The Hannah-upagus (-Lupagus? I don't know)

Me to John: It’s 10 o’clock—do you know what town your child is in?
Earlier in the school year, Hannah’s class went to a museum in another town with the train, but she never made it clear to us what town that was.

Conversation with my child:
Me: Hannah, you do not have fat, hairy legs.
Hannah: Yes I do.
Me: That is crazy talk.
Hannah: No, this is crazy talk: blah blibbzty blahdy blblblblbl.

Hannah took part in a chain letter for kids (allegedly for a Guinness Book attempt), and some of the resulting mail got mis-delivered to our house, despite having the correct address on the envelope. Hannah has been anxious to get the letters back in the mail—OMG! Chain letterrrrr!—so we wrote “MIS-SENT” on it this morning and she ran it down to the mailbox. When she came back, she declared that the postal service was lucky we didn’t sue them for their egregious error. While John and I tried to talk some sense into her, she blew us off with the reflection that she doesn’t have any money for a lawyer anyway. As John said, “Our little litigant.”

Hannah was asking me what kind of movie I would make if I could: Sci-fi? Animated? Grease re-make with transvestites? She knows me so well.

Hannah is constantly speculating on what happens to characters after the action of a book or film is over (I see fan-fiction in her future). She thinks there should be a Grease 3, but she doesn’t appreciate my efforts to deduce what kind of vehicle will be featured. Original Grease had fast cars; Grease 2 had motorcycles. For Grease 3, we came up with jet skis, skateboards, a Segway--

Get that guy, Thunderbirds!


--or the Little Rascal.


Hannah was not amused.

Hannah’s birthday is coming up fast. She is going to be 11! I am not too weirded out by my baby growing up so fast, but some days I think, “Poof! 11 years gone.”

Hannah has already been planning out her birthday parties for the next few years, to be sure to cover all the possibilities. This year, we are taking her and 2 friends to Holiday Park after a sleepover. Her birthday falls during school vacation *and* on a holiday, so the amusement park will be open an extra hour. She has already asked us if we can celebrate her birthday in the summer vacation (August) the next two years, that way we can take her to Legoland (in Germany) and Parc Asterix (near Paris). She doesn’t really care about celebrating with friends, as long as we take her someplace cool.

John and Hannah insisted we buy an inflatable boat, so that is how they spent Mother’s Day, paddling around on the Neckar.


(Full set here.)I have very bad luck with boats smaller than a ferry, so I stayed on shore and photographed the big event. It didn’t help my peace of mind to know that Hannah was wearing a swim ring as a make-shift life vest, and that the tourist cruise boats were out in force.


Hannah was dying to get back in the water this weekend, but the life vest John ordered hasn’t come yet, and it has been overcast with intermittent rain, so I don’t think she’s going to make it today. Maybe on Monday, says John.

I was in the middle of Spring Cleaning...

...when the doorbell rang. I got to take 30 minutes out of my busy cleaning schedule this morning to be an official witness (I had to sign some forms and stuff) for some cops who turned up with a search warrant on one of our neighbor's kids. No one was home, and they couldn't track them down, so I got to be the stand-in to ensure that they didn't break anything and only searched the kid's (he's 23) stuff.

After that, cleaning the floor and shoving around the furniture just didn't seem as exciting anymore.

Somebody's Checkin' In!

Sometimes I hear ladies my age talk about having a(nother) baby, and I wonder what they are thinking. My conversations with Hannah yesterday included the words hotpants, bra, and hickey; no poop-laden infant can hold a candle to a preteen, although I guess you have to start somewhere.

WE ARE DUMB

When we moved here, we brought an international VCR to watch videos on, DVDs just then making inroads into the movie-watching media. John got a laptop for work, and we sometimes used the disc-drive to watch the handful of German DVDs we had bought or borrowed. The drawbacks were that we couldn’t watch any of the American DVDs people were sending us, and John had the nerve to want to use the laptop to work—when we were requiring entertainment, sheesh! Jooge and Mr. Jooge took pity on us and sent an American DVD player. Shortly after that, the disc-drive on John’s laptop crapped out on us, so I bit the bullet and went out and bought a German DVD player.

Kept up so far? At that point, we had a VCR and 2 DVD players, and we had to keep switching around cables depending on which DVD (American/European) we wanted to watch.

Just recently, while wrangling cables and settings, Hannah accidentally put an American DVD in the German DVD player. And it worked! I had to dig to find the weensy print in the manual, but it turns out I had managed to buy a remarkably cheap international DVD player that *didn’t even advertise itself as such*. Weird, eh? So we packed away the American player for later and have spared ourselves a lot of effort in our pursuit of entertainment.

Of course, we still have an incredibly ancient television set that doesn’t even have a remote control, and the on-off button is broken, so we have to plug it in to turn it off. And the volume and channel buttons are starting to wear out, so you have to press extra hard when you want to scroll though the channels (UP and DOWN are the 2 channel options). But it came with the apartment, so at least we didn’t have to buy a tv to go with our million video players.

WE ARE GASTON

Remember that jerk from the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast? And how he sings, “I use antlers in all of my decorating!”? I bet he didn’t have one of these:



That’s right, it’s a dining-room chandelier made out of antlers. Every meal, we sit beneath the partial remains of multiple German deer. They match the patterns on the chairs:



And the tile oven:



And the outside of the house:



I mentioned that I need to recover the cushions on the dining room/tile oven bench, and I finally got around to ordering the fabric:



It’s not exactly the same pattern, but it’s not bad for a replacement (and if your taste runs to Bavarian kitsch). Now I just need to let it sit in the storage space under the couch until I finish a metric buttload of school work, and then I’ll need to figure out where I can rent a sewing machine.

IN OTHER CRAFTY NEWS

Since my brain basically calls it a day as soon as dinner is done cooking, I dug out the quilt project I’ve been working on since *cough* 1996 *cough* to have something to do in the evenings. Even though I’m only quilting an hour or two a night, I’m making a lot of progress. See?



And the back:



Maybe one day I will be finished, but for now, it is keeping me out of the crack dens and other low places.

MRS. GREEN-JEANS

Now that it has finally turned warmer, I am having a little more success with my apartment gardening. These walnut trees have totally taken off just in the last week:



I’ve got 2 pots of Lemon Balm going upstairs, and it is heavenly:



Hannah even had some pepper seeds going, but then the cats ate them, but then some more seeds came up. I was so pleased, I repotted them in a big old container and even showed them to John. Five minutes later, I saw that one of the goddamned cats had eaten several leaves off them:



I just planted you some cat grass, bitches! So I moved the baby pepper plants onto the balcony, but only after locking the cats out of the sunroom for a whole day. The nights are not getting below 50 now, so I think they’ll be just fine.

Avatar and Nee

My prediction about my favorite TV show, Avatar, came true. After airing the first 11 episodes of the third season, they went all the way back to the very first episode *of season 1*. This lead me to do a little poking around on the Internet, where I discovered that in the US the last 4 episodes will make a giant series finale *in July*. I was in a funk about this, so I did some more poking and found a trailer for the second half of season 3 that was just released at Comic Con. You’d think this would be good, but it just put me in more of a tizzy. Then on the German Nick, they announced that the series finale will be in the fall. *In the fall*, people. So, like, 5 months from now.

For those of you with Harry Potter inclinations, it’s like Book 6 came out, and then JK Rowling announced that extra people were going to die in Book 7, and then Scholastic moved the release date for Book 7 back to a later date. *That* is the level of pain I was experiencing, seriously. I am totally Nickelodeon’s bitch.

But then John, my dear husband, father of my child, light of my life, fire of my loi—oops! Moving on, he found episodes 12 and 13 online, thanks to the generosity of the Canadians in airing 2 more episodes than the Americans. A good chunk of the trailer clips were in those 2 episodes, which I found reassuring somehow. Since then, I have been feeling more calm about having to wait, but that might have more to do with the fact that I am coming off a manic hormone peak. Or stoic resignation. Or anti-pms. It’s hard to tell.

New Post

Hannah's got a new post, complete with original artwork, up at her Partyhut site.

Twisted Sister

Hannah got the Spongebob movie while we were in Texas. In one scene toward the end, Spongebob plays "I'm a Goofy Goober" to the tune of Twisted Sister's "I wanna rock."


Spongebob Squarepants The Movie - Goofy Goober Rock - More amazing video clips are a click away

So this morning when John started singing "I wanna rock", I had to chime in with "I'm a goofy goober". That's just how I roll. John wonders what Dee Snider and company think of the use to which their music has been put.

Then I remembered that I actually had that album (well, cassette) as a kid. And then I remembered that I used to play "You're gonna burn in hell" at LilSis. And then my father threw my cassette away.

I guess I could blame LilSis for the loss of my marvelous tape that might have been a collector's item by now, but instead I will apologize to her for terrorizing her with big-haired 80s metal. It turns out I was the twisted sister.

Run, do not walk

...to It Came Upon a Midnight Weird: Cavalcade of Bad Nativities.

My favorites:
Leprechaun V Leprechaun in the Manger

Lo, I Have Come to Make Bathtub So Much Fun

And here's the original from 2004.

Participant in Rock-Release Program

It may seem that I’ve been hiding under a rock recently, but I have actually been kind of productive, in a boring, not very bloggable kind of way. I jumped ahead on my to-do list and ordered a new under-the-sink trash can. On runners! We’re way hi-tech around here.



Hannah and I planted flower seeds, which are not looking so hot at the moment, but at least we tried to start our spring gardening.



I bought a garden gnome. He is ceramic instead of resin, which I like, but he is a little more Disney than I had planned on getting. But he is still many-times better than some other ones I had seen at the garden center, and he only cost me 8 bucks at the grocery store. (Many thanks to Hannah for spotting him on an aisle I wasn’t planning on going down.)



I have prevented John from microwaving a bowl topped with a lid edged in metal. I don’t think he is on any medication, but I am starting to worry about him.

I have done some proofreading and bibliography-cleaning and bibliography-building, so I am definitely getting my hours in on my student job.

I have been soaking in new episodes of Avatar. Last Saturday Nick showed all of season 2 in the run-up to showing the first episode to season 3, and every night this week (and through next Tuesday, according to their web site) they’ll be showing the new episodes, in order. By next week, we’ll be caught up with the episodes that have aired in the States. Of course, sometimes Nick stalls out around then and starts re-showing earlier episodes before getting to the end of the new season, so I will have to wait and see what the new schedule looks like when it comes out online.

Despite the icky weather recently—and Spring is supposed to show up by Sunday, if you can trust the weather man—lots of flowers have come out. My favorites are purple, and the color is like a zap of electricity to the brain via the optic nerve. I read somewhere that purple is supposed to be an energizing color, as opposed to pale green being soothing, and it definitely seems to be true for me. Here is a picture of some lobelia.


While in Loosiana, we stopped in a mall in Monroe to buy jeans. We were hungry, but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat at Food N Food. Do you think they sold food? If I were a little more country, I might have gone into The Camouflage Shoppe, but the extra –e made me feel that there should have been more dust ruffles and tea involved than I saw on display. Not that the camo baby clothes and taxidermied toys weren’t cute.

This brain dump has been brought to you by the letter M and the number Z.

That's My Girl

Hannah was getting low on reading material, so John suggested she try some of my Terry Pratchett books. Except for Harry Potter, Hannah hasn't shown much interest in what I read, so I was surprised that she agreed. Except--unsurprisingly--she wanted me to read it to her. But that turned out to be her undoing, because she got hooked.

Between me reading a chapter or so aloud to her and her reading a couple more pages beyond that to herself, we managed to get through Wee Free Men over several bedtimes.



Now she has started on A Hat Full of Sky, and she isn't calling out for me to read to her every single evening. Just every other evening or so.



Maybe by the time she gets to The Wintersmith, she'll be reading 70% on her own.

Easter is so weird

So while I was in Texas, my mom and I had to run to Target. On the Easter aisle, I spotted the Star Wars Easter Egg Kit. After boiling the eggs into plastic sleeves with character faces on them--I noticed C3PO--you stand them on cardboard cutouts rolled into tubes with their bodies printed on them. Hahahah! Best. Easter. Decoration. Ever.

Later on during our trip, my SIL and I went to HEB for Easter loot, and alas--no Star Wars. It turns out that only Target carried them. But it wasn't to be in any case, because we were propane-less and couldn't boil eggs anyway. *sigh*

Yeah, I thought so

Thanks to WesTexGirl for the link!

You Are a Seeker Soul

You are on a quest for knowledge and life challenges. You love to be curious and ask a ton of questions. Since you know so much, you make for an interesting conversationalist. Mentally alert, you can outwit almost anyone (and have fun doing it!). Very introspective, you can be silently critical of others. And your quiet nature makes it difficult for people to get to know you. You see yourself as a philosopher, and you take everything philosophically. Your main talent is expressing and communicating ideas. Souls you are most compatible with: Hunter Soul and Visionary Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

I *heart* Economics

Until a couple of years ago, I hadn’t had a course in economics since high school, and I don’t remember that being especially exciting. I had to have a certain number of cultural studies courses for my degree here, and I was sick of art history and history, so I gave this German Economics for Foreigners course a try. I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed it. Part of it might have been the instructor, who was delightfully sarcastic, but the subject was also quite interesting in and of itself. I ended up being one of the few people who wrote an exam in economics when it came time for our exams for admission to upper-division studies.

The experience didn’t exactly turn me into an economics junky, but I do enjoy reading the Filthy Commerce entries on Lisa Schmeiser’s blog, “The Rage Diaries.” Who knew marketing could be so interesting?

More recently, I got turned on to Marginal Revolution. I haven’t read very far back in the archives, but I definitely have to recommend an economics site (or any site) that links to an article on the demise of the semi-colon.

For Christmas, I got John The Undercover Economist, but he is never going to read it, so I’ve been reading it at bedtime. It is fascinating! I admit, I sometimes have to read back over what I’ve just read in order to be able to understand it, but that has to do with the topic and not with Tim Harford’s writing, which is very accessible and entertaining.

Have you ever learned about something, and then suddenly you come across it again, totally randomly? After reading about the Camelback houses in New Orleans in The Undercover Economist, and how they allegedly came about due to a weird tax law, I proofread a paper by an anthropologist in Louisiana who had a more plausible theory, that when free-standing, 2-story kitchens were built on to shotgun houses, the end result was the Camelback. What a strange coincidence, eh?

I recently got around to watching all 20 minutes of The Story of Stuff, and it was worth it. Ok, I found the first five minutes a bit, mmm, shrill, but if you have ever wondered about where all that great stuff for sale came from and where it’s going, this is the video for you.

Some day I will get around to watching all of the video “Money as Debt”, but not today.

And to wrap up my encomium of all things economics-related, I just read the Slate article “The Last Days of Cheap Chinese: why American consumers are about to start paying more for clothes, electronics, toys, and just about everything else” By Alexandra Harney. Wal-Mart won’t be cheap for much longer.

Mucking out the spam folder

While I was working on my laptop earlier, I thought I'd skim through my spam inbox, just in case something had fallen through the cracks. Nope, all spam, but I particularly liked the subject line "We're Doomed! Doomed!" Somehow, that got my attention more than the fake-porn and fake-watches sujects, but still not enough to open the email.

Spring Cleaning

Somehow I have fallen behind on blogging, even though I have material. But on the other hand, I managed to get two articles edited and turned in on time over the weekend, so I am not a total slacker. In an attempt to get back on track, I am typing up some writing I managed to sneak in during our recent trip.

*

When we got on the plane [in Frankfurt, so on the international leg of our trip], Hannah noticed right away that there were TV consoles in the back of each seat. “This is the best plane I’ve ever been on!” she declared in her manically happy way.



Then when she saw the free earphones that hook over the ears, she wanted a set for herself. (Stealing them wasn’t an option, because they have two prongs.)

Alas, despite the promised glory of individualized entertainment, it wasn’t completely peaches and cream. My controller was defective, and after repeatedly trying in vain to select the flight plan, I finally ended up whacking it against the armrest in frustration.

Since I didn’t have any electronic entertainment available, I decided to go with my stand-by, the seat-back pocket. I am pre-disposed not to like the Skymall catalog. As I told Hannah, it’s basically a toy catalog for grown-ups, as evidenced by the items Programmable Frozen Drink Machine, Arcade Legends Full Size Game System (for a cool $3695.95), and iMuffs (what a terrible name!).

But then I saw the Holy Grail of cabinetry: the Library-Style Media Cabinet.

How cool is that? I have been looking for a cabinet with doors for hiding our videos and DVDs in, without much luck, so I may be bookmarking this item for future reference. And I also want the skull-covered flannel footy-pajamas I saw.

Despite being in the last row (i.e. no one behind us to complain), I couldn’t put my seat back at first because a flight attendant had stowed a bag behind me. John was able to spend the flight leaning back and watching his choice of movies. [Here I noted, “I need a nap so bad!”] Halfway through the flight, I got my seat back. I hope that stewardess didn’t have a collection of heirloom glass in her purse.

So I kind of got the shaft on some of the amenities, but at least the facilities were clean, and there was hot water for hand washing. When you are a lady like me—small bladder, monthly visitor—public toilets get a lot of scrutiny. Continental Airlines, your toilets passed inspection! (DFW Airport, not so much.)

Hannah is insisting that she is a teenager because I let her buy her first “teenie” magazine to read on the flight, but still put on the little plastic wings the steward gave her.

*

After we got to my mom’s, Hannah was checking out Little Na’s extensive Pokemon video collection—“That’s how a Jamaican says ‘hedgehog’.”

The next morning, I was helping load suitcases into the truck, and John warned me I’d get a lady hernia. “What, an ovary will pop out? Or my hernia will drink tea with its pinky out?” Then I laughed, perhaps a bit more hysterically than John was comfortable with. Hannah woke up at 3 am after our 24-hour day of travel, and was up for good at 5 am, so I was feeling a bit stretched thin.

My mom had put one of her dogs into the cab of the truck while we loaded the luggage, to keep her from running off. Only, when we got in, we discovered to our horror that she had stepped in poop somewhere and then boisterous jumped all over the seats. *sigh* After that, we called her the “pooper pup.”

*

The first morning after we got to John's dad's, we ran out of propane. Luckily, I got a hot shower before it ran out, but we ended up running water through the coffee maker to wash dishes. The bright side was that we didn't have to suffer through one of his glacial breakfasts. I swear, some animals gestate faster than he can cook breakfast. And don't get me started on the "creamy" eggs. *shudder* Cold cereal first thing in the morning instead of a hot breakfast at 11 was a perfectly acceptable trade-off, even with my extended stinkiness.

Hannah got a pink stuffed bunny for Easter. She named it Gina Bunny Foo-Foo, her Chinese bunny.

*

We went fishing in Loosiana, and Hannah wasn’t having much luck. I overheard her trying to tempt the fishes to her line: “Come on little fishies; we won’t eat you. Bloop bloop bloop!” But then she shushed me when I tried to help with the blooping.

*

I think that about wraps up our Texas experience for this year. I’ve got more stuff stewing on my laptop, but John might need to use the Internet for actual *work* soon (so picky), so I will get to it later.

LOL John sez

Im in ur quilt, stealin ur warmth.

(I refuse to spell q-words with k, even if it would fit the genre. BTW, Texas seems to have a shortage of qs and cs, judging by the signs.)

Off to read to Hannah. Maybe more tomorrow.

Ps.

While we were gone, it snowed about 10 centimeters. Crazy!

Back in the Saddle Again, Listing Heavily

We're back, but jet lag is stomping our butts. We just got Hannah off to school about an hour ago, and I hope she doesn't suffer too much on the first day of classes after vacation. Some of the other kids and teachers may be suffering, too, so at least she'll have some company.

The trip to the States was punctuated by one heavy nosebleed and about 3 barf-ups, but on the trip back, Hannah only barfed, twice on the plane and once in the car. We have realized that the main factor in her travel sickness is lack of sleep. It turns out that my mother and my great-aunt were also prone to that type of (travel) sickness when they were younger. My good friend WesTexGirl the biologist can even explain why that is, although my head is too fuzzy to drag the reason back out of the recesses of my brain from when she told me 2 weeks ago.

Anyhoo, we came back to a relatively clean house (no thanks to the cats and their endless shedding and litter-strewing and barfing) and live pets, so the pet-sitters got some nifty thank-you presents from Texas.

So that is the quick wrap-up. I am trying to get most of our 319 photos from our trip up on Flickr as quickly as possible, so feel free to wander over there to check them out. In addition to my normal photo stream, I'll have 3 folders--West Texas, South Texas, and Loosiana.

Stuff

Every once in a while, John gets a wild hair and declares, “We need stuff!” That’s when we get on amazon and start picking out things we have mentioned in passing that we need: more seasons of Futurama, Van Halen CDs, Terry Pratchett books. Since we’ll be in Texas starting at 9 pm on Sunday—woooooo!—we are having some of our stuff sent to family there. We always buy an obscene amount of junk food when we visit, and this year we plan to do some shopping for clothes*, so the books, CDs, and DVDs will have company in the spare suitcase we are going to bring along.

* My fear of German department stores is only exceeded by my fear of German hairdressers, hence my overall ragged appearance these days.

One recent acquisition was 2 seasons of the BBC sci-fi comedy Hyperdrive. We saw the last episode of season 2 while we were in Scotland, and at first we thought it was that Scottish fan-made version of Star Trek. It is very funny, but the characters are not quite as cut-and-dried as you might think at first.

While we were on a roll, we also took care of some stuff we had been putting off for no particularly good reason. I bought a new modem cable, since our old one was missing a clip and kept falling out of my laptop whenever I wanted to use it. Then I got rid of 3 of these:



and replaced them with 3 of these:



It took me forever to find the right-sized replacement blinds since the windows are quite old and slanted (attic apartment), but perseverance and the Internet stood me in good stead. I even got a discount as a first-time customer and free shipping.

Here is my next DIY project for when we get back from Texas:



The lack of shades meant that the cushion was sitting in direct sunlight for however long the old shade was broken before we moved in and the time it took us to realize the landlord wasn’t going to manage to bring a new one and rig something up ourselves. By that point the cushion cover was already starting to rip. So now that we can block the sunlight to that spot, I will try to find some sufficiently ugly fabric to replace the previous ugly fabric and make new covers.

Then after that I will try to find a replacement for the built-in, under-the-sink garbage can that is on its last legs. After 4+ years, this place is starting to look rather scarred, so a few minor repairs are in order. I’ve always thought of myself as rather handy, but a lack of power tools prevents me from taking on really big jobs/injuries. Which is just as well. But the idea that I could actually improve things on my own seems to be part of my American spirit of self-sufficiency. If I don’t manage to burn down the house in the process of these littler projects, John and I might do a little (very little!) wallpapering and painting. Oooh, the skillz!

Drive-By

Hannah dipped a french fry in ketchup the other day and declared that the end result looked like an Elvis hair-style. Then she started singing "You ain't nothing but a corndog." *sniff* I love her so much.

My brain does not know how to take our upcoming trip. When we bought the tickets, we knew we were cutting it relatively close. But yesterday, I realized that it was only a week away. aaaaack! How did that happen? I knew it, but it didn't seem to sink in before then. This is even with the travel dreams/nightmares that already started last week. Of course, I hardly know what day it is. On Friday, I went downstairs to wish John a happy anniversary, only to make the embarrassing discovery that I was 4 days early. So my brain is not exactly working at top capacity right now, dig?

I have a couple of other things to mention, but I need to upload some photos first, so maybe I will get around to it this afternoon. Or maybe not. You know me, LAZY.

Hannah is great, eats chocolate cake

It feels like Hannah is turning into a teenager right before our eyes. I know our family is going to be astounded when they see her next month. She talks about puberty a lot, but she seems to think that puberty = emotional turmoil, and disregards the rest of it. This weekend, she told us a couple of times about her mood swings between sadness that two of her favorite movie series are over, and happiness that she gets to go to Holiday Park for her birthday (which is still 2+ months away); she looks absolutely manic when she mentions the happy side of the equation. Then this morning she woke up on the wrong side of the bed; while resting her head on her arm on the dining table, she stated that she hated puberty. Apparently puberty is to blame for every bad feeling these days. If so, do you think I can get away with blaming my bad moods on puberty? Can it continue up to 35? I know that acne can.

Despite the occasional slip-ups in common sense (e.g. wearing her rollerblades on stairs after taking a fall on stairs on rollerblades), she is getting to be quite mature and self-sufficient.* Every afternoon after homework, she sorts out her school books for the next day and packs up her backpack. Every evening before bed, she picks out her clothes for the next day and sets them out to put on the next morning. And she gets herself to and from school each day without muss or fuss. I just wish she would put her toys away on her own initiative, but she is getting better about picking up with less supervision.

* She proved herself more reliable than John on the day when she got herself home after going to a movie with me, but John didn’t start the dinner (I had class until 6). I had considered phoning to check on each of those things, but figured they could manage on their own. I was correct in only one case.

Another way in which she is pretty trustworthy is on the internet. We kind of eased her into it, finding acceptable sites for her or okaying sites she found herself (Barbie), and giving her straightforward rules about not giving out personal info and not signing up for sites without our permission. Since then, she has found some really cool games online, like Neopets and Panfu (panda RPG), or Jetztspielen (Play Now), a collection of super excellent games like whack-a-garden gnome (aka Hammer Heads) or fairy fishing. But the pinnacle of her game searching has to be Wiggi Walk, a game that teaches kids about internet safety. It’s in English, and I would recommend it to any other kids starting out on the internet.

Her most recent find, through Jetztspielen, has been Girlz MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). Basically, she can only do a limited number of things on there, like run around, drive a car, and dance, and the interaction with the other players is limited to a chat string, most of which consist of the players asking each other how old they are and which country they are from. And there’s always this one person: “Is anyone Duuuuutch?” I watched over Hannah’s shoulder one day (‘cause she doesn’t mind), and all that running around and scenery moving made me feel sick. Better her than me. She often tells us about other people she has met there, and last weekend she had 2 “dates”. One person never came (who knows what time zone that person is in, so maybe they missed each other by an hour), and the other person only stuck around for a short time; she realizes that “friendships” online (and I use that term loosely) are fleeting things.

Catchin' On Up

This is going to be one of those horribly boring catch-up posts, so feel free to note that I actually did post something—for a change—and go about your merry way until the next real post.

We have all taken a turn at being sick. John is just now getting over his, and it has been a week. He is not so congested any more, but he still has a cough and a raspy voice. Hannah had the congestion first, and she seemed to be mostly over it when she woke up puking at midnight a couple of Sundays ago. Not fun. (Probably due to too much popcorn and pizza on a movie outing with her friend.) I barely had a sniffle, not even enough to affect my sleep, so I got off easiest. Woo! (So sad, when that is the woo-able-est thing to happen to me in a while.)

Hannah was required to get in-line skates for P.E., and while waiting yesterday for her friend to meet up with her to practice (it’s her first pair of skates), she fell on her back. She didn’t even have a bruise, but she informed me later that she had the air knocked out of her. I assume she survived gym today, because I haven’t gotten a phone call.

Hannah wanted to play baby, but I insisted that she not crap her pants. “No, I only crap on the crapper.” That’s more like it. (I can’t really get on to her about bad language when I started it.)



John bought a new bike.

John finally went to the back doctor while he is not actually crippled with pain and got set up for some physical therapy.

We had dinner with some friends, and Hannah actually ate pretty well, surprising my friend since I always complain about Hannah’s eating habits. Luckily, they were serving Asian food, and Hannah will always eat soup and rice, usually together. We are having them over on Saturday, and I have no idea what to serve.

Spring has sprung, completely giving Winter a miss. After a sunny but cold week, we’ve had several days of off-and-on rain and slightly warmer than the already warm-ish temps. I think someplace in Germany even managed to break their record high over the weekend. I think I mentioned the blooming trees that started back in January; now we’ve got bulbs coming up all over the place. The crocuses even managed to beat the snowdrops this year!



I finished my grades and stuff and vow never to teach again. I just don’t think I can handle the responsibility. To make up for that, I took on a quick proofreading job. The woman who sent me the document was so happy with my work and the quick turnaround that she gave me a 20 euro bonus. Mo’ money!

I bought a bunch of baskets at a going-out-of-business sale.

I went to the crazy enormous grocery store and managed to get out before I went completely mad. Imagine, if you will, the first time you ever set foot in a Walmart Supercenter or a Whole Foods or Central Market. That is how it feels to me every time I go (which is twice now to this one, and about every 2 months to this other one). It didn’t help that I didn’t have an actual grocery list with me, and Hannah called me in the middle of my trek to let me know that she had fallen hard while skating, while I was a 30-minute drive away. But she calmed down while I was on the phone with her, and I flew through the last 2 miles of store so I could go to the skating area, just to find that they had already gone. But then I saw her at the bus stop, so she and her friend got a ride home.

Hannah has been to 3 movies in 2 weeks. Thankfully, neither John nor I had to go with her to any of them, but then again, she stuffs herself full of sugar and grease as soon as she is out of sight of us (see puking, above), so it is a mixed blessing.

I turned 35.

(That's a 3 plus 5 candles in a row, which makes 35, right?)

Hannah bought me some horrible socks that I love


and some cookies, and John came home laden with gifts, flowers, and cake. No one felt up to going out to do something, so we had a quiet time at home.


Hannah was traumatized by her mouse nibbling on her finger and accidentally chewing off a bit of fresh nail polish. Of course this happened at bedtime, so Hannah was crying and upset, a perfect send-off to sleepy land. We kept an eye on the mouse, and she is fine. I think it was little kid nail polish, so hopefully it wasn’t *as* toxic as adult nail polish.

The end.

You guys are lucky

...I have John and Hannah to generate content for this blog, cuz otherwise I got nothing. I mean, the semester is over, so there are no weirdos to sit next to in class for me to report on, and I probably won't be riding the bus back and forth as much since I am now down one tutee (she is going to take an English class at the community college).

Hannah dug out her old electronic pig who is supposed to walk and grunt, but even with fresh batteries, he is defective. That doesn't matter to Hannah, though. She has dragged him around for several days now. She put a necklace on him, and I found her sticking the Kellies (the littlest Barbies) under his necklace. Hannah suggested that when people die, that's how they get to heaven--strapped to a pig.

Between the Barbies and the pig and a doll bed, the couch was pretty cluttered, so John told Hannah to clear it off (he's so picky about there being places available to *sit*). When he saw that the doll bed was still there, he gave her another reminder. Then she pointed out that the pig was in the doll bed, asleep. And of course that led John to make a comment about a pig in a blanket.
Me: *snort*
H: Be careful what you say, or piggy will kick your butt, Dad.
Me: Ha! Piggy can't even walk; he's a paraplegic.
H: But *Miss* Piggy is his aunt, and he has a cell phone.
Can't argue with her logic.

We all read a little as part of our bedtime routines (well, sometimes I do sudoku), and in addition, Eliza cat gets some petting from John. But when he is ready to read, it's nuts to Eliza:
"This is a book, Eliza. You can't be a part of it because you're illiterate."

Maybe someday soon I will also be witty, but don't hold your breath waiting for it.

For the ladies

A quickie from my notebook:

Before class, I stuffed myself full of fat, salt, sugar, and caffein, the 4* food groups for the menstruating woman.

*I have heard that there is a 5th group--orange--but this hasn't been independently confirmed.

Hannah's school vacation

I took Hannah and her friend to an indoor water park last week while she was on vacation from school. Hannah is really a water-slide girl, but she took time out from her sliding frenzy to hop into the wave pool when they turned it on every half hour.

Hannah is *pale*. Despite being a natural brunette in a highly blonde society, compared to the pale peach of her German friend’s skin, Hannah is parchment colored. There are fungi growing in caves darker than her. John would probably attribute this to the fact that she refuses to leave the house unless there is the promise of ice cream or a video rental at the end of the walk, but it is winter, and everyone is pasty.

It was raining when we got there (it hailed twice before we even left the house that morning), but the sun came out briefly while we were there, deliciously scorching me through the plexiglas roof. It was the best 5 minutes of my day (spread out over two shinings).

Hannah and friend spotted a couple of girls from their elementary school class and went over to say hi. And were promptly snubbed. Hannah wasn’t particularly good friends with them back in the day anyhow, so she just shrugged it off with the 10-year-old equivalent of “eh—dicks”.

When Hannah has a school vacation, she goes back and forth between utter, tv-watching boredom and maniacal self-entertainment. She was out all last week (she goes back tomorrow), so when she hasn’t been watching videos or playing Sims on the computer/Nintendo, she has actually had a pretty full schedule:
practicing her stage-diving / dying dramatically from a self-inflicted plastic-sword wound onto a pile of pillows and blankets on the sofa-bed
whacking a tennis ball around the apartment without breaking anything
working on her skills as a one-man band


and training her stuffed animals to be back-up/stage crew

Photo bonanza!

Slapping up some photos with commentary is much easier than coming up with real content, so here comes a whole pile of new photos.

Hannah desperately needed new shoes, so we hit the shoe store before going to the movies last week. She now wears the same size shoes as my mother (who admittedly has wee little fairy feet, but who is nonetheless an adult). Can you say „bling!“? (John still refuses to believe that this is a real word.)



Hannah goes through phases of digging stuff out of the backs of closets to play with, and the sports supplies have come out recently. Here, she donned a pair of rubber gloves so the black grip on the tennis racket wouldn’t continue to turn her hands black. (I don’t know what the deal is, but this photo has gotten 25 views at Flickr, without me adding any special tags.)



Here are my new glasses. You might expect them to be made of solid gold, considering how much they cost me, but no—they are plastic and metal.



Did you ever see that segment of the Muppets with the vend-o-face machine? Hannah is one of their best customers. (Oddly, she found all the parts to this get-up, minus the band-aids, in the kitchen utensil drawer.)



Here’s where Hannah stores her nose when she’s not using it. (Not something you want to see when you go into the kitchen!)



Hannah got into my make-up while I was off giving an exam last night. Sparkly! And pink!



Hannah wanted to make a cup-and-string phone, but it doesn’t work with plastic cups, so she re-purposed it to function as a pull-system of communication: 1 pull = turn out the lights, etc.

I know I’m lame

I held the last session of my class last week, so I didn’t have to teach this morning. Plus, I feel a cold coming on, and it is too cold and wet to bother going to the Mardi Gras parade, so without further ado, here is something from my notebook, written last Friday:

When I finish this course today (on break!), I’ll have spent 15 hours (minus breaks) learning what to expect from my master’s thesis and exams. The class has been useful, if redundant; everything is covered twice—once for the literature people and once for the linguistics people. But I’ve learned something every session, so it hasn’t been a complete waste of time.

Most of the other students are pretty sharp (you’d hope they would be by this point) and ask pertinent questions, but there are a few that make me wonder how they get their pants on in the morning without help. (And somebody smells like corn! I hope it isn’t me, since I am generally well groomed and haven’t eaten corn in ages...)

During one of the breaks, I braved the coffee machine. I know—I swore it off a while back, but I only had 45 cents, which is just enough to buy a cup of crappy coffee out of the machine. But check it out: I put in 45 cents and got a cup of crappy coffee and 40 cents back. Wh--? Then when I went to put my cup in the recycling machine for the 10-cent refund, I found that the last person didn’t take their 10 cents out. So basically, someone *paid me* 15 cents to drink a cup of crappy instant coffee. I won against the machine!

Eeeeeek!

Hannah has always been squeamish about certain things*: Don't talk about body parts! Change the channel when the lion eats the antelope!

*She reminds me of her uncle, Mr. Jooge, back in the days before he married into a family with a physical therapist in it.

Recently we saw a tv show that briefly covered the lungfish. This fish can breathe on land in the time it takes it to flop from one puddle to the next. It is totally slimy and floppy and gross, but still cool somehow. Hannah is (half-jokingly) convinced that our floor is infested with lungfish. Despite my repeated assurances that lungfish are unlikely to make it up to our fourth-floor apartment and through the tile floor, and that the only things on our floor are hair, crumbs, and dust, she won't put her feet down on the floor at least once a day, whenever she thinks about the lungfish.

Of course, this leads to Games You Can Play With Your Squeamish Child. Dropped something on the floor? Watch out for the lungfish!! heh heh heh

Bowels R Us

Today I visited the ladies' room on the same floor as the classrooms in the English department. I usually don't even bother and climb at least one flight of stairs up to find suitably appointed facilities. I was cutting it close before the start of class--the one I was teaching--so I stuck to the first floor toilets. And boy was I pleasantly surprised. Ok, it did smell like pee, but there was toilet paper, soap, towels, and an unclogged toilet, so I was able to overlook that minor annoyance.

Later, I took Hannah to the movies because she got out of school early. We were the first ones in the theater (Hannah really had to go, so we bought our tickets *early*), so we got to enjoy the aroma of a lost diaper while we waited for the movie to start. Every time we dropped something on the floor and had to feel around for it in the gloom, the search was accompanied by a cry of despair: Oh, no! Loooooost diaperrrr!

With my luck, the bus will smell like vomit to complete the trifecta of gross for me today.

For John: During the trailers for the movie, Hannah said, "That Werbung stinked!"

So silly, so true

Hannah wanted some of John's chocolate, and he told her she'd have to put away her laundry first. "Screw it," she replied. She couldn't resist the chocolate for long, though, and put away the clothes about 5 minutes later.

John has been very hard on Missy cat lately, claiming that my mom gave her to us because she (the cat, not my mom) was not very classy. That's right, a low-class cat. John says I'm allowed to tell my mom as revenge for her frequent commentary on the state of his butt.

He also seems to think that Eliza cat is classy, just because she has fluffy fur. This is the cat that won't jump up on the bed when I am in it, just sits there whining until I wish there *was* a monster under the bed to eat her.

It is sometimes difficult to convince Hannah not to do things. For instance, she wouldn't stop whacking me with the oven mitts the other day, even though I repeatedly told her that mitts are not meant for violence, they are tools of peace. Instigator.

Sitting on the bus today, I had front-row seats for some extra-special craziness. First, this young woman got on who was extremely loud and friendly; I marked her as drunk and foreign right away. She sat across the aisle from me, and her low-key talking to herself was pretty noticeable from my vantage. At first I thought she might have a wireless phone*, but then I realized that, no, she was just talking to herself. Talking morphed into a noise that was either crying or laughing, I couldn't tell. Then I realized she was singing along to an iPod *and* crying. She must really take her music seriously, I thought to myself. Then she started flipping out--she tried to climb out of the window, or at least stick her head through, but it was too narrow. She climbed up and stood on the seat and shouted out through the window how much she hated this town and the people in this town--but naturally only the mean, bad ones. The whole time she is crying and crooning bits of this song in French. I was very happy to get off the bus and away from her. She smiled at me as I got off.

* The last time we were in the States, I saw a lady who could have been the twin of my mom walking around with one of those bluetooth thingies attached to her head. I don't think I had ever seen one here in Germany, and I still haven't seen many since then, but you know something has reached market saturation when the middle-aged set is using it.

Nee is dull

Sometimes I think I was born a stick in the mud. John loves to go to different cultural events, especially musical performances, but he doesn't often rope me into going along. Last Saturday night was one of those rare occasions. The Swedish club sponsored a trio to sing and play piano, and Hannah and I went for moral support (and cashiering, it turned out).

The concert was held at the library. I have been using the library for 4 years and never knew that there was a recital hall upstairs. In the upstairs foyer, there was an exhibit of photographs; the theme of the exhibit was transience. I didn't really care for many of the photos. They felt self-consciously pretentious to me, and a bit too random to fit neatly into the theme. But there were some photos I found really touching, especially the ones with a young person and an older relative, the tenderness and love that was apparent in the younger person. There were two other photos I particularly liked, one of a pre-schooler holding her mouth like the child in the (obviously very old) photo she is holding, the other of an old woman holding a photo of herself as a young woman. To me, those spoke of transience, in the person they used to be and the life they were about to leave behind.

Walking around looking at the photos reminded me that I used to enjoy going to museums and plays when I was a student. There's hardly a building on the UT campus that doesn't have some sort of museum or historical display in it, so I had plenty of chances to indulge my interest back then. And the semester John took a drama appreciation class, he was required to attend X number of plays, so I went with him. We saw a lot of wonderful performances that I still remember: Tennessee William's _Camino Royale_, Moliere's _Learned Ladies_, a short play _View From the Rollercoaster_ by ?? (a lovely short play about a gay blind date).

John has dragged Hannah and me along to some musical performances that were just wonderful--an evening of Arab music--and some that were bo-ring, but *drag* always seems to be the operative word. My intransigence has probably rubbed off on Hannah, and that is really not fair to her (1) or to John, who is so eager to experience new things. I don't know why I am so reluctant to leave the house, but that is something I can change.

(1) There are many things that Hannah is not interested in due to overexposure in her childhood: "Not another castle!" "I don't want to go to college when I get big!" "A concert? Bo-ring!"

Ow! My brain!

From the bus (at a stop) I spotted a man with a dog. The man had a plastic bag, and I assumed he was waiting for his dog to do his business. But no--once he got the bag over his hand, he called the dog over, squatted behind it, and apparently had it crap directly onto his bag-covered hand.* I have never seen such a conscientious dog-owner. I have to admit, though, that I felt part of my brain fall out when l saw his particular brand of conscientiousness.

* As I told John later, it was really cold out, so at least the "poop-scooping" served a double-purpose: waste removal and hand warmer.

Hope Springs Eternal

We have been having really up-and-down weather this winter. I swear that our first winter here, the temps hovered just above freezing for months and months. We got snow occasionally, and it stuck around for a pretty long time once it had fallen. Now, it rained buckets yesterday, but we had frost on all the cars this morning. Plus, small bushes are blooming. In January. So when I saw that the local old-fashioned hardware shop* had put wooden sleds out, I had to applaud them for not giving up on winter just yet.

* I love this shop, although I've never been in. It reminds me of the old True-Value hardware stores (I think) in my hometown, with the amazing variety of small appliances, tools, and household stuff. The prices seem to be a bit stiff, but I may treat myself to an old-fashioned cookie press and some baking supplies when my birthday rolls around. **

**Gah! 35 in one month! Ack!

John's back has crapped out on him again. He's been trapped in the recliner with some aspirin and a hot-water bottle since Sunday. Since then, we've been arguing about the advisability of sex in that state. I'll let you guess which position John has taken on the matter. (Hint--John is a man.) He thinks he'll be able to go back to work tomorrow, even if he is still a little crooked.

You can tell Hannah is getting older: her list of wants is changing. At xmas she still wanted some Ken dolls; now she wants to dye her hair red and learn how to ski. If she doesn't start studying properly and bring her grades up, she is going to want some new parents, because she will be in deep do-doo with the ones she has.

Out and About With Nee

Recently spotted by yours truly in the main shopping street:

1 bunny on a leash
1 guy juggling flaming batons
1 guy singing Calypso
1 Shetland pony
1 llama

We saw the pony last week when we left my department on the way to dinner, and the llama a little later; they were part of a fundraiser to feed circus animals. I was hoping to come across an elephant or a monkey, but no such luck. We did see a little girl and her mom walking around with a couple of puppets, and then we saw them again after dinner, but I don't think they were with the circus people.

Then I saw the pony again this week and decided to make a small donation if the llama was out. It was, so I did, and I gave it a little pat. It is amazing how a smal pat on a llama can brighten your day.

There was also this little old lady at the bus terminal. She was dressed nice, but she stopped every few feet to turn back and loudly berate some people waiting for a bus, including another litle old lady. That was at 7 am. The next time I saw her, around noon, a knot of police were standing around her. It's always something at the bus stop.

10 Things

John Scalzi recently had an entry up, "10 (More) Things I've Done You Probably Haven't". I felt a bit timid about commenting with a list of my own, especially since lots of people seem to have hobnobbed with the great and nearly-great, but that's no reason not to do it here. Feel free to add your own list in the comments.

1. I have lived in a foreign country for over a quarter of my life. (Hannah has lived abroad for over half of her life now.)

2. I have stood on the roof of King's College Chapel at Cambridge University.

3. I got perfect scores on 2 out of 3 sections on the GRE, 4-1/2 years after graduating from college.

4. I have an acknowledgement for my copyediting work in Historiographia Linguistica.

5. I was once (at 26) the youngest presenter ever at a national conference for distance educators. (To be fair, my boss, quite a bit older than 26, was slated to give the presentation but had to leave due to a family crisis.)

6. By the end of next year, I will have a BA with a double major from an American university and an MA with a double major from a German university.

7. I worked a full 8-hour day on the day I went into labor with Hannah. She was a week overdue at the time.

8. I was the only person in my school year, in the whole city, to make all-region band in the 9th grade.

9. From the age of birth to 18, I lived in 5 places in 2 countries and 2 states. Since 18, I have lived in 11 places in Austin, 1 place in Sweden, and 1 place in Germany, for a grand total of 18 locations.

10. The only time I have ever been high was during dental surgery (when I became one with Gustav Mahler's First Symphony).

From My Bookmarks

This post is the archive for my "From My Bookmarks" links from the sidebar. As noted, it is a rotating list, and the items that are rotated out will end up here.

Julia
I, Asshole
Mandajuice
Bad News Hughes now The Domesticated Shithead
The Rage Diaries now Filthy Commerce (but still good!)
mimi smartypants
Indexed
Ayyyy! Gently Making Fun of the Famous

New to Me

This post is the archive for my "New to Me" links from the sidebar. I'll periodically move items from there to here when I add new items there.

How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
LA en vie now defunct
List of the Day
Homesick Texan
Bad Astronomy Blog
Fake Plastic Fish

Artist in Training

Hannah spent most of one day painting this lovely picture of a lady.



She went back and worked on touching it up the next day, too, and even painted a frame to put around it. Then she hung it up in her room.

Then she turned it to face the wall, because the eyes were staring at her while she was trying to go to sleep.



(That’s it next to the cabinet across the room from the bed.)

Pick-me-up

One of the things I like about Germany is the love of fresh flowers. I needed a little pick-me-up today, and for 1.99 (less than ANYTHING in Starbucks*) I got these to cheer up the dining room.



*A second Starbucks** opened up on the same street as the first one, but on the opposite end. *insert sound of gnashing teeth* I solemnly swear that the one time I went into the one Starbucks will be the only time I ever go into any Starbucks.

**I still laugh myself stupid at Starbucks being the headquarters for Dr. Evil's international evil organization in the Austin Power's movie.

Make-Over in Miniature

Friday evening we went out to eat, and Hannah informed us that short hair is now “in”, and “I want to be in.” She refused to let me take her to a salon; she was worried that she would end up with an actual “style”, when all she wanted was a chop straight across the bottom.

Here, Hannah fresh from the shower:



The difference 8 or 9 inches makes:



The carnage:



And finally, the new “in” girl:

Sugar and Spice and Death and Gore

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you will come across several similar items while roaming around the internet? For me, it has been a string of things: first Star Wars (I couldn't swing a dead cat around here without it landing on something Star Wars), then the town of the job interview, and now candy Lord of the Rings.

Here we have the Lord of the Peeps: Fellowship of the Peep. Nothing says high fantasy like sugar bunnies.

Last xmas we got The Battle of Helms Deep in Karo-vision.

Now this xmas we've gotten The Battle of Pelennor Fields, in all its sugary fierceness.

And to finish out the group, an older site, Peep Research. Who knew Peeps were so academically inclined?

Self-Referential to the Max

Let us share a moment of silence for the demise of Le Mariage Royale, my favorite formalwear shop to fug on. Since Cindi Lauper and Björk can only buy so many evening gowns, it was a foregone conclusion that its days were numbered. But at least there’s a silver lining: the sewing shop next door has expanded into the empty space, so now you don’t have to anchor yourself to the front door before burrowing your way through to the button display in the back.

No one wants to hear this, but I must rant about it somewhere, so feel free to move on to the end now. Still here? Anyhoo, my favorite short-cut street has apparently become a favorite dog-walking street judging by all the piles of dog crap I had to dodge yesterday. Oh, and a drunk short-cut, going by the barf. I think it is time to start issuing dogs with diapers, like Hannah came up with all those years ago. I wonder how practical a head diaper would be, to be handed out at the door of the local bars when customers leave. Maybe with goggles attached?

I am not really big on the idea of New Year’s resolutions, because it seems that self-improvement should be an on-going thing. But when everyone else is talking about it, it is a good reminder that maybe the improvement is not improving at the rate I would like, and maybe I should reanalyze. So other people’s resolutions are ok, I guess. Poor John gets to hear me moan and groan about my deficiencies, so I won’t burden you all here, but I do have mini-goals I could share:
Take my iron every day.
Drink more water.
Spend more time each week walking, and not just in the course of my day. (I must point out, though, that my office is on the 4th floor of the English Department (78 stairs and 2 long hallways from the front door), and I go there 2-3 times per week. Our apartment is on the 3rd floor of our house (40 stairs), and our bedroom is upstairs in our apartment. So I have totally got stairs covered.)

And finally, I wanted to share this photo of the best dad in the world:



He actually didn’t volunteer to play Barbies—he had them thrust upon him by a very insistent Hannah.

Stop—Burgertime!

My grandfather always liked to get in on the ground-floor of new technology, so he was an early buyer of the Betamax video player and the Intellivision videogame system. When he moved up to the next new thing, we often inherited his old stuff. John still laughs at me a little for playing on a game system that had a disc instead of proper buttons. My all-time favorite game was Burger Time: A little chef runs around the screen trying to make the layers of a hamburger drop down while avoiding the evil weenies, eggs, and pickles. If you manage to drop a layer onto a bad condiment, there is a satisfying *squish* sound; AND you are armed with pepper that you can spray onto the baddies and freeze them temporarily.

I check the DamnHellAssKings site pretty often for updates and just noticed this new site linked recently: Videogamey. I was totally hooked when I saw the post "Walking Egg From Burgertime, Internal Monologue Of." *insert sound of breathless laughter*

Then tonight, Hannah found the SpongeBob version on the Nick web site. They call it Patty Panic, but it is totally Burgertime Nick-point-oh. At least Hannah will know the joy that is Burgertime, even if in a bastardized and commercialized form that I, a purist, will never stoop to play (while anyone is looking).

Save our earth

I am a big fan of The Rage Diaries and the interesting articles and commentary provided by Lisa Schmeiser.

In the same vein, I just came across this article at Arthur Frommer's blog (of the Frommer's travel guides):

Arthur Frommer Online: I got the strangest reaction when I recently suggested the adoption of a system for turning out lights in a hotel room

I secretly worry that the end of civilization as we know it will end with a crash and bang (and soon!), and I catch myself mentally cataloging the items in our home that we could eat for nutrition or burn for warmth. When I read an article like this, I don't know whether I should be relieved that someone is putting the word out or worried that no one is listening.