Things really hot weather like this is good for:

• Corn
• Tomatoes

Things really hot weather like this is NOT good for:

• All other plants I have (and heck, I don't even have corn, so it's really just the tomatoes in the "pro" column)
• Little girls' tempers
• My temper
• Chances of anyone being able to nap during the day
• The overall peace of this household

Just a note to say that I survived the second day of inventory, which was far, far more grueling than day 1. There was only a quarter of the original work force, so even though 80% was counted yesterday (they said), the last 20% crawled by slowly and with much anguish.

Also, the stuff that got counted quickly and easily yesterday tended to be stuff that was easily counted (gasp! Who could have predicted this!). So, the parts that were left tended to be in the aisles with 20 million bins each containing 20 million doohickies.

so I didn't get to leave at 11 or noon, or even 1 or 2. I left a little after 3 and got home around 4, after battling much stupid traffic. Luckily, I had no worries about the safety or entertainment of the girls, because they were in the more-than-capable hands of eveofdstruction, who easily wrangled my two, plus her own girl, too.

Outnumbered three to one, and by living opponents charges, yet she carried the day. Sort of like us and inventory, only we were outnumbered  by inanimate objects, roughly 400 to 1. Or so.

Tomorrow I'll be back in the office, where I will not be expected to crawl on my belly, stick my arm and head into a grime-encrusted cardboard box, lift slabs of wood wrapped in shredded 4-year old newspapers from Korea, breathe in fumes from naturally tanned Malian leather, count hundreds of tiny, slippery pewter ornaments all tangled up in a box, or any of the other fun things I got to do today. 

As I get older and more curmudgeonly, I find myself less and less sympathetic to other people's problems. Not your problems, gentle reader. For you prove, by being my friend, that your problems are real and deserving of respect and understanding.

No, it's the people whose problems I read about in magazines and newspapers who move me less and less.

Maybe it's because everyone is willing -- even eager -- to share everything about themselves, including the most intimate details of their orgasms or failures to achieve same.

Maybe it's just because I've Been Through Some Crap by this point in my life, and if other people's problems appear not to measure up to mine, I just have no sympathy left for them, even though I only know their situation from a few paragraphs in a newspaper or magazine. (And I bet if my problems were summarized thusly, other people would similarly say "OH TOO BAD, POOR HER.")

But my lack of compassion nowadays -- it's bad. Today I found myself uttering the words, "Boo hoo, so sad, world's tiniest violin," and making objectionable "playing the world's tiniest violin" hand motions. When did I become so callous?

Here are some things that FAILED to move me to sympathy.

The sticker on every Starbucks hot breakfast wrap or sandwich you buy reads: "Great coffee deserves great food."

I understand their marketing spin. Right now, Starbucks is doing a clean water initiative: with each purchase of their Ethos branded bottled water, a little bit of money goes to clean water projects. (Or, you could save up some of that latte money and just make a donation to Partners in Health, which does wonderful clean-water projects, including several of our Gifts That Give More™. Bonus: No horrible plastic bottles cluttering up anything!)

Starbucks' Ethos bottled water marketing has the spin "Because Noel and his family deserve clean water." (Really? How did Starbucks make that determination, I wonder? Did Noel and his family pass some moral test devised by Starbucks, a test which other, lesser families failed? No, seriously, I understand why they phrase it that way -- it just bothers me.)

Anyway, it makes sense for Starbucks to continue this "deserving"  theme throughout other pieces of their marketing. I do understand that.

And it's subtle enough that you might not be bothered by it. But it bugs the heck out of me.

Today is one of the most glorious days of the church year for liturgical music. I encourage anyone who digs that kind of thing to tune in to your local classical music station and revel in the sheer variety, depth, and creativity of the musical outpourings of centuries of religious devotion.

Right now I'm rocking out to "Dixit Dominus" by Handel, while feeding the wren her morning oatmeal / applesauce.

I have to say, though, looking at the schedule for the rest of the day, I might be better off with my CD collection. A lot of these seem not particularly Easter-y. Instead of lots of excerpts from Handel's "Messiah," they have only one chunk of it, way late at night after 10 PM.

During the morning churchgoing hours, we get "Four Seasons in Buenos Aries" by Piazzolla? A suite from Bizet?? What the heck? It's as though they're purposely trying to pretend that Easter doesn't exist today, music-wise. So very odd.

Come on, people. Throw in Bach's "Easter Oratorio" and then we'll talk.

-- This appears to be localized here in Seattle. Check out the programming for today down at KMFA in Austin, Texas (you have to click on today's date to see the list). They've got Easter music out the wazoo.

Last night was the every-other-week session of "Castle Falkenstein" that Nikki runs downstairs from us in tatterdamelion's apartment.

I really enjoy this game and I really enjoy the people in it. It's the only time I get to see dendacien, whom things are going quite well for right now (congrats again!) and who looked super-cute last night with new hair that I forgot to comment on at the time.

But I just can't stay awake for this game. Something about Friday nights is just deadly. Session after session, I sit down with my character sheet and the best of intentions, and then fall down a deep black well of unconsciousness. And then I wake up on the couch several hours later with a crick in my neck, very very grumpy that I have to go back upstairs and get ready for bed, and of course by the time I do all that and get into bed, finally, I'm wide awake and can't sleep for half an hour.

Bleh. Last night I even had a cup of coffee to try to stay awake -- something I try to avoid after noon or 1:00 or so. It did no good whatsoever.

Beyond having the person on the couch next to me stick pins into the soles of my feet at intervals, is there anything I can do to stay awake for these games? I'd rather keep the "needles in the soles of my feet" thing as a last resort.

At this point, having committed literally scores of children's books to memory after reading them hundreds of times, I consider myself a conissieur of the genre. And I'm here to tell you that some truly dreadful writing somehow makes it into print. Come on, people, just because it's a book for kids doesn't mean you can just phone it in! Put some effort into it!

We own a big thick book called "Fisher-Price Reader Readers: Stage 1: Preschool - Grade 1." I forget where we got it; it may have been handed down or bought at a thrift store. It seems to be a compilation of stories that weren't good enough to be published on their own. I suppose it's unfair of me to pick on a book like that, but honestly -- come on, Fisher-Price! Don't buy 10 bad children's stories and publish them as a compilation and expect not to get mocked. Not when the stories are this bad.

This week lasted way way way too long. Wednesday felt as though it should be Friday, and now that it's finally Friday, it feels as though the week lasted 10 or 12 days total, meaning that today is Friday-And-A-Half.

The most annoying part is that we could have taken advantage of a rare clear spot in our schedule this weekend to "get out and DO something," but I didn't have it together enough to arrange babysitting for either Saturday or Sunday, so we are stuck.

Then again, after a week like this, pretty much all I want to do is snuggle up with someone friendly and just revel in the fact that I Am Lying Still. And we can do that at home. :-)

I am doing so much, so fast, with so little room for error, that I obviously just can't be trusted to add even one more thing to the load.

I'm taking a course of antibiotics right now -- no big deal, easy-cheesy, one pill every 12 hours, with food. I started the treatment Friday night and it's supposed to go for one week, so that's 14 pills.

But apparently I cannot remember to take these pills.

On Monday I forgot to take the morning pill and was about 5 hours late. I took the evening pill super-late, around 11 PM, to try to compensate.

On Tuesday I forgot to take the morning pill and was about 8 hours late. I thought about taking the evening pill at 2 AM (which would have been about a 12-hour span of time), because I knew I'd be up around then nursing the wren, but thought I probably wouldn't remember to take it then, so I took it right before going to bed, although the timing wasn't quite right. Of course, at 2 AM I did remember, so that would have been fine, if I hadn't already taken it.

On Tuesday night I thought about planning to take the Wednesday morning pill at home before leaving, but then I remembered that (1) I was supposed to take it with food, (2) it can make you drowsy and unfit to operate a motor vehicle. So I decided to take a pill to work in my little pill-carrying case and have it here, with food.

So, this morning I smugly settled in to my desk here in downtown Seattle with my English muffin and honey, brought from home to save money, and my office-kitchen-coffee, which might as well be water for all the good it does to my caffeine-deprived headache. (What does Starbucks put in its coffee, anyway, to make it so addictive? It's as though no other coffee has the same effect that Starbucks coffee does. Crack? Black magic? The souls of the innocent?)

Popped open my little pill-carrying case to take the pill -- to discover that last night I did NOT put a pill into it after all, even though I remember doing so!

I'm so incredibly irked at myself! This is just all kinds of lame.

Tonight was spent with Andrew, who took the night off work, and his brother Tom, up visiting from California. We took turns making fried potatoes -- just thinly sliced Yukon Gold potatoes, in hot vegetable oil until golden and crispy, and then salt on top. They are super simple, terribly bad for you, and HEAVEN, and we ate them as fast as they came off the skillet.

Tom searched through the CIA World Factbook for weird-sounding countries and territories, and we discussed what we knew about places like Turkmenistan (too bad that wacky President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov died last year!!!), Kiribati, Bouvet Island, and suchlike places. Hey, when I throw a party, it gets wild.

After we devoured the potatoes, I made pork chops and there was applesauce and hot mulled cider and pumpkin pie. (Yes, pie from the store; I have two small children at the moment...)

Then it was time for FIRE. We have owned this house almost four years, and never made a fire, and that is just silly. My reasons for foregoing fire were (1) I was pretty sure making one involved either opening or closing a "flue," which could be either rusted shut or caked with bat guano and would definitely be a mystery to me, raised without a fireplace; (2) I was worried about the hypermuffin charging into it.

I figured out the "flue" pretty easily -- looks like it had been open all this time; oops! (The fireplace has glass bifold doors, so there hasn't been a draft that we could feel.) The firelog was a bit beyond me,  though.

(Catherine, kneeling in front of the fireplace, reading from the firelog wrapper): "Um, let's see here... 'Open fireplace damper fully...' That must be the flue. Check. 'Loosen wrapper around firelog to create air space. Do not open wrapper.'"

(looks into fireplace, where the fully naked firelog is sitting insouciantly staring back at her) "CrrrRRRRRrrrrap!"

Whereupon Andrew and Tom laughed at me heartily.

(Side note: The  firelog packaging touts how environmentally friendly it is, in terms of emitting 75% less carbon, or 75% less creosote, or something. What it fails to mention is that it produces 75% less HEAT. I want a fire to be HOT, darnit. I was sitting right next to this thing and it wasn't even warm. What kind of a dinky fire is this, anyway? I am regretting buying the bulk package of these things; they seem pretty, but purely decorative.)

Anyway, we enjoyed an episode of "Pushing Daisies," and then watched a few episodes of Little Kuriboh's "Yu-gi-oh Abridged" series, making  me laugh so hard my face hurts, even though I've seen them all at least a few times.

Andrew and Tom are up talking... but I'm on my way to bed. Ahhhhhh, sweet bed.

(No, it's not a new version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors...")

Last night I ate a bowl of chili WITH BEANS IN IT. The sheer stupidity of doing this boggles my mind even now. WHAT was I THINKING?? The gassy bits of the beans are no problem for me, with my grown-up system, but they pass directly through my milk to the wren. Who proceeded to wake up, crying in pain, EVERY HOUR last night.

Andrew's going to have to eat the rest of that chili. It's good, but not worth waking up at 11. And 12. And 1:30, and 2:30, and 3:30, and 4:00, and 5:00, and 6:00. I actually started crying at 6 AM as I realized I had to get up for work in half an hour anyway...

So at work today I was a walking zombie, despite vast amounts of caffeine. Nikki and Jen convinced me to stop staring at my screen with dead eyes and actually leave the office to have lunch in the International District. We ate at the Uwajimaya Food Court, and Nikki bought a green coconut and some weird lychee-like fruits, and Pocky. There was much, much Pocky bought -- "Men's Pocky," chocolate mousse Pocky (huh?), almond-coated Pocky, dark chocolate Pocky.

Mmmm. Pocky.

(Side note: I saw a purse in an International District shop window with the Pocky logo as its pattern. I don't have the type of wardrobe that would make such a purse work... nevertheless, I so wanted it!!!)

And tomorrow, we're going to pack up the girls and go to the Japanese Gardens at the Seattle Arboretum (affectionately nicknamed "The Arb"), again with Nikki and Jen. I'm really looking forward to it. I was at the Japanese Gardens once, I think, just after we moved to Seattle, but I was by myself and lonely at the time. It will be great to go again with two daughters and a husband and a couple of friends. Definitely won't be lonely this time.

And now... to bed.

It's been a strange day for Things Being Where They Are Not Supposed To Be. Or possibly, for Things Escaping From Their Normal Constraints.

Example the First: Ivy.

I'm a bit late for this rant, but here's an article in CNN Money.com about Boston Billows, a tiny company that sold nursing pillows -- the same nursing pillows that have been used and loved in Europe for over 25 years.

These are different from Boppy Pillows -- which I know well and use every day -- because these C-shaped pillows are filled with tiny beads that "firm up" when the baby's weight is placed on it, giving better support during breastfeeding.

Because the pillows were filled  with small beads instead of fabric fill, and years ago mattresses filled  with small beads were linked to infant suffocation, the CPSC had the nursing pillows pulled from the market.
  -- Even though there have never been any links between this pillow and any deaths or injuries.
  -- Even though the design of a C-shaped nursing pillow is totally different from the design of a big, flat mattress.
  -- Even though current medical opinion is that the fill of those mattresses wasn't the culprit for those long-ago mattress deaths anyway.

The article is titled "Are Product Recalls Fair to Small Businesses?" The answer, unsurprisingly, is "no."

Tiny companies can't fight this process. Boppy, of course, being huge, has cadres of lawyers at its back and call.

Meanwhile, despite several horrific injuries to young children, there are still pools with single-drain suction systems. I don't need to go into the injuries here; let's just say that I heard about it weeks ago and I still can't stop thinking about it. :-( 

Urgh, this really angers me. Bureaucratic heavy-handedness at its worst.

Andrew's parents arrive tomorrow afternoon for a brief visit. They'll leave early Tuesday morning. This means I really ought to spend time tonight cleaning the attic, where they'll stay. And I fully intend to... just as soon as I finish this beer, and this salad, and solve tonight's Tanga puzzles (all three of them). Oh, and I think I'll make scones first, too. That's not wrong... Is it?

I've already been in the attic quite a bit today, but unfortunately I did not spend any time cleaning. Here's how today was.

The other day, LiveJournal was down most of the day -- and I missed it while it was gone. I don't remember a single one of the insightful things I was going to post, only the feeling of not being able to post them.

This morning, not only is Girl Genius online comics down -- and even the backup girlgeniuscomic LiveJournal account does not show today's comics, only comics from the last time the main site went out -- but also, Hotmail is "too busy" to serve me. Although my IM tells me I have two e-mail messages, I can't get into Hotmail to actually see them.

Frustrating to know that I have two e-mails, but not be able to read them.

So, today at 2:15 I was supposed to have my 6-week follow-up doctor visit.

Actually, my original appointment was tomorrow morning, but a week or two ago the doctor's office called me and said they'd accidentally scheduled me with a different doctor, not my own. So we rescheduled it for today.

Hauling the wren, who was asleep in her (very heavy) carseat, I showed up 10 minutes early. Only to be told that this time, they had apparently REscheduled me with a different incorrect doctor.

So, I now have a third appointment for Monday morning. This one is with my actual doctor. In theory.

If I didn't already know that I've healed up just fine, thank you very much, I would be irked. As it is, this is just a formality, and a chance to chat with Dr. Salerno about BAYBEEEEEEZ.

For my birthday present, Andrew requested someone come out to install a new phone jack.

That may not sound like a great present, but it's something I have really wanted for two years now. The only working phone jack on the floor was in the hypermuffin's room, and having a phone ring in there is not a good idea. We turned off the ringer on the base unit, and left only the cordless phone handset with a ring. As long as we remembered to bring the handset out of her room whenever she was sleeping, that worked OK.

Of course, it also meant that the handset's battery was almost always at only one bar, since it seldom got recharged all the way. We've had the handset die in the middle of conversations, all for want of a phone jack in the main room!

I looked into how to move this myself, and decided it was WAY out of my league. And also possibly against the phone company's terms of service.

So anyway, the phone guy was supposed to be here yesterday morning. No one showed, no one called.


The final tally:

Brent: 1.
Can't-Be-Done-Guy: 0.
Spirit of Service (this is, in case you did not already know, Qwest's motto): 1, pending a successful resolution. :-P

Screen door mishaps!

Andrew's parents generously bought us two screen doors for our house -- one for the front door and one for the kitchen side door. Hooray!

However, we have a weird house that's not up to code, and both doors are set beneath overhangs that protrude downwards from our eaves, meaning that outward-opening screen doors could not actually open.

The measurement guy failed to realize this when he came out to measure our doors for screen door installation purposes. Only when they showed up yesterday to install the screen doors did they realize the problem with the third dimension.

They jury-rigged a solution for the front door -- installing it low in the frame, and putting a plastic strip at the top of the door frame so that when the screen door is closed, the gap is mostly sealed, yet it can still open. There's an annoying sound when the door hits it while opening or closing, but it's the only way to make the door actually function as it was intended.

But the kitchen door couldn't be fixed that way, and so they simply didn't install it. We'll have to figure out whether we can return it to Home Depot. Since their subcontractors already opened it and even cut it in preparation for installation, I am worried that Home Depot will be difficult when it comes to returning this.

Then again, it's their subcontractors' fault! *grrrr*

Another bad night last night. The wren was nursing NIGH-CONSTANTLY, leading me to whimper and plead with her, "You can't STILL be hungry, sweetie! You just can't!" Yet she was. I changed her diaper a ton and also walked her around the house trying to lull her to sleep, but in the end she really wanted more food. Again. And again. And again.

Meaning that I got hardly any sleep at all, maybe 3 hours, and Andrew (who was awakened at each squawk and scream from the wren) probably got only slightly more. Maybe 4 or 5 for him.

Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, you know.

And the hypermuffin is sick today.

Happy birthday to me! ;-)

Yep, I'm 32 today. And in spite of my sleep deprivation, I'm happy. I wanted children, and I have them. What a blessing! I'll happily pay the price of a bit of sleep deprivation if it means I get to make the goldfish crackers "swim" through the air making kissy fishy noises before my daughter eats them.

Oh, check out the Girl Genius strip for today: Someone having a transcendent moment as the result of a REALLY GOOD cup of coffee.

(I could really use a cup of that today...)

Rice cookers all hate me. At this point it's no longer amusing.

• First there was the cheap-o small rice cooker I had "back in the day," when I was a poor graduate student. Looking back, I took it for granted -- I should have appreciated it for its consistency, if nothing else. Sure, it always burned the rice, but at least it consistently cooked the rice every single time!
  

I got rid of it because I grew tired of a brownish-black crust on the bottom of my rice. Naively, I assumed that more expensive rice cookers would be better. Oh, how wrong I was!

• Fancy rice cooker / vegetable steamer. Worked OK for a few years, lulling me into a false sense of security. Then it decided to make a horrible squealing noise while steaming. Intermittently. Meaning that if I wanted to be safe from an ear-splitting shriek possibly invading my ears at some point during the steaming process, I needed to put the contraption in another room.
  

Let me tell you that steaming your rice on the bathroom counter is just WEIRD.

• And then just a month or two ago I replaced that one with a fancier rice cooker -- fancier than anything I had owned before. I'll save that saga for the end...
  

Some background -- the Rice Cooker at Work storyline:


And finally, the Fancier Rice Cookier saga.