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