Yahtzee Champ-to-be

Hannah was playing with some dice she found stashed among her other games. She shook 6 dice in her hand, and then rolled 5 sixes and 1 five. She's a natural! Of course, she whipped her dad and uncle like red-headed stepchildren the first time they played Clue together, so maybe she has some kind of gaming gene enabled.

I'm beginning to think Hannah has somehow become a tool of the latex industry. Once again, she has spent her allowance on balloons. And not just any balloons, but enormous balloons larger than her torso that she is taping to the ceiling to make a disco in her room. Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. 

Fashion and Hormones Equals Fun With Nee

Have you ever seen those ugly jeans (tell us how you really feel, Nee) made out of really dark blue denim—dark enough you can’t see the weave of the fabric—and “enhanced” with iridescent glitter? The wedding shop is apparently now offering evening gowns made of this “wonder fabric.”

But that wasn’t even the worst crime against fashion I spotted yesterday. Remember those tiered skirts that were so popular last year? (I still love mine!) Now imagine tiered *pants.* The top two tiers were a striped fabric, maybe denim, and the bottom tier—with a *ruffle*--appeared to be velvet. I think she may be attending the clown college across the river. With a major in rodeo clowning.

Hannah occasionally decides to sleep on the made-out couch, so she hasn’t slept in her own bed for a while. That affects our sleep-related routines, of course. I can easily snuggle up to her on the couch, something I can’t quite manage in the 2-story play bed. But that also means that she can reach me. So my usual method of waking her up, tickling, has been turned against me. And for some reason, yesterday morning she insisted on trying to *lick my thumb.* She’s getting so big, I couldn’t fight her off! So my thumb got licked, and I burst into tears. (You’d think it’d be no big deal by now; my sister used to lick my face all the time. Maybe you had to be there.) The crying was her cue to run off to the bathroom while I sobbed all over her blankets. “Are you feeling a bit, um, emotional?” John asked. I bit back my first impulse to tell him to fuck off and answered, “I don’t know.” And wouldn’t you know it: that afternoon—POOF!—I started my period. So at least I wasn’t permanently sliding into insanity.

I have shocking news for you. You might want to sit down. If you have a bad heart, you might want to pop the top off the nitroglycerin. I am actually *enjoying this winter*. There, I've said it. I know that in this photo the sun is smothered by the clouds/fog/Old Man Winter, but the trees look so magical in their mantle of frost. It's different from the look of snow, which has occasionally sent me into a murderous rage, but not today. I wish I had a camera with me yesterday evening, because Hannah and I watched a RAINBOW SUNSET outside the door to her ballet studio. It was more beautiful than I could describe with pitiful words. 

Hannah, the Hoff, and Wasted Time

Hannah was still coughing on Monday, so she got to stay home one more day. It occurred to us that her class’s field trip meant she’d be walking around outside in near-freezing temps, so she’d be better off at home. It was hard to concentrate on translating, though, so I didn’t get nearly as much done as I’d hoped to.

Hannah’s getting so big. If John’s measurements over the weekend were correct, she had grown 2 centimeters in one month, bringing her up to 52 inches or so. That means she’s within 9 inches of my height (I’m *almost* 5’1).

We were playing Pictionary the other day, and she drew a really good picture of a horse wearing blinders—well, it was good once it was done; while she was drawing, my guesses included a rabbit being eaten by a crocodile and a giraffe. Unfortunately, her word was *blEnder*, not blInder. It was a heroic effort, though.

Hannah and her best friend take turns sleeping over on Friday nights, and we usually let them watch tv if there’s something appropriate on, and a movie if there’s not. One Friday, while flipping through the channels for them, I found Knight Rider. Yep, the original. (Turns out there’s a newer version with a whole fleet of talking vehicles. urg) “Ooh, ooh!” said the friend. She *totally* dug it. I believe it was the first time she had seen it. I think Germans must have some kind of genetic predisposition to like David Hasselhoff. (Of course, even the Fug Girls can’t get enough of the Hoff.) And here’s the link again to the Hasselhoffian Recursion for your viewing... uh, pleasure might be too strong a word; let’s just leave it at “viewing.”

My mom sent us about 10 boxes of Girl Scout cookies around Thanksgiving, providing us with a running start into the holiday bloat. She’s lovely, but evil. Anyhow, I was talking to her the other day, and she offered to send some more this season. I flat out refused her. We are trying to wean Hannah off the sweets, and a 20-lb. care package of cookies is not going to help. I prefer her to make her body out of chicken and noodles and apples (some of the few things she will actually eat) instead of out of Thin Mints and Peanut-Butter Patties.

Apparently I’m not the only one around here to enjoy the winter sunshine. John’s plumbago has put out a bloom. Sadly, Hannah’s fire bean plant didn’t survive to make it all the way to the ceiling, but since its beans are poisonous, I’m not too sad that it didn’t get the chance to make any.

One of John’s students gave him a novel to read and pass on, Colony Girl. I wasn’t too impressed with it. (John doesn’t really read novels. He is currently immersed in a scientific book on the Indo-Europeans.) The story is about a teenaged girl living in a religious colony, and she sees through everyone’s foibles and wants to get away. I read the first 5 and the last 70 pages, and I knew everything that happened in the 200pages in between. And the protagonist didn’t make me care enough about her to want to go back and read the middle. So...not too impressed. (Apparently some The Library Journal wasn’t either, looking at their review on amazon.)

One day I will be so far ahead on my classwork, etc., that I will be able to read my pile o' Pratchett waiting for me. Until then...

Ps. New Flickr photos of Hannah. See link on right.

Return of the...Whatever

King of the Jungle?
Originally uploaded by NeeS.

This, uh, statuary stands at the entrance to [Name of City] College, which I was under the impression was some kind of prep school. It now appears that this school has been bought out by the circus and turned into a clown college. You just know that the posh lions guarding, like, the New York Public Library are laughing up their sleeves at this poor guy.

Good, Bad, and Indifferent

You know, I could adopt the “I (don’t) like...” format, and blog entries would practically write themselves! To wit:

I don’t like static. I usually wear my hair up, but poor Hannah has the “fork-in-light-socket” look every time she sits on the couch. And I am SICK of shocking myself on the tv, vcr, computer, Hannah, cat, kitchen faucet, and tile wall. I’m not kidding; I’ve started grounding myself before touching electronics.

Despite my previous declarations of hatred, I am completely neutral toward winter this year. I attribute this to the greater-than-usual amount of sunshine. As I have mentioned before, ad nauseum, I can handle most anything served to me with a side of sunshine.

We let Hannah play hooky today, and, by extension, ourselves (to a lesser degree). John had one class to teach this morning, so I got to miss both my classes to watch Hannah. He got home five minutes after my second class started. Woot! She actually does have a cold; if she laughs, she starts this gurgly coughing that sounds really gross. But since she only ran a slight fever yesterday evening and none today, she goes back to school tomorrow. Lucky thing: they are going on a field trip, so she really will have only half her classes.

Since I worked on a translation gig over the weekend, I gave myself the day off (mostly) to watch tv and play with Hannah and to chat with John. It’s nice to be able to have a conversation with my husband once in a while that is not about making dinner or doing the dishes. Of course, those conversations could also be interesting to the outside observer since John always accuses me of “treacherously” doing the dishes so it is his turn, even if the dishes have been piling up for 2 or 3 days. (Why yes, we are firm believers in the piling system of kitchen organization, why do you ask?)

To make the day seem like less of a blow-off, I folded the last of the laundry from the weekend and worked on some creative writing projects. Little did I know that as soon as dinner was over and I wanted to blog, the damn sink would seal itself closed, forcing me to everything short of voodoo to get the damn thing unblocked again. In the process, the dishwasher overflowed (just a little this time), so I had to mop, making Hannah unhappy with me because *she* wanted to mop. She is finally getting into chores, even bartering hanging up her clean clothes (she usually puts away folded stuff) to be allowed to sleep in our bed last night. But tonight really wasn’t the night for her to take up mopping. Tomorrow, though...

We bought a faceted crystal sphere so we could enjoy the occasional sunshine on more than one level, and here are the results in the downstairs hallway. (It was too bright to get a photo upstairs.) But even with the sunshine, it only got up to about 37F today. So tiny rainbows was about it for big events at Casa Nee. And Hannah is coming down with a bad cold, probably the same one that kept her friend out of school two days last week.