new telephone room.

I did allow her to eat one peanut butter cup, which she said was "very good." Of course, now she just wants to eat more candy, and keeps asking for something from the pumpkin. Except, well, the pumpkins pretty empty.

Zoey's wised up

2005-10-28T12:20:00.000-05:00

She no longer goes merrily into the schoolyard to play with her friends. Instead, five blocks from school she starts saying, "I don't wanna go to school!" The tears start. The nose runs (she's getting over a cold which has morphed into a sinus infection). "I just want to go back to the new telephone room!" It's heartbreaking.

So I have to hang out a little bit longer at school, wipe her nose, dry her tears, explain that I'll be right back and remind her that she likes school. Because she does. She loves being around other kids and playing. She made some art the other week. It's a red blob of paint, circular on one side and then trailing off in random lines, entitled "Red Tree." Although, it perhaps would be better titled, "Blood Stain on my Heart Because My Mommy Leaves Me Here."

Still, it's a process, this growing up thing. And really, she's been such a trooper through all this change. I'm sure she's glad the Astros are done playing, as not mommy doesn't have to watch the ball games every freaking night. It's a relief to me, too, as those games got pretty depressing at the end. I swear, I was in a real funk after game 3. It just seemed so sad for such a miracle season to end this way. But you know, if you can't get people across home plate, you just can't expect to win.

Bye bye house

2005-10-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let you guys know that as of Wednesday morning, our little house in houston is officially SOLD! What a relief for us, that it took less than two months, and that we got just under our asking price. Hooray! No more mortgage and rent at the same time.

We don't really know what we're going to do regarding more permanent residence in Austin, yet, but we will most likely move to someplace else in Austin once our lease is up at the complex. Yes, a one-bedroom apartment is a little on the small side. We could really use at least one more room. But we are making do, and very happy to be "alltogether" in the NEW telephone room. (And I'm still loving having a dishwasher and disposal at my beck and call.)

Zoey's doing well at school, and is only a little discombobulated during nap time. She loves being around other kids. We're just so lucky that she is a flexible, easy-going kid, as she's been subjected to so much change in the past two months: we moved; we weaned off bottle and breast; we started school. I think (as Bethany has pointed out during one of our nice phone conversations) it helped that there was so much change at once. Of course, now she has a cold, but we are in Houston anyway until the end of the week.

Which means I got to be in town for the Astros clinching the pennant. Unfortunately, I watched it at my parent's house, with just them, and all three of us were thrilled as we are all long-time fans. But I would have loved to have been at Rudyard's, where I watched so many games, or with ScottButt or Lynn, who were my Astros buddies during all those years where tickets to the games (at the Dome) were so easy to come by. I remember once walking up to see a game with Lynn L., thinking we'd just go buy cheap seats at the box office and running into a gentleman who simply asked if we wanted two field-level tickets cuz he had extra. Or the time me and Scott went to a game against Cincinnati, a game that came to be known as the "brawlgame" due to an abundance of dugout-clearing fights between the two teams. Or the one playoff game vs. Atlanta I went to that year the astros were so damn good they won over 100 games and then blew it in the first round. I've seen so many games, but Wednesday night's game was the sweetest. I just wish I'd gotten to drive around honking my horn and high-fiving strangers. And if I still had my house, I know I would have heard the sounds of celebration all around me, which would have been beautiful, if somewhat scary. My sister insists that I come back to Houston to watch some of the world series games with her, but I doubt I'll do that. I'll just have to find some fans in Austin to watch the games with me.

Greetings from Austin

2005-10-10T13:55:00.000-05:00

We'll, we've been here about a month now and things are going pretty well, especially now that the weather finally cooled off. Zoey took to the move like a pro, and only occasionally asks to go to "mommy's house." I don't really know if she really understands it when I tell her that we now live in "the NEW telephone room." But she likes it here. (She calls it the "telephone room," I think, because she was used to staying in moTEL rooms when we came to visit daddy, and called them "telephone rooms." So this apartment became "the NEW telephone room." That's how she says it, emphasis, long vowel sound, on "NEW.") It's a pretty small place, but pretty quiet, clean, with nice carpeting, a dishwasher and disposal--which I love having--and a washer and dryer. It's a big complex, and sometimes louder than I'd like thanks to the family of 6 or so across the hall that's become the hangout for many of the complex elementary-school kids. I mean, I think the hall (actually a breezeway) has become the hangout. I swear there's always about 6-8 kids out there playing. Oh well. Too bad they're all too old for Zoey.

We've made some friends here, too. Trey answered a craigslist ad and met a guy who moved here with his girlfriend-now wife from the bay area earlier this year. They are both very cool people. Trey even married them a few weeks ago (the pick above is from the laid back stealth wedding ceremony atop Mt. Bonnell). Zoey also met a pair of siblings who lived above us for a few months. They've sinced moved into their new house, but they promised to invite us over for a playdate once they get settled. I haven't yet hooked up with any of my Austin friends, but that'll happen soon enough. Things are looking pretty positive for us.

And it looks like we're going to close on the sale of our house before the end of the month! Maybe even before the end of this week, but I'm not going to celebrate that until all the papers are signed and we have that tiny little check in our hands. Yes, we will probably get a little check. Getting the house ready has been such a stressor for me, as I've had to do it all myself, but it's been worth it. The house looked great, and we had a fair number of interested parties. It's gone way better than I'd hoped.

Zoey started school today. I actually wrote an entry earlier this morning, when I was still very anxious and a bit weepy about this new chapter in her life. But I lost it in the blink of an eye trying to allow popups to this site. Oh well. I'm feeling much better now, as she's so far done pretty well (I've had a few phone calls with the director, who's given me updates.) She had a mini-meltdown mid-morning, when she finally looked up from playing to realize I wasn't around. Then they fed her lunch and well, the kid likes to eat. The real surprise was when I called around 1 pm and found out that she was actually napping along with the rest of the class. I'm going to pick her up soon. And of course, we'll see how Wednesday goes (she's just M-W-F for now).

Anyway, things are pretty good. Plus, the Astros beat the Braves.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Zoey in the studio

2005-08-14T14:06:00.000-05:00

Watch for her new album, coming soon on Ojet.

Okay, so I haven't posted in a long time. And even now I shouldn't be posting; I should be packing up my dishes for our move to Austin. The house is in disarray, some things are in storage already. We are giving away many things, most of it will go to the Episcopal High School Junior Garage Sale (whoa, long title, lots of caps). I still have some appliances (microwave, electric food steamer, electric kettle), a hutch and a dresser that anyone can have. (on edit: most things are gone, except this dresser, and a microwave and microwave cart.)

It's been extremely stressful, packing up a house full of stuff to move into a small one bedroom apartment. It'll be my first foray into a giganto complex since 1986, coincidentally also in Austin. But it was the easiest thing to do, and the apt isn't too bad. Zoey's already met a little friend there, and she loves the pool.

Things are afloat and untied. My brain can't keep a list. I'm overwhelmed, but the end is in sight.

Um...does anyone know how to delete comments on blogger? I've been spammed.

Why cyclists wear black shorts

2005-06-01T22:56:00.000-05:00

courtesy metafilter

http://www.alivewithlove.com/cyclists.html

um...possibly nsfw...

I <3 the Sweeneys

2005-05-26T15:37:00.000-05:00

Tricia miraculously captured this charming photo of Zoey and the plastic flamingo. God knows, Zoey don't pose....

So, this post is really late in coming. My problem stems from my desire to do something really good, but never having the time to really sit down and work at it. So it doesn't get done. This goes for a lot of things. I have big plans. Too big. So nothing.

That, and I keep going back to the damn Weboggle page. There, I just went back and closed it. It's evil.

I spent some time with the Sweeney's on their brief trip to Houston, and we had a great time. Zoey really takes to both of them (and they seemed quite charmed by her as well). We were all impressed by Zoey remembering their names. I brought her over to Kilian's mom's house, not telling her who we were going to see. We came up to the door and Tricia opened it and gave Zoey a big hello, but Zoey just looked at her and went inside. She looked around the house a bit, looked back at Tricia, and said, "That's Tricia." We both went, "hooray!" and Zoey said, "That's good Zoey!" She recognized Kilian as well as Carlotta (Kilian's mom). Such a smart girl.

Anyway, we had a fun day driving down to visit Tricia's sister to watch her boys 1. play trumpet in a concert and 2. play little league baseball. Well, Zoey and I didn't watch the concert, that was a bit too still for her. She and I took a walk around Industrial, TX (was it Industrial? Or Industry? Something vaguely workerish sounding....), including the high school Tricia went to for two years. The ballpark was more fun for Zoey, as she had a great time climbing up and down the steel bleachers making much noise and then making sure everybody watched her jump down with much thunder. Well, I thought it was cute, but I think some of the other parents got a little tired of the noise, so I took her down to the adjacent playground, which was nicely lit up at 9 pm. We had the place to ourselves for most of the time, only briefly joined by a suspicious looking camaro that parked near the playground, then drove slowly away. Hmmm, we then left the park. Of course, it's very likely the driver of said camaro was only looking for a quiet place to, oh, I don't know, do drugs or something, but you never know in those small towns. (For the record, the ballgame was in Ganato, TX.--wait, let me look these names up--sorry, Ganado, TX, and I couldn't find the town with the high school but am certain Tricia will clue me in at some point.)

After the ball game, we took a quick trip to Tricia's sister's family's new bay house, which they had actually purchased whole and moved to their lot. It was an impressive job. BTW, Tricia's sister Sheila and her family were all very nice. Zoey really liked their backyard, which is set up for a daycare, so you can imagine the toys. When we first arrived, Zoey actually held her hands up and went "Yay! We're at the park!" Also, Kilian left Ernie there, so we had to go back after the concert or else my life would have been made much worse. When we went back, we stayed in the front yard as Zoey was already a little upset because we had left another playground before she was able to play in it. There's nothing more frustrating for a 2-year-old than seeing a playground and not being able to touch it. Well, there are probably more frustrating things out there. I certainly can't tell you what goes on in the mind of a 2-year-old. I'm in a constant state of bafflement. Oh, and she was hungry too. That really gets her goat.

So, that particular Thursday was splendid. What I really enjoyed about the day was being so comfortable around old friends. I really miss hanging out with those guys. We used to just sit around and do nothing for hours, back in the day. "I'm bored." "Come on over." "Okay, be right there."

"Kilian, what are you doing?"

We got to spend Sunday afternoon with them at Kilian's mother's house (Carlotta, remember?), which was especially memorable for Zoey's impromptu (but not needing much prompting) performance of several popular children's songs. This, I got on video, and you can view it here, unless you have a macintosh, in which case, click here for the quicktime version. (I recommend any dialups out there to use the first link if you have a Windows movie player, because it's a much smaller file.)

Tricia and I also got a few nice pictures in the backyard, mostly of Zoey and Kilian, which you can check out at the smugmug site. I don't remember who took which pic, but if it's especially well composed, go with Tricia.

Zoey sings!

2005-05-02T10:08:00.000-05:00

www.sadlikecrazy.com/video/twinkle.wmv

and here's a version for all of Zoey's Mac fans out there:
http://www.sadlikecrazy.com/video/twinkle.mov

More random thoughts

2005-04-22T10:23:00.000-05:00

1. The new pope: Is it me, or is the statement "A dictatorship of reletivism" an oxymoron? Just asking. (Because it could be me...I could be an oxymoron.)

2. I recently started watching "Law and Order: Special Victim's Unit." I'm not sure why. Maybe I find it to be compelling, suspenseful television. Maybe I find watching "Cop Killer" Ice-T playing a cop oddly ironic (though he would be more believable if he didn't have that silly ponytail). Or maybe it's just because it's on all the time and if I'm just watching non-dvr'd TV I'll almost always come across an episode I haven't seen before.

3. Zoey talks so well these days, I can almost have complete conversations with her. Now, if she wants something, or wants me to do something, she just tells me. But sometimes she lies.

Me: "Zoey, are you going poo-poo?"
Zoey (squatting with scrunched up face): "No."
Me: "Are you sure?"

Ah well, we are not potty-trained yet. My mom says it'll be like a light going off, that one day she'll just suddenly get it. Right now, though, I think she just so loves wearing Elmo diapers that she's reluctant to give them up.

4. Her favorite doll is her Ernie doll. He goes everywhere. She walks around holding him by his little waist, so he can look out and see the world. It's like he walks around with her. It's very cute, but I dread the idea of losing this doll. One time, after my dad took her to a neighborhood park, Ernie got lost. We went all over their house yelling "Ernie, where are you?" But he didn't answer. I finally went back to the park, which was full of after-school program kids at the time. I had horrific images in my head of third-grade boys using him as a football. But Ernie was no football. I found him right away, face down in the street next to the curb. Such a sad sight, like he'd passed out after a long, drunken night of doing X and poppers at a gay disco. Zoey didn't care; she took him back right away and the tears stopped. I just can't say the same for Bert.

Toddlers move very quickly

2005-04-12T16:24:00.000-05:00

Okay, a couple of funny Zoey stories. I have to find them funny, or I will lose my mind. I was busy cooking dinner for us (chicken, spinach), so I wasn’t keeping my two eyes on her. I saw her climb onto a chair and start exploring the stuff on top of the dining room table. We don’t eat there very often, so it had a good bit of junk, but nothing dangerous that I could think of. Then I saw her scramble down very quickly and scamper into the living room. No big deal, I thought. I kept cooking, and after a minute or two I went in to check on her. She had grabbed one of the chocolate bunnies on a stick left over from her Easter basket, chocolate bunnies that I had actually gotten for Trey because I don’t give her candy. And yes, she was eating it. Her face was covered in chocolate and aluminum foil. Two-year-olds, especially ones that don’t get candy, don’t know that the foil is supposed to be taken off.

I got whatever foil was in her mouth and took away the chocolate bunny. I was terrified that she could choke on some candy foil. Okay, so maybe I’m a bad mommy for not letting her have the chocolate (I put stickers and alphabet letters in her Easter eggs). Fortunately, I found a bunch of foil on the ground later that evening; Zoey probably decided it tasted bad.

During dinner, I came back from the kitchen to find Zoey dunking her chicken in the milk. I gasped and she dropped the chicken into the milk. She did this because Zoey loves the idea of dipping food into things; she watches with such curiosity as I put my French fries into ketchup or cream gravy (mmm…Whataburger chicken tender combo meal). I let her dip, which she does eagerly, only she doesn’t then actually eat the French fry, instead just sucking the ketchup or cream gravy off and then, yes, double-dipping. I try to explain that the condiment is actually there to help the food taste better, and demonstrate the method over and over again, but she has yet to grasp the concept. The other day, my sister and I were eating dumplings and dipping them in the soy sauce. Zoey loves the dumpling sauce, but instead of eating the dumpling, she just continuously dipped her fork into the sauce like it was soup. After a few minutes of her getting into little plastic container (and spilling much sauce) I got her onto Sarah’s, and then I got her a little ramekin of her own. She spent the rest of the dinner eating the “soup.”

“Mmm, good soup,” she said. Zoey loves soup.

Hmm, maybe the stories aren't so funny, really.

Things are happening with us; possible move to Austin on the horizen. Very possible move.

More pictures are up

2005-03-29T20:50:00.000-06:00

I put some recent pictures of Zoey up in a new gallery (Zoey 25-27 months). Go on over and take a look when you get a second.

zoey video (SFW)

2005-03-26T01:18:00.000-06:00

She's so smrt.

Zoey POD

2005-03-16T10:02:00.000-06:00

Since Zoey does not know how to sit still and smile for the camera, I have to be creative to come up with ways to get her to look at me. In this instance, I asked her to show me her "terrible teeth," a la her currently 2nd favorite book, "Where the Wild Things Are." (Her current favorite is "Hop on Pop," and it displaced the Sendak book as #1.)

It’s like I’ve been in a giant word void

2005-03-12T11:51:00.000-06:00

Things have been pretty uneventful at the Pool household these days. Zoey’s doing fine, adjusting to the “terrible twos” in textbook style. Sometimes she gets so mad/frustrated she collapses on the floor and lays there moaning; sometimes she’s the picture of perfect charm and grace. My sweet little angel is now schizophrenic. She’s also a drama queen.

And she talks. Constantly. Here are a few sample conversations:

(Looking at a book) Zoey: That’s a red fish.
Me: Yes it is.
Z: That’s a red fish.
M: You’re right.
Z: That’s a red fish.
M: Yes.
Z: That’s a red fish.
M: Uh huh.
Z: That’s a red fish.
M: That’s a red fish.
Z: That’s a red fish.
M: Where’s the blue fish?
Z: There’s the blue fish.
M: Very good!
Z: That’s a red fish.

(Pointing up at Mr. Potato Head, who’s been banished to the top shelf because it scares her a little bit.) Z: Mr. Potamo Head got eyes.
M: He’s got two eyes.
Z: He got ears.
M: Yes, two ears.
Z: He got a mouth.
M: Yep.
Z: He got arm.
M: He sure does.
Z: (waving) Hi eyes!
M: Hello Mr. Potato Head eyes.
Z: Hi mouth!
M: Hi mouth.
Z: Hi ears!
M: Hi ears.
Z: Hi feet!
M: Hi feet. Do you want me to get Mr. Potato Head?
Z: (shakes her head vigorously) No!

I’m worried she’s getting sick again. I took her with me to check out this day care. It’s the same one she used to attend when I was still working. She seemed very comfortable there, and got busy right away playing with the toys. During snack time, the teachers gave her some nachos in a little paper bowl, and she sat at the table and joined in the eating. Since it was in a bowl and served with a spoon, she announced it was soup and proceeded to eat the cheese with the spoon. But since she loves chips, she soon started on those, eating them properly with her hands. It looks like she’ll be okay when she finally starts going (part time). However, the whole time, around all those other little toddlers, I’m thinking, “germs.” And now she’s got a little cough. I think it’s kennel cough.

Birthday party pics are up

2005-03-01T12:09:00.000-06:00

You can take a look at more pics here.

Zoey had a blast at her birthday party, and she's still playing with all of her new toys. And I mean all of them. She also enjoyed all the attention. We finally got her saying "I'm two years old" on cue, though she has trouble with the finger positions. She tries to put two fingers up and ends up with what looks strikingly like the west si-eed gansta symbol. Between that and the skinhead dancing, I have to admit I'm a little worried about her future.

I didn't really take that many pictures, as I was busy playing hostess, so I'm going to take a few extra pictures of some of her gifts, like ote the toy food her granny got her for her toy shopping cart.

Birthday girl!

2005-02-25T11:43:00.000-06:00

Today's Zoey's second birthday, and I'm spending it cleaning up our house for her party tomorrow. She's actually very excited, though mostly because she wants some more birthday cake. Last Sunday, she went to Benjamin's first birthday party and had cake and thought it was pretty tasty.

We'll have her party tomorrow, a simple affair with cake and ice cream, and some balloons because she loves them. Soon after, I'll post some pictures. In the meantime, think about how fast time flies....

No more fun with "Next Blog"

2005-02-22T10:50:00.000-06:00

Apparently, clicking on the button might take you to a blog that will hijack your computer with spyware and viruses. For more information, check out the following links:

http://www.mt-law.com/blog/2005/01/spyware-on-blogspot.html
http://www.mt-law.com/blog/2005/02/update-another-blogspot-blog-that.html
http://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2005/02/elite-bar-adventures.html

Bummer. I found some interesting blogs that way. I also learned about how people used blogs to up their hit count on Google's search engine. Now I'm going to try and remove the next blog icon. If I cannot, I recommend never using it, just in case....

Trippy and cool

2005-02-20T10:46:00.000-06:00

Zoey really dug this link, though that worries me a bit. That, and the fact that her favorite part of "Where the Wild Things Are" is the wild rumpus/monster party bit.

http://www.tekhna3d.com/demos/kaleido.html

Funny article below

2005-02-18T11:35:00.000-06:00

http://www.courant.com/travel/columnists/hc-dencol-0214,0,588783.column?coll=hc-headlines-custom-specials

meoWcifer, 2 Gallants and Rogue Wave

2005-02-16T09:25:00.000-06:00

Trey and I actually ventured out into the wasteland of Houston's nightlife Saturday to go see our old friend Gram's Oakland-based, Sub Pop-signed band Rogue Wave at Mary Jane's Fat Cat (yes, that is the complete name of the place these days). And we went early enough to see all three bands and get some chatting time in with Gram, as well as take in the first band. meoWcifer is pretty good, pretty indie-pop stuff with two girl vocals, one of whom happens to be Jen N., whom I haven't seen in years. It had been so long, and as I didn't know she was in the band, but knew of the other girl in the band, I momentarily mistook Jen for the other girl and thought, wow, that girl looks a lot like Jen. Ha ha. Gram cleared everything up for me and I was real happy to see her again and talk to her a bit after her show. She's doing extremely well, and looking extremely happily in love with her new husband Ray (or Roy...).

The 2 Gallants are two very good, very young musicians who have a song that sounds almost exactly like Billy Joel's piano man. I don't know if they're old enough to even know that song. They like the blues, man, but not that obvious stuff. Obscure! Even more obscure! Dead old black men from the deep south whom you've never heard of. Never mind, you wouldn't understand.

Rogue Wave played a tight set, but they were highly irritated by both the overly dramatic female dancers and their overweight male escorts, and the rapidly disappearing crowd. The crowd thing made me feel a little bad for them, but I have to admit to enjoying watching the little look-at-me crowd embarrass themselves. I had a flashback to old TGL shows when the IBP crowd used to have such fun trying to out-drama each other on the dance floor. Of course, they never dressed as badly as Saturday night's little clique. I swear they must have thought they were going to an eighties party. Or maybe they just thought they looked good. Who knows.

I'll see if I have a pic worth posting a little bit later. Right now, Zoey's insisting on playing on the computer...

Saturday morning rant

2005-02-12T12:02:00.000-06:00

I don’t have anything really to report about, as we’re still sitting around recovering from the cold that wouldn’t go away. Secondary infections for everyone! Now my parents are suffering, which is too bad (and definitely all Zoey’s fault). We had to cancel my father’s birthday dinner last night, as he just didn’t feel up to it. Just as well, who can enjoy a nice dinner when you can’t smell properly?

Is anyone else following this Jeff Gannon/Guckert thing? It seems to me there’s all this evidence out now showing how the administration is systematically using the media to propagate its agenda. Does anyone seem to care? I’m not sure. I think the country has too many people who have already chosen which side they are on, and are thus choosing to ignore any evidence that might possibly get them to take a hard look at their leaders. My very conservative brother once expressed it succinctly: People choose a side, and then just spend the rest of their time gathering supporting evidence to back up their choice. This is standard human brain stuff. We accept a belief, and then choose only to notice evidence that supports that belief and ignore the stuff that contradicts it. We see only what we choose to look at.

Here’s an interesting exercise: Look around the room you are in for one minute, and notice all the stuff that is blue. Now close your eyes….

And ask yourself to name everything you noticed that was yellow.

What? Yellow? I was looking for blue things; I can’t remember anything yellow. Exactly. We choose what we want to notice. This goes just as well for people who identify themselves as “conservative” as well as “liberal.” The labels have gone too far. Now, instinctively, I blame the conservatives for their excessive push to define the terms as “good” and “evil,” respectively, but then, I tend to identify myself as “liberal.” And of course, once I out myself as a “Liberal,” then everyone who is conservative only notices the label, assumes bias, and ignores anything I have to say as communist, America-hating propaganda. To them, I’ve drunk the kool-aid and refuse to see the “truth.”

I personally like to view myself as “liberal” because I believe in keeping an open mind about things (i.e. opposing viewpoints have their place in any argument); that there’s a lot of gray area in between the black and white, and it is in this gray area we all exist; that people have a right to choose for themselves what they want to believe and how they want to live; that there’s room enough in this country for all kinds of people; that we should accept other people for who they are and not who I think they should be; and that our society has an obligation to help those less fortunate. Unfortunately, this sort of open-minded viewpoint (“tolerance” is a bad word to some) gets lost in the right’s rhetoric.

I have a relative whom I adore—he’s a wonderful, kind and caring person—who is a conservative with a Capital “C.” And of course, he disdains liberals with a Capital “L.” But on a one to one basis, he’s full of love for his liberal-minded family members (this includes his possibly gay stepson, and a number of his sisters). He of course sees them as family, not as “Liberals.” No, the “Liberals” are just the TV personalities and the faceless hordes that march against the war or support choice, or the lazy poor masses that just suck off the government teat. I have trouble with this dichotomy. It’s like people who are racist, but have friends of other races who are an exception to their stereotype.

We choose what we want to see.

So this means I also choose, and I do wonder if I just choose to ignore any facts coming from the conservative side. Am I as blind as they are? I am uncertain, but then, this uncertainty is what makes me a liberal. I am comfortable with uncertainty. Some people are not.

Morning Commute

2005-02-08T10:26:00.000-06:00

I wake up and notice that Zoey is still sleeping, extricate myself from her legs which have crawled up over my belly and quietly stand up. A quick glance assures me she is still asleep, so I walk around the foot of the bed toward the bedroom door. In the small hallway between the bedroom and the computer room there are a number of dust bunnies that have gathered in the corners and under the small bookshelf. I remind myself to sweep and swiffer the floor later in the day. There is also a collection of small, brightly colored magnetic letters Zoey had scattered on the floor the previous day. I pick one up, then put it back down so that I can have her pick them up (teaching moment).

The computer room is also the junk room, which always makes me cringe upon entering. We were going to move, so I have boxes of random stuff sitting on the floor. Scooter, our long-haired tuxedo cat is sitting on the guitar case containing my fender, returned from the Camper tour. It has become her special little place. She stares nonchalantly as I walk past her and sit in the chair. I have to move the mouse slightly to get the computer to wake up. After a few moments of whizzing and buzzing, the screen comes to life and I see an image of Pancho, the big-headed Mexican Buffet character reaching a hand out toward a cat-costumed Zoey, with my father smiling down at her enthralled face. Zoey loves this picture; actually, she loves Pancho, because seeing Pancho means playing on the computer, which she loves to do.

I check my gmail. Nothing. I begin my morning ritual of reading the Yahoo news page, then the Chronicle, then Buzzflash. I quickly read stories about a Palestenian/Israeli cease-fire (amazing, if it lasts), how the superbowl halftime show was boring (I watched more of the Puppy Bowl), and learn that Brittny is suing her insurance companies. I learn there may be a layer of diamonds on other planets and imagine how this might refuel the space race, that worms on fishhooks feel no pain, that 129 GIs received bills instead of final paychecks, and ponder the significance of a number of articles I decline to read (there’s a baby with mermaid syndrome? I wonder what that is, but don’t care enough to investigate). Dean is the new DNC chairman, but I don’t really care. There’s a great new column out by Paul Krugman on the social security issue. I agree with it completely.

There is no sound in the house. The quiet is glorious.

(This entry inspired by Squid.)

Sick House Update

2005-02-08T08:02:00.000-06:00

We are still sick, though now at a different level of sick. Zoey’s on antibiotics for sinusitis. Her cough never went away and her nose still runs, though she’s definitely in much better spirits. Trey actually got the flu and was immobilized on the couch for two days, feeling like he’d been hit by a truck. I stuck with the Dayquil and pretty much stayed operable, but very tired, and now my throat feels fine but I have a persistent cough that I can’t shake. This morning I feel clammy. If I develop fever now, it probably means I too have a secondary infection and will need to go on antibiotics. I haven’t taken those in decades.

The fact that I can claim “decades” frightens me. Not because of the antibiotics, because it entails over 20 years. And while it is probably an exaggeration, it isn’t really that much of one. I mean, yikes, my 20-year reunion is this year. (This also frightens me.)

Sick house

2005-02-04T11:35:00.000-06:00

My house is a sick house. Zoey caught a cold from somewhere, and it morphed into strep throat. She kindly passed it on to both me and Trey, and we are all feeling quite less than perfect. Zoey has been sick since Sunday; her nose is constantly runny and she has an awful sounding cough. I took her to the doctor on Tuesday because I was worried all that congestion would give her an ear infection. Instead, the diagnosis was strep throat. Yuch. But it explained why she didn’t want to eat and why she kept saying, “hurt!”

She’s at such an awkward stage of development. She can say so much—she talks constantly—but it’s still so hard for her to tell me what’s wrong. I try to get her to tell me where it hurts, so I can try and do something to salve the pain. It also doesn’t help that one of her current games consists of her randomly saying “hurt,” and when I ask, “where does it hurt?” she says, “hurt sock,” or “hurt shoe,” or “hurt shirt.” Sometimes, she’ll plop down on her knees and say, “are you okay?” So at this time, I’m sometimes not really sure that she really hurts, or is just playing her little game.

So it’s been a rough week, compounded by the fact that my sick little girl wants no one else but me around her right now. I’ve had to watch hours of kids tv, play hours of blocks (“you do it, mommy”), held and comforted and held some more. And then I got sick, which made everything that much more miserable. Yet I still play and hold and comfort. Fortunately, Zoey’s on the mend, and I’m on Dayquil, which is pretty good stuff. I just hope I don’t get the strep throat.

Gratuitous Zoey POD

2005-01-28T13:49:00.000-06:00

In the children's zoo area there's a prairie dog exhibit which includes three tunnels for kids to crawl through, where they can pop up at the end and look out at the exhibit through a plastic bubble. It is supposed to give them a greater prairie dog experience, as well as provide the parents with a nice photo op of their kids' heads popping up out of the ground, like a prairie dog (duh...also like themselves in their work cubicles). Zoey and Olivia discovered the tunnels for the first time this week, only they're not tall enough to be seen through the plastic bubble.

Also, I redid Trey's work Web site. If you feel the inclination, check it out at www.dentservice.com. It's a very simple site.

Postal Failure

2005-01-26T09:33:00.000-06:00

This package has been to Greece and back. It's seen more of the world than most Americans. In the course of its travel, it's been dropped, opened, dropped, tossed, and probably forgotten on a shelf somewhere. Unfortunately, it didn't ever get to Bethany's. Oh well.

My guitar is on tour with Camper Van Beethoven

2005-01-22T01:09:00.000-06:00

It’s true, it gets to play shows in New Orleans, Tallahassee and Orlando before it gets passed on to Trey (who’s in Florida for a convention) and comes home with him.

For the second time on this tour, Camper’s gear was stolen, this time in Dallas (the first time was in Montreal). I imagine some obsessed fan who follows them around so he can decorate some hallowed room in his basement with incense, candles and loads of Camper Van Beethoven equipment. The band put out a call for loaner gear until they are able to get their replacements through the insurance company, and Trey made me offer them our stuff. I hadn’t bothered at first, because I thought they’d get lots of offers, but Trey insisted and I got an email response later that day asking if I could bring my strat to their instore at Cactus Records. I hadn’t planned on going to the instore, because I was already going to the show that night, but now I had a reason to go and hey, my parents are always willing to watch Zoey for me.

I brought my guitar to the instore, thinking, naively it seems, they’d get there early and set up. Ha. I walked in with my guitar at 5:30 and there was nobody there. Well, nobody except Thane, who’d gotten there even earlier. He was really happy to see me, and I him, and we got to chat with each other instead of blindly looking through the CD racks to avoid looking like losers. I was the only one who brought any loaner gear with me, and my guitar sat next to the wall for about an hour while the store slowly filled up for the instore. By 6 there was a good crowd, but no band, and the crowd waited around, rather patiently, for them to show up. It was definitely an older crowd, and a number of people brought their kids with them. We all waited, and I was about to give up on the show when they pulled up, quickly got their equipment together and started their show. I did manage to introduce myself and told him I’d brought the guitar.

The instore was great, short, but very satisfying. I think I enjoyed watching the crowd as much as the band. We were near the front and off to my right there was that guy. The one who was defined by Camper music in high school or college who was transported back in time to that space of his in the dark with the headphones on. He swayed, rocked and very nearly swooned to the music, all the while singing along to every word. I thought, “how awkward for the band to have to play these songs for the millionth time with this guy having his little orgasm in front of them.” Over to my left there was the other guy. He was older than the first guy, but was clearly resisting the whole aging thing by keeping his long hair (tied back in a ponytail). He’d just come from work (gray trousers, black buttoned-down shirt) and had downed some of the beer. His dancing was less joyous, more metal-influenced with constant twitches and pumped fists. While it was obvious everyone enjoyed the music a great deal, I think these two expressed their love more openly.

Here's a shot of the crowd watching the band. If you look closely you might recognize one or two faces. There are a few more pics from the evening on my smugmug site, in the Random Shots gallery.

After the instore, the band quickly packed up while one of the Cactus employees informed the audience that they were going to be available for signing records and such in the usual Cactus place. I was a little disappointed he didn’t use my guitar, and thought the whole thing was going to be a wash, but when I went to talk to him he told me he wanted to use it at the show that night and offered to put me on the list. I said great, and told him that if he liked using the guitar he could take it all the way to Orlando and give it to my husband who would be at the show there. He said okay, and that he might do that.

I should point out that the whole situation made me feel very oddly insecure about my guitar. I hadn’t played it, hadn’t even taken it out of its case in about a year, and for some reason was terrified he’d play it and decide it was a worthless piece of shit. I really expected him to pick it up, strum it a bit and think, good god, what the hell did this girl offer me? I don’t know why I felt this way; it’s a perfectly good guitar. Maybe I felt the guitar was a weird, musical extension of myself and, like me, musically, totally unworthy, or worthless, or even downright terrible. He was going to play my guitar and see that it/me was just a waste of his time.

I felt like this for the rest of the evening leading up to the show, and it actually got worse once we (me, Piam and Thane) got to the show. I was glad Thane wanted to go, because by putting me on the list, I then had four tickets to the show as I’d already bought two in advance. Thane’s girlfriend was going to come as well, but she blew it off, which was fine as it ended up being a mini SLC reunion evening of sorts, and I enjoyed hanging out with those guys for the evening. In any case, we got to Fitzgerald’s in time to miss the opening band, and only had to stand around for about 30 minutes for Camper to start. He played the first two songs with his brand new hollow body Ibanez replacement guitar, broke a string and disappeared off the stage to get guitar #2, a black Les Paul. He obviously didn’t like that guitar, as it only lasted one song, and disappeared again. There was a flash of seafoam green and Thane nudged me. It made me anxious, full of dread and expectation of his shock at the pathetic instrument I’d brought him (I know this is ridiculous), and the whole band had to kill some time while he tuned the guitar. At this point, he actually got heckled by a couple of yuppie losers near the front who didn’t seem to care for the back stories to the songs, or that the band had the added obstacle of playing with unfamiliar instruments. I think they actually said, “shut up and play.” Dave Lowery didn’t take too kindly to that statement and started scolding them, which was actually kind of cool. At the same time, it added to my own anxiety; I mean, he just put on my guitar, which was apparently way out of tune, and it was accompanied by heckles from the audience. I was doomed. I just knew he was going to play one song, and then quickly exchange it for one of the many other guitars people had volunteered to lend him for the evening. Hopefully, when he did this he wasn’t going to make some condescending remark about what a piece of crap guitar it was. The band started in on a cover of “White Riot,” and I thought that at least I could say that Camper Van Beethoven played “White Riot” with my guitar the night of the president’s inauguration. I mean, that’s not such a bad thing. I didn’t have to add anything else to the story and it would still be a cute little anecdote to share with my daughter’s friends (who undoubtedly would roll their eyes and wonder just how out of it and old-fogey I could be).

Well, like I said, this whole anxiety episode was stupid. It’s just a guitar, a Mexican-made Fender Strat, and it plays just like it sells. He only had to retune it two more times during the rest of the set, and it sounded, like the rest of the borrowed instruments, really good when played by group of professionals who have written a slew of phenomenal songs throughout their 30-year career. He stuck with my Fender and at the end thanked me from the stage and told me (also from the stage) that he wanted to take it with him to Orlando and he’d give it to my husband. I don’t know that I felt, hmmm, validated (?) by the experience, but I was relieved and happy that the guitar worked out for him. Certainly, I was glad to let them use it, and happy that Trey had made me offer it to them.

I only spoke to him briefly after the show, but I did find out that he did not have a slew of guitars available to him, and that he was grateful to use mine. It would have been really perfect if he’d offered me a free CD or one of those nice, olive green long sleeve T-shirts. Or maybe just a bit more effusive in expressing his gratitude, but oh well. I may never get to go on a real tour, but at least my guitar does.

Okay, enough babble. I do want to add that all three of us agreed it was a great show. If you get the chance to see them, go.

Sorry for the excessively long and narcissistic post.

Zoey P.O.D.*

2005-01-16T11:09:00.000-06:00

Kelly does a cute thing with Olivia where she gets her to "shake her booty," and the other day, during our playdate, I started saying it, too (to which Olivia tends to happily oblige, especially when there's music involved). Zoey, being a toddler, and toddlers being mimics, imitated me patting Olivia on the behind while Kelly stood behind them saying, "booty-booty!"

BTW, thanks to Philippe for that link to the photoblog site. I think it'll cure me of the Bejeweled thing.

*Picture of the day

2005-01-15T17:31:00.000-06:00

It's been a long time since my last post, and like Ashlee Simpson, I come bearing excuses. You see, it's not my fault I haven't done anything worth writing about, or that Zoey's kept me so busy I haven't had time to think about anything. Because in order to stop and write something, one has to think something, and lately it's been pretty much all Zoey. She's at a stage now where she won't let me do anything. If I try and pick up a magazine, or even look at the mail, she comes up to me and says, "No more reading." She also makes me sit down and play with her. "Mommy, play with blocks," she'll say, surprisingly clearly. Or we'll have to put on one of her CDs and dance to the music. Fortunately, she's on to some new CDs, so we don't always have to listen to Sesame Street or that lame Tunes for Toddlers.

It's also not my fault that I've been playing Bejeweled every time I have a spare moment.

Zoey's current top 10 songs (in no particular order): "Pig on her Head" by Laurie Berkner, "We are the dinosaurs" Laurie Berkner, "I'm a little Dinosaur" Jonathan Richman, "I'm a little Airplane" Jonathan Richman, "Bumblebee" Laurie Berkner,"This Hat" Laurie Berkner, "Kukenhaken" Jonathan Richman, "The Rules have Changed" New Pornagraphers, "Hey Diddle Diddle" anyone willing to sing it, "Twist Around" from the Bunny Collection CD for her music class.

Ok, so, we're a little heavy on the Laurie Berkner, but fortunately, she's great. Her songs are simple and fun, and she sings easily within my vocal range. I could even pick up her songs on the guitar, except that Zoey doesn't let me play the guitar.

Any second now, she's going to realize I'm not in the living room with her and wander this way, screaming "MaMA" the whole way, in her innocent, yet accusing voice. Of course, having just written that sentence, you might think, "Oh my gosh, is Mari leaving her child unattended?" Well, yes, but just for a moment. Besides, she's reading. ("reading") But yes, it is bad of me. I never leave her alone for long, because I will undoubtedly at some point have a vision in my head of her lying dead on the carpet having picked up some random piece of cat poo or something and choked on it.

Wait, I hear her little footsteps coming toward me now. She's going to come into the room and walk up to me, grab my hand and lead me out of the room. Goodbye.