This Just In

This will interest a couple of you, and the rest of the whole entire world will not care. I went into Starclipper today, walking with the B on University Row. It was sad to be there by myself, but I consoled myself by buying myself some damn Pocky.

The B also got some toys, and a painted letter B for her room. It was a beautiful day and I thought a nice walk on a stroller-friendly street of shops would be just the thing.

It was. :)

New Template

Heh, now you all have to look at new graphics just because the baby decided to take a nap. Made 'em all myself, including the background. I always wanted to know how to make a plaid from scratch, and it turns out it wasn't that difficult. Thanks, The GIMP!

The "geography" shown on the banner is the first town I grew up in. That larger road running sort of down the middle of the image is the street I wasn't allowed to cross. Thanks, Google Maps!

I still might tweak the white space around the text, and there's still one hole in the style sheet I want to address, but for now, it's going to have to fly as-is. Hope it doesn't make your eyeballs bleed!

Something Good Came Out Of It

New toy
Originally uploaded by lostonpurpose.

We went to the worst ghetto flea market yesterday. It was stinky, in a bad part of town, and not at all like Flea Market Finds with the Kovells on HGTV. I've been to flea markets before, and they're not all like this.

There were the Amway-type booths, where people had obviously sent away for cheap purses and hair doo-dads to resell at ridiculous prices. There were the weird, I-could-swear-it-was-dry-ice fragrance burner thingies that made the whole place smell so horrible that I had a weird headache and felt terrible until hours later. And there were the desperate people who kept after you to buy things (what size shoe do you wear? there are children's videos right there, did you see the toys?) the entire time you were trying to look at their stuff, all of which was overpriced because they were convinced it was old and rare and not just old and busted. Then there were the booths selling stacks of CD-Rs with what I'm sure was bootlegged music and DVD-Rs of movies that are still in theaters. I really wanted to turn them in—it's the people doing that shit that translates into you and me watching fifteen minutes of FBI warnings on the DVDs we legally own, and also why we are trying to be sold on buying a license to play a song instead of the media that it came on to do whatever we like with. I still might turn them in, if I can do it anonymous-like.

We did, however, find this toy at one booth. I was too worn down to haggle and we might have paid three dollars more for it than we could have if I'd bargained, but I think it was a good buy. It's sturdy and not at all busted up. All the enamel on the wires is intact and the paint on the wooden blocks is still flake-free. The lady who sold it to us didn't harp on us the whole time, but she was friendly and cooed a bit over the B.

I gave this thing a mighty good cleaning and presented it to the offspring this afternoon, and I must say that she seems to like it. It helps her sit up, and she likes to chew on it (good thing I cleaned it so well) and push the blocks around a little. I suspect it will be even more popular when she has more fine motor control.

But man, I still wish we'd never set foot in that flea market. Ugh. Made me want to take another shower it was so nasty.

See This Vase?

It's nicer in person than it looks in this picture, I promise you. It is sort of irregularly shaped, but deliberately so. The colors are much more vibrant when they aren't under the harsh light of the flash.

However, my taste isn't the point here. This vase is notable for another reason.

You see, a year ago last April (is that how you say that, if I mean April of 2005?) LWC and I went to the Spring Craft Market. It was a carefree Saturday afternoon without the boys. There were a lot of things that were already set in motion at that moment that I didn't know about yet.

First, I was pregnant and didn't know it yet. I would actually find out the Friday following the Saturday of the craft show. I remember being sort of tired walking around at the craft show and I couldn't figure out why that would be. I'd ridden my bike that morning with the usual suspects and I'd gotten dropped, also because I was oddly tired.

Next, I'm sure the round of layoffs at That Place were already in motion as LWC and I walked around looking at lovely crafty wares. This vase was the last frivolous thing I bought while we were still carefree and pre-layoff. I remember staring at it, less than two weeks after we discovered we were going to have Brigid, not knowing what would happen or where we would have to move to. God, I felt dumb for buying it. I remembered LWC and I standing in the booth marveling at how inexpensive their vases and other pottery were for how nice they looked. I think I paid $35 for this one. And yeah, you can't do much with $35, but you can buy some groceries. You can buy enough diapers to last a month with that much money. It was easy to fixate on.

But...it wasn't about the money I spent. It was what the vase represented. It represented a lifestyle where we had no debts (other than the mortgage on the house and the loan on my car, but no credit card stuff) and we had enough disposable income that I bought a rather pointless vase just because I liked it.

It always made me wonder: did everyone who got the axe from that company, no matter which wave they were in, have a thing in their house that represented everything this vase did to me?

I stuck it on the mantel in the old house and tried not to look at it. When I unpacked it here, even with the job and the move straightened out, with new health insurance cards in our wallets and some certainty before our lives got turned upside-down by the B, I still felt uneasy looking at it. It represented something we had that we lost, that we'll never get back. An innocence, really, that things were nice and fun, that we had our friends and nothing would ever change. Friday night gaming would always be. My chair at the table, prime heckling position, would always be.

I saw the picture of the bathroom as it was when we looked at this house, considering if we should buy it, when I made my before/after bathroom wallpaper stripping/painting post awhile ago. The previous owners had a fussy flower arrangement in an equally fussy-looking vase on this goofy shelf type thing in the bathroom when they were showing the house, and I thought our newly repainted bathroom might benefit from the Tom and Kathy version of that. So I rescued my poor, maligned vase from the high, dark shelf where I'd stuck it and carried it upstairs. The blues were similar. The scale was about right.

One trip to the craft store later, and I had some strange-looking beige and brown stuff to put in it. Flowers—too fussy. Weird, curly stuff—just about my speed.

I've been getting used to having it around. The shower is glass, so I can see it while I'm showering. I almost don't even notice it anymore. Someday, I suppose I might not even remember where I got it or what the circumstances were soon after.

But I doubt it.

Good News Everyone!

Comedy Central has ordered 13 new episodes of the animated series that Fox canceled two years ago. Billy West, Katey Segal and other stars signed deals this week to return the show to TV. In getting a second life, "Futurama" is following the path taken by "Family Guy," which also found post-cancellation success on DVD and cable reruns.

read more

Dumbest Trip Out Ever

Today, I was starting to get cabin fever. I've been staying in with the baby because I've been pretty tired. She's been a little more difficult to get to sleep for the past few days. I think she's going through a growth spurt, and her schedule is a little thrown off. She's been skipping her first morning nap, and as that's also my morning nap, that makes for a tired Kathy.

Anyway, I was looking for a new place to explore, and I found a website for a lovely-sounding street of antique and curio shops. I got directions, printed them out, packed up the forty-five pounds of baby equipment, and headed out.

I found myself on I-70 for part of it, snickering at the signs that dub it "Mark McGuire Parkway". Just seems strange to name major roads after sports stars who retired less than a decade ago.

After inching through a traffic jam, I found my destination. I was so proud of myself for finding it without getting lost even once that I didn't really look around before I parked the van and got the stroller and the B out and started to roll.

Tiny little narrow, two-story shops. Each and every one of them sporting anywhere from one enormous step to four or five just leading to the front door. Narrow, heavy doors. Lots and lots of signs saying "no strollers".

So, the baby is over twenty pounds now. Her fully-packed diaper bag is at least eight or nine more. I can't just carry her around. So, I went for a stroll up the street, looking for a shop that wasn't entirely impossible to get into.

I squeezed into a used book store, finding that the books therein are all considered rare works of art by the proprietor, even though they are regular old battered, used books that weren't especially rare. I almost laughed out loud when I checked the price on a softcover Dr. Seuss book and saw it was $27.50. It wasn't even a first edition softcover. Unless it was signed by the Grinch himself, I can't fathom what the thinking was there. I was able to get through two aisles of the bookstore before I found the rest were too narrow for the stroller.

Did I mention it was also a million jillionty degrees outside today?

I topped off my trip with a visit to the wacked-out cafe on that street, owned and operated by a few hippie-lookin' people. Now, I've got nothing against hippies, but I do have
something against hippies who make shitty food. The B had fun though, and she had her regular lunch, so her meal was great.

I finally admitted defeat and headed back home. I considered stopping at Target on the way home, but in the end, I really just wanted to get home and relax.

Worse. Trip. Out. Ever.

The Obligatory Parental Poop Story

So, around noon, the B was in her high chair, happily eating her pears and sweet potatoes (not at the same time). It suddenly became clear that she was working on another project down in the hinterlands. She still wanted to eat (she's subtle about that, banging on the high chair table and opening her mouth) so I kept feeding her and figured we'd take care of that other little issue as soon as the sweet potatoes were all gone.

A few minutes later she's done eating and I unstrapped her. Picked her up, and it suddenly became clear in a most graphic way that I will not describe here that her diaper had not been up to the task of containment. Now, I could carry her all the way upstairs to the changing table and get the cover all mucky, or I could just throw down the plastic changing sheet out of my diaper bag and take care of it right there. I think you know what I chose.

So I'm kneeling on the floor over this plastic changing pad, using up an entire trial size plastic container of wipes trying to take care of this issue, and I finally get it mostly taken care of. Now I just have to figure out how to get her outfit over her head without getting her completely dirty. I urged her to sit up so I could manuever the onesie better, and she sat up and gave me a little, still can't believe I can sit on my own, can you? grin. As I was trying to disrobe the poor child, I heard an urk sound and when I looked down, she had thrown some of her lunch up, drenching both of her feet and hands.

I actually black out there on the details, I think in some attempt on my brain's part to keep me sane. I imagine a lot more wipes were involved (there were 15 in that unopened trial pack and they're all gone now). I had an emergency onesie in my diaper bag along with a new diaper, so I put her in those and popped her into her exersaucer so I could do some damage control on her little outfit so it wasn't quite so gross. I did things with the little sprayer on the kitchen sink that, I assure you, it wasn't designed for. Then I used some sink cleaner with bleach in it to make sure it was clean, wrapped the sopping wet onesie in a bunch of paper towels, and took it down with a few other things to the washing machine.

When I retrieved the offspring from the exersaucer, I took her straight upstairs and started running water for her bath. No matter how many wipes you use, after something like that, only warm water and baby shampoo are going to erase that experience from your memory.

She is now clean and happy. I mean, of course she's happy. She never has to remember this experience. I, on the other hand...