Thanks to Swistle, who alerted me that it is Teacher Appreciation Week, and put into words what I feel but am too tired to express. Thanks, teachers!

http://swistle.blogspot.com/2008/05/questions-answered-and-teacher.html

(ignore the first part of the entry)

World-renowned librarian of the universe Heather died today in a hospital in Solon. Doctors are still unsure of what exactly caused the death, but believe it was due to complications after Heather loved too fast and suffered pains in her elbow. She was three years old.
Heather was a splendiferous person, who enjoyed everything about life. She was known for her passion for chocolate chip cookies, pasta, and artichoke dip, which she often ate 400 times a day. She loved to share chocolate chip cookies, pasta, and artichoke dip with everyone, and would even offer chocolate chip cookies, pasta, and artichoke dip to strangers. Heather also enjoyed traveling, especially to historical landmarks, and loved meeting people around the world. On her trip to St. Petersburg she even met the president (and yes, she offered him chocolate chip cookies, pasta, and artichoke dip). After meeting him, Heather said the President was spacious.
Heather is survived by her partner Ed, their 5 gajillion children, and their pet manatee named marvelous.

Well, initially I was completely confoozled by my Book Quiz results, but as I contemplate what I am about to post, it makes a little more sense.

I was just going to say that I like winter, and although I know the ice storm was not pleasant for most people, the resulting landscape is quite beautiful.



"Confoozled" is a technical term, by the way.

A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel lodged below his belt line.
The bar tender stares at him for a bit before asking "What is that thing for?"
The pirate replies "Arrg, I don't know, but it's driving me nuts!"

I just got back from a short but lovely trip to Minnesota to see my Nordic goddess, the incomparable RK, who helped bring Eva into the world. I helped her move into her family farmhouse, which she inherited last year and is now in the process of renovating. The house hadn't been lived in for something like 15 years, though it had been her family's house before they moved to town. So, RK is bringing it back to life -- removing carpet, painting outside and in, refinishing woodwork and floors, replacing the heating system with geothermal heat, putting in new windows, cleaning cleaning cleaning. I'm amazed at how much work she's put into it, and I was glad to be able to help a little -- it was hard with Eva there too, but we helped unload dishes and books, and it made a little dent. We only stayed for a day or so, since Eva was tired and there was not much room in the bed I was sharing with her [it was comfortable, though -- R bought an all-natural mattress made of a core of rubber and a casing of organic cotton and wool. HELL YES, people.] I wish RK and I lived closer together -- we get along famously and it's always intriguing to hear what she's planning to do next.

I'm so tired I can barely focus on the keyboard, but I wanted to post and say that the party was lovely, despite the nauseating steaminess that is Iowa in August. I'm always happy to see everyone, and I'm glad so many could make it. Next time, I will place an order for more bearable weather.

I feel like I never say much at these things, and it seems to have gotten worse since I started being a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM to those who read "momblogs"). I find my brain freezes more often, so that even though I want to say something intelligent or at least intelligible, the words refuse to present themselves for utterance. My days are pretty much just me and Eva, all the time. We do a lot of lip-buzzing and Bronx cheers and raspberries. We sometimes run errands, occasionally meet up with E for lunch, have tea with janet_lin...usually just one-on-one time with people. Being in a larger group sometimes feels overwhelming to this reticent INFP/INFJ (see recent personality post if these acronyms confuse you). Many wiser women have told me that I need to "get out more" -- i.e. join a mom's group, or whatever. I am considering taking a froufy 6-session yoga class with Eva in the hopes of more social interaction, but I have to say that, although it would probably be good for me, I just don't want to make new friends. Mingling with strangers is like scraping fingernails down a chalkboard for me, and the idea of doing it on purpose is draining rather than rejuvenating or intriguing. I know I need to make some sort of effort, though, for Eva's sake -- I think she will start to enjoy being around other kids more often, now that she's a little more kidlike herself (and a little less larval). The trick will be to find other moms who have warped wicked good senses of humor.

Okay, so I knew IN THEORY that the oil companies are cleaning up at the general population's expense. Some days gas is $2.93, some days it's $2.99, but do the minor fluctuations really matter any more? According to our July expenditures, they do not. I just finished entering data for our July expenses into Quicken, a handy-dandy money management program. Even after correcting a $200 error and mentally discounting the $90 we spent on gas for going to Illinois for a Cubs game, and the car payments, we still dropped about $450 on gas for the month. Ack.

We've all read them: the alumni newsletter updates from people whom you vaguely remember, but who seem to be leading interesting, useful, socially-conscious lives doing casually dangerous or selfless things. It makes you feel like a boring slacker, and like you ought to be doing something better with your time. Like playing on the Internet!

So, I took a meme from Swistle (a mom blog that I read). Let's see how far it goes.
Here are her instructions, and then her two example paragraphs, and then my two paragraphs.

"First write a nauseatingly perky paragraph about your life, the type of paragraph you see in alumni newsletters. Then write a franker, funnier one. Here are mine:

Swistle and Paul welcomed their fifth bundle of joy this May: baby Henry joins older siblings Robert, 8; William, 6; and twins Elizabeth and Edward, 2. Swistle is a stay-at-home mom and loving every precious minute of it! What a privilege to see the miracle of childhood close up, and in so many versions, and for so many hours a day! Paul can barely stand to leave for work in the morning, knowing that his happy family is farther behind him with every mile he drives.

If you people hold our old college friendships in any regard at all, you will get your asses on a plane and come HELP US. For the love of god, we are dying here. There are children on every surface, like those news stories you see about old ladies who have so many cats the entire house is disgusting. The squalor, it is unthinkable! The diapers alone will bury us! Bring food! Bring cleaning supplies! And bring a car, so you can drive away with one or more of our excess children! Toddler twins AND a newborn, do you understand what I am saying here??"

Here are my attempts:

H, class of 00', and her husband E welcomed a baby daughter into their family in January of this year. E loves his job as a database administrator for one of the top small-medium leasing companies in the country, while H is a full-time mother. In her spare time, H does freelancing for a publishing company, and loves to garden, sew, and keep up her Russian language skills, for which she earned a second BA in 2005. The happy family lives in idyllic Amana, which is an area well-known for its peaceful rolling countryside and historic landmarks. They plan to travel often in the coming years.

H and E are the weary parents of a 7-month old daughter. Body fluids and various gummy substances are everywhere: spit-up, snot, sweet potato, breast milk, dirty diapers. UGH! We are holding on for dear life before the household clutter sweeps us under. We are lucky if we each get 15 minutes a day to ourselves for showering, during which I sure as hell do not practice my Russian language skills. We live in the isolated faux-communal town of Amana, which is inundated with poky tourists practically every weekend. We are not planning to leave the Midwest for a long long time, if ever again.

Okay, if you're inspired, go for it!

In the past, I've come up as an INFJ -- maybe this means I'm a little less judgmental than I used to be?

I was reading the Daedalus book catalog this evening, and came across a blurb describing a mystery, The Body in the Snowdrift.

...caterer Faith Fairchild has a bad feeling about her father-in-law's decision to celebrate his 70th birthday with a family reunion ski week at the Pine Slopes resort in Vermont...The first ill omen is a corpse on one of the cross-country trails, the apparent victim of a heart attack. Then one catastrophe follows another, from the mysterious disappearance of the Pine Slopes' master chef to a fatal "accident" with the snow-making machines.

The snow-making machines?????? That's a new one.

Incidentally (extremely incidentally), while I was in the phone book looking up the Nabisco address kindly furnished by robotapocalypse, I noticed that Marion is home to the National Association of Rocketry, located at "2275 Geode". Naturally, I wandered to the website, and found it asking the question, "How many ways can you have FUN with rockets?"

I think I'll just leave that dangling.

So, anyone who knows me knows that I'm a foodie. I love to eat, and if I ever had to go on a real diet, I think I would self-combust. That said, there is a style of eating (or maybe a way of eating) that I find intriguing, which is eating only food which comes from your own community in some way (community being defined as a geographic location). When you eat this way, you only eat what you yourself produce or what you can buy within a certain radius of your home, say 25 or 50 miles. This has some obvious benefits for the environment: for example, your food wouldn't need to be shipped (costing fuel) or preserved while waiting to be purchased (more fuel and chemicals). [It must be said that this is only a revolutionary concept if you're not Amish or living in most of the non-first-world countries.] I started contemplating this diet again this evening when I discovered that one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver, has a new book out, and guess what she's written about?

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060852559/Animal_Vegetable_Miracle/index.aspx

E and I have discussed whether this would work in the area where we live, and we initially concluded that it would work fine during the summer, but it might take quite a bit of time, energy, and know-how to do it during the winter months that we may not have. And to give up Oreos?? For pete's sake.

But then again, what a challenge.....

Few things make me as happy as finding out that a favorite forgotten author has written more than I knew about, and now there are three or four delicious novels out there for me to find and consume.

http://www.bookslut.com/features/2007_05_011056.php

Yum!

I have two hands to type today, so I'm celebrating with a post/half-assed book review. In an effort to balance the constant cuteness that goes on at our house these days, I have taken to reading only mystery novels, preferably with lots of gore or at least more than one dead body. Carl Hiaasen's SKIN TIGHT delivers on both counts, augmented with some bizarre plot twists and even more bizarre characters. Here is a sample of such:

George Graveline had a few questions of his own for the tall stranger, but he held them. Valiantly he tried not to stare at Chemo's complexion, which George assessed as some tragic human strain of Dutch elm disease. What finally drew the tree trimmer's attention away from Chemo's face was the colorful Macy's shopping bag in which Chemo concealed his newly extended left arm.
"Had an accident," Chemo explained. "I'm only wearing this until I get a customized cover." He pulled the shopping bag off the Weed Whacker. George Graveline recognized it immediately -- the lightweight household model.
"Hey, that thing work?"
"You bet," Chemo said. He probed under his arm until he found the toggle switch that jolted the Weed Whacker to life. It sounded like a blender without the top on.
George grinned and clapped his hands.
"That's enough," Rudy said sharply.
"No, watch," said Chemo. He ambled to the corner of the office where Rudy kept a beautiful potted rubber plant.
"Oh no," the doctor said, but it was too late. Gleefully Chemo chopped the rubber plant into slaw.
"Yeah!" said George Graveline.
"Rudy leaned over and whispered, "Don't encourage him. He's a dangerous fellow."
Basking in the attention, Chemo left the Weed Whacker unsheathed. He sat down next to the two men and said, "Let's hear the big news."

Not to jump on the band wagon, but.... well.... *hop*.

Congratulations to the happy couple! We had a good time, and our tired baby slept the whole way home (yay!).

And now we have an entire Sunday ahead -- sunny skies, warm weather, no commitments. Life is good. :)

I finally figured out the word that people were saying as I pushed Eva out. I thought they were saying that she had a "nuncle" or "nuncel" hand, but it turns out that they were saying "nuchal." Nuchal is an adjective which describes something's locaction as being near the nape or neck. Essentially, she came out with her hand up along her neck and head. This is also the technical term for a cord wrapped around the baby's neck -- a nuchal cord.

The reason for all of this research is that when she sleeps, and other times as well, she likes to have her hands up around her face/head, especially the left one, in a manner similar to boxing defense, and I was thinking it might be related.