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Mon - October 19, 2009
I can see The Met do these?
Live in HD, 2009-2010
Holy cow, look at The Met's Live
in HD season.Tosca,
Aida, Turandot, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Der
Rosenkavalier, Carmen, Verdi's Simon Boccanegra w/ Placido
Domingo, Hamlet, and Rossini's Armida with Renée
Fleming.We've already missed
Tosca, dammit. But at least w/ a lot of the local theaters having
digital projection now, we won't have to go to the far side of the metro area to
see it like we did Die Zauberflöte (there was no way I was missing
that -- the costumes were done by Julie Taymor, who did the musical The Lion
King.)
Posted at 07:44 PM Permalink
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Where the Wild Things Are
Go see it. Take tissues.
Where the Wild Things Are. Take
tissues. Don't wear eyeliner or mascara unless it's waterproof. I
cried through the start of Up, but I cried through nearly all of
WtWTA. That movie will rip your heart out of your chest and yank on
it like taffy in a pulling machine. Daughter and I were blubbering all over
Elder-Son after the show. Hubs had the same problem at home and required a
hug from Younger-Son after their viewing. But... Wow. Hensen's
Muppets always beat the trousers off of CGI, no matter the subject. The
kid playing Max is brilliant, too. But I think the fact that he had the
real deal to work with, rather than some guy in a green-suit w/ a tennis ball on
a stick over his head where the monster's face would be, probably helped him
reach that (as it would anyone.)
Not
for anyone currently suffering from depression.
Posted at 07:41 PM Permalink
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The Bob and Larry cookie cutter
or, why there should always be a paid position
for a person with a perverted world-view at a company dealing with
religion.
Rotate the photo 90° if for
some reason you don't get the funny right
away.
Posted at 07:37 PM Permalink
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A week with H1N1
How fun wasn't that?
Daughter came down with H1N1 on Sept.
26th -- confirmed at the pediatrician's on the 27th. I managed through
judicious use of hand-cleaning and keeping her away from the men-folk to keep
her from passing it to anyone else in the house. She had fever, she had achy
joints and muscles, she had nasal drainage bad enough to make her lose her
breakfast two days in a row, and she had a horrific cough. Luckily we kept her
fever down and the junk from settling into her chest.
She spent an entire week at
home, and could probably have stood to stay home the first couple of days of the
next week, except that would have put her so far behind on her homework that she
never would have caught up. She has three Honors classes, one AP class, and
she's in the highest level orchestra, and for the first time in her life she is
making a concerted effort to do all her homework, and then this
happened. She's still doing make-up tests and essays three weeks
later.
We've all be immunized
for Type A now except Hubs and #1-Son, who can't be bothered to walk by the
campus medical center and get one, the lazy so-n-so. He had allergies bad
enough to keep him out of class for three days a few weeks ago; he'll be knocked
flat if he catches the full-up
influenza.
#2-Son can get a
H1N1 vaccine at school the second week in November; here's hoping he doesn't
catch it before then. I have no idea if / when Hubs and I'll be able to get
one.
Posted at 07:28 PM Permalink
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Back in the saddle again
In which I finally get my act
together
The scale hit an unmentionable weight a
couple of months ago. So I have started exercising on a regular basis again --
five miles on the exercise bike four days a week, and working out on the weight
machines three days a week. I've also started seriously avoiding carbs, and
it's very much not easy.
So far
nothing seems to be happening. *glares at scale*
Posted at 07:22 PM Permalink
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Tue - September 22, 2009
Snigger
A giggle, brought to you by our local NHL
franchise
Official sponsor of the officials at the
home games of our local NHL
franchisee?
Clarkson Eye
Care.
I expect NO bad calls
this year, guys.
Posted at 03:55 PM Permalink
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Rats, I thought he was earning money
An interesting letter from the bank
My idjit #1-Son put his home address on his
checking account, one we had opened on purpose in University town so it wouldn't
have an out-of-state address. *sigh* He doesn't use his checks
anyway, just his debit card, but still it means all the correspondence (and
other things, like said debit card) come here instead of to him at his
dorm. Last week I got a letter stating that he'd deposited $X00 in his
account at an ATM instead of the $(X+1)00 he told the machine, and he should
adjust his records accordingly. (Yes, I opened his mail. It
was from the bank and obviously not a monthly statement type
thingumy. Suchlike letters are rarely good news. And I was
right.)
So I emailed him and told him
what the letter said, and inquired as to what was up w/ him depositing
money. I knew he'd had to buy a couple of last minute textbooks (I'd
bought all of the ones we knew he needed before classes started) and figured
he'd probably withdrawn money to pay for same, and discovered he'd taken out far
more than he needed. But Daughter and I had a good laugh trying to figure
out other sources of income: he knows how to do laundry (and dammit, I
miss my laundry slave!) and was doing others' for cash, he took his Pokemon and
Magic: the Gathering decks to school and was maybe selling extras,
etc.
Alas, my initial assumption was
correct. No fun, that kid. And no income, either.
Posted at 03:49 PM Permalink
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What a swell party THAT was
or, How I spent Friday of Labor Day
weekend
I was sitting quietly messing about on the
Internet about 8 pm when I heard a kid outside. It sounded like it was
laughing hysterically, then I realized it was a teenaged girl and she was
crying, "Somebody, help me,
please!"
I was outdoors in a
flash. I, my neighbor across the street to the east, my neighbor across
the street to the north (I live on a corner) and her next-door-neighbor
all got to the girl at the same time. She was holding her mouth, bleeding
through her fingers, and crying.
She
had been in her boyfriend's car... he'd hit her several times, pushed her out of
the car, then driven away. We hauled her in my house and wiped her up
enough to see that she'd just cut her lip on her teeth. Hurt kids get
taken care of in my neighborhood, doesn't matter who they are. She'd
already called a girlfriend to come get her, so we went back outside to
wait. I was so furious I was shaking; Hubs had to physically hold me
steady.
Neighbor-to-the-East is a
teacher. Our state law makes them Required Reporters -- if they see
anything that looks faintly like abuse, they must report it or risk
losing their jobs. They also get trained to handle the start of such
situations -- he told her that none of this was her fault, and that
calling the police was something that had to be done because the
situation had to stop. We called 911, and told the police the
situation. The first officer to arrive was a woman, thank the deity of
your choice.
Then things got
wonderfully weird. The injured girl, a 16-year-old, lives with her
dad. When the cop called her dad's mobile phone, he wasn't home and was
perfectly happy having the child go home with a 16-year-old
girlfriend. His frightened, injured, BLEEDING daughter. The
cop was not happy. My neighbors and I were comparing garden tools to see
who had the sharpest ones, and wondering how hard it would be to get her dad's
address out of her.
All this time the
boyfriend was calling both the injured girl and her friend who'd come to pick
her up. Both girls were ignoring the calls, at the insistence of the
cop.
The cop finally got her
boyfriend's name out of her by assuring her that if she wasn't going to press
charges (she'd apparently already declined to, despite the cop's urging) then
the cop couldn't do anything to him. When the guy's name came out, it
turned out the cop had already been over to their house once that night
with Family Services; I didn't hear what about. (Which might explain the
girl's remark while we were waiting about not wanting to talk to a "mean
policeman.")
The cop really, really
didn't like letting her go with her girlfriend, but had no choice because the
dad had okayed it, something which made all of the rest of us quite pleased with
her (the cop) and very angry with him (the dad). The cop took the girl off
to her car to write up the formal report. Voices were raised; I'm pretty
sure the girl was getting the "these are the signs of an abuser and you need to
get the hell out" lecture. Her girlfriend, who was up with all of us
neighbors, said, "She's got a real problem with talking back." She also
said that the girl had quit hanging with her friends since she'd started dating
the guy a couple of years ago. The neighbors and I are all saying,
"Classic abuser sign, and hello, what was she doing dating other than in a group
at that age, and oh, who around here has a
shotgun?"
A second cop pulled up and
got out; a male. The girl got quiet. They were there talking a long,
long time. Finally the second cop left, the first cop called the
girlfriend over, the girls and the cop got in their respective cars, and the
girls pulled away headed for the girlfriend's house with the cop right on their
back bumper.
Which made all of
the rest of us even more pleased with
her.
I had to self-medicate with
alcohol to sleep that night; I was so angry at the father and the boyfriend that
I was shaking. Goddamnit, you DON'T hurt kids in my neighborhood (even if
you're still one yourself) and you especially don't
REFUSE TO COME GET YOUR INJURED CHILD.
Posted at 03:39 PM Permalink
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Chemistry chuckle
Bringing children up right, entry #n
A triumphant crow from the other room, where
Daughter is doing her Chemistry homework: "Sweet!
H₂SO₄!
I know that one."
I had to laugh. She
knew I would.
Long ago (but not too
terribly far away, only 200 miles or so) when I was in primary school, I had a
book of bad poems, doggerel really, entitled Yours 'Til Niagara Falls. It
was a collection of bad puns, limericks, fake book title / author pairs, very
(very) slightly suggestive things to write when signing yearbooks,
etc.
And one of my favorites, which
I've passed on to my children because yes, I am a geek,
is:
Little Annie took a drink, but
she shall drink no more
For what she
thought was
H₂O was
H₂SO₄.
So
you see, my kids have all known the chemical formula for sulfuric acid from an
incredibly tender age.
Posted at 03:29 PM Permalink
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Birdy bits
Hummingbirds, late bloomers
Our hummingbird feeder has a wee perch under
each "flower" opening. And they use them. Hubs said, "I
didn't know they'd do that." Well, most feeders don't have perches, most
real flowers don't either, and of course wherever two or more hummers gather
together, there's an air battle (sorry, St. John) so most people don't get to
see them light to eat. I imagine they're bloody happy to, seeing as their
particular form of flight is a high-calorie-burning
exercise.
The little buzzers are
smart critters, too. Hummingbirds are migratory to this area, and I thought
between the cool summer and the fact that it's equinox, they'd be gone by
now. I hadn't seen one for a couple of
weeks...
...Until yesterday evening,
when one was staring at me through the glass of the breakfast nook bay window,
obviously wanting to know why the hell I haven't refilled the feeder. In
California I'd had them buzz me and bitch ("Chip! Chip!") when I was outdoors
and the feeder was empty, but I haven't had them tapping on the glass demanding
service until now.
And yes, it was
lighter inside the house than out, so it wasn't just looking at its
reflection.
Five minutes before the
kids got off the bus one day last month, there was a constant "Chi-cheap,
chi-cheap, chi-cheap, chi-cheap," over and over and over and over right outside
the dining room window. Now, I like bird call fine, but,
damn.... I looked up to find a wee ball o' gray fluff sitting on
the outside window ledge calling non-stop, and a female cardinal in the tree in
the flowerbed right outside that window. Luckily, ball-o-fluff has its
wing flight feathers (though not much else) and very sharp claws, and can
hop-flap its way upward. It was in the dogwood on the other side of the
front door by the time I made it out there. Unfortunately, Mama keeps
trying to lead it back to the birch in the middle of the yard, and I don't think
its capable of getting back there just yet without a trip through the grass and
a long climb up the trunk. Good luck with that, youngster.
Posted at 03:25 PM Permalink
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You, too, can be an über-geek
Get your geek on, for free
Posted at 03:16 PM Permalink
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Sun - August 23, 2009
He's gone
Class start tomorrow
So, I spent Thursday and Friday getting
#1-Son set up at Uni, and here I haven't said anything about it yet. It's a
major change in my life, so I guess I
oughta.
#1 is going for a
Batchelor of Science degree in Physics at a very, very large state university in
the state just east of ours. This is the main university campus for the state,
and is fed by the third largest metropolitan area
in the
nation (although it is a 3-hour drive
south, thank heavens.) There are nearly 32,000 undergraduate students on campus
and well over 10,000 graduate students. And oddly enough given those
demographics, it is not a commuter campus -- all of the campus-owned parking is
strictly for staff (and the sports crowd -- it's a Big 10 school.) Seeing as
it's in the middle of hundreds of miles of corn and soybeans, I guess that's not
surprising.
Alas, but #1-Son is
in the southeastern-most dorm on the campus, and all of the hard sciences
buildings are on the north side. The bookstores and administration buildings
are in the northwest corner. He and I spent a half-hour each way walking
diagonally across campus to buy books. Fortunately, the Uni has a deal with the
city bus service, and students ride free. Everywhere; not just on campus. It's
kinda necessary, given the lack of parking on
campus.
He forgot his comb.
And washrags. How did he forget his comb and not his toothbrush, when he used
both the morning we left? I dunno. I am not now nor have I ever been a
member of the Communist Party an 18-year-old male geek. Things I
bought him while we were there: a comb, washrags, cortisone cream for insect
bites, Granny Smith apples, a case of Sprite, paper plates, paper napkins,
sunscreen, a hat, and two extension electrical cords (indoor,
grounded.)
It's 3.5 hours
driving each way from our house, which means it's a hard (on the driver, and #1
doesn't drive) one-day round-trip. The trip is all interstate, bless, but they
are heavily-traveled interstates in fairly poor condition. And State-Next-Door
is F-L-A-T
flat,
which means the 'scenery' is boring as hell. One of his roommates (he has two
-- he's in an end unit in his dorm, which holds three people instead of the
standard two) is from a suburb of the metro area on the far western side of our
state and does pass through our metro area on the way to and from home, but his
drive is 9+ hours each way so obviously he won't be making it for three-day
holiday weekends.
Things that
are really weird now that he's
gone:
* Even though I'm a
day late getting the kids' laundry washed, each division (darks, lights, whites,
etc.) is still only one load.
*
We don't need an extra placemat and chair at the kitchen table. Since 1994,
#1-Son and I have been bumping elbows on a side of the table that was really
only comfortable for one person.
* Nobody's arguing over whose turn it is for the kids'
computer.
* Nobody's arguing over
who gets to sit in the big blue chair in the family
room.
* I can turn off the hall
light when I go to bed at night, because all the kids are already in
bed.
* I'm trying to decide how
to go about cooking for just three of us on the nights when Hubs doesn't come
home for dinner, especially since Daughter is a
vegetarian.
* Nobody hugs me
suddenly from behind, or pokes me in the nose when I make a bad
pun.
I dunno if I'll run up to
get him over the three-day Labor Day weekend or not. It's not fetching him -- I
can leave here in time to be there when his last class is over and we can be
back by bedtime, if not dinner time -- it's taking him back, when we're torn
between keeping him here as long as possible and getting him there in time to
turn around and get back home at a decent bedtime.
Posted at 09:09 PM Permalink
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Fri - August 14, 2009
No, that's a GOOD thing
...and she's a good kid
T'other day Daughter and I were in the
car coming or going somewhere, and she was rattling on in her typical fashion --
memo to everyone: never kiss the Blarney Stone if you may be pregnant -- about
how happy she was that two of her favorite friends were back from India (or
Pakistan, I never can remember which, or maybe it's one of each) where their
individual families had carted each of them to over the summer break to visit
relatives. She was making plans to hang with one of them before school starts
back up, since that friend doesn't attend the same high school Daughter does.
Then Daughter asked, "Is it racist that my best friends are all from that area?"
(She has other friends whose parents / grandparents just happen to be from that
area, too.)
*blink,
blink*
I said, "Um, nooooooo, I
don't think so. I mean, you didn't set out to be friends with them because of
the color of their skin, did
you?"
She answered, "No. Swati
and I had six out of seven classes together last year. I ate lunch with Umi all
three years in middle school. And I've known Maya since she started at the
[primary school for gifted children]. It's just happened that
way."
"Then I think that's the
opposite of racist, honey," I replied quietly.
Posted at 10:10 PM Permalink
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What is THAT doing in here?
And why must I always be the one to deal with
these things?
I was on the computer one afternoon a
couple of weeks ago when Daughter, watching telly in the family room, shrieked
then yelled, "Mom, you gotta come see
this!"I thought there was
something on TV she wanted me to see. Alas, no, I was required in my guise of
Super-Mom, Disposer of Teh Creepy-Crawly and Buzzy. Daughter pointed over to
the hearth and said, "There, on the floor by the fireplace. It moves
fast."Well, it wasn't moving
at all when I got there, and because I am presbyopic in my old age, it looked
from five feet up like nothing so much as a small piece of bark from firewood.
So I got my cheaters and eyeballed it again. It had legs. Lots of 'em.
Delightful.
(/sarcasm) Well, there'd be no scoop-and-toss-out-the-door procedure with this
one. (Yes, I do occasionally, when I can get one to cooperate.) And since it
was rather hard-bodied looking, and sitting on the wall-to-wall carpeting, a
quick smack of my sandal might not do anything except press it into the carpet,
after which it might scurry off somewhere where 1) I couldn't get to it and 2)
it would send Daughter climbing the furniture shrieking again.
Please,
no more with the
shrieking.This was a
squish-it-with-the-fingers-to-make-sure operation. Happy happy joy joy. (/Ren
and Stimpy) (/more sarcasm) Since it
was
rather hard-bodied looking, I opted for a paper towel folded over several times.
I reached down so equiped and grabbed the thing, but obviously not hard enough
because it tried to slip free. It was
really
fast. Well, that was almost enough to make
me
shriek, but I am made of sterner stuff. *strikes tuff-guy-hero pose w/ hands on
hips* So I squished down hard on it until I heard the crunch and a couple of
legs popped off. Eww. But ya gotta make
sure.A body-less leg loose on
the paper towel continued wiggling. While completely unattached to anything.
EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW.I
took it to the
outdoors
garbage can. The part of my brain that's seen too many horror flicks could just
imagine the loose legs climbing out of the kitchen trash and wiggling their
unattached way across the
floor.Teh Intarwebs tell me
it's just a common House Centipede, but it was a lot darker brown than any pix I
could find:
Posted at 09:58 PM Permalink
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Photos from a dangerous-looking playground
You'll either love it, or you'll lose your
lunch
What happens when a wealthy urban artist
with an exceptionally extroverted inner-10-year-old and a love of collecting all
things architectural (interior and exterior), who believes that 1) everybody
ought to be able to see his stuff, 2) the places we allow our children to play
have become too bleedin' safe, and 3) it's better to ask forgiveness than
permission, buys an abandoned 12-story factory in a hip part of
downtown?The City Museum of St.
Louis <- Please, just click and go look at the photos, even if you
don't read the stuff on the
site.We went last month (yes,
despite world+dog descending on the city for the All-Star game that weekend)
with #2-Son's teen autistics group. The place is astounding, whether you love
art, architecture, or just climbing
around.Warning: do not view
the following photos if you have problems with heights, vertigo, or the idea of
children waaaay up in the
air.We forked over the extra
bucks to go up on the roof, because it was open. What's so special about the
roof? Well, because Mr. Cassilly has a love of adrenaline and no fear of
heights, a lot of things. (All photos taken with a camera phone. Your indulgence
requested.) This is what part of the roof looks like, from the
ground:
 Yes,
that is a school bus hanging off the right-hand corner. Here's what the ground
looks like from the driver's seat:
 The
bubbly bird-cage looking thing just left of center in the first photo? (Go back
and look, I'll wait.) It's a bubbly
people
cage. Here're #1-Son and Daughter, climbing up to the
seat:
 The
wee squiggle in the far left of the first photo is the very top of a two-story
dome with a rope swing inside, the ability to climb down into a cage suspended
from the top of the dome, and a giant praying-mantis sculpture presiding over a
slide that goes back down to rooftop
level:
 What
you can't see in that first picture is the Ferris wheel. Yes, a full-sized,
four-story one. On the roof. Here's Daughter, at the top of the
ride:
 Alas,
the museum is far enough toward the north side of downtown that you can't see
the Arch in the skyline because it's behind those buildings on the left in this
photo. But it's still a pretty skyline, especially towards
sunset:
 Oh,
and what happens when the local aquarium finds itself directly in the path of a
major interstate (motorway) interchange upgrade? Mr. Cassilly says, "Just stick
your stuff on the third floor. Plenty of room."
Posted at 09:43 PM Permalink
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Published On: Oct 19, 2009 07:48 PM
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