Entry 245: Better

Before I start my entry, I wanted to give everybody a "life hack" I use a lot.  It's a small thing, but it saves me a lot of time and grief.  If you are like me, you do fair amount of copying and pasting text from webpages into Word documents or from an email into a blog post, that type of thing -- moving text across different platforms.  Use Notepad as a go-between and the formatting is less likely to be all messed up.  For example, if I cut-and-paste something directly from Gmail into Blogger, the format gets all wonky (weird carriage returns and things like that) and I have to do a bunch of reformatting, but if I first cut-and-paste into Notepad and then cut-and-paste into Blogger -- perfecto! -- everything works, no fuss, no muss.  So there you go: Use Notepad.  The more you know.

And now for the featured presentation.

I had a much better week this week because Lil' S had a much better week.  He's still not sleeping through the night, but he's usually pretty easy to get back to sleep when he does wake up, and he's not getting up super early anymore.  And even if he does wake up before my alarm, sometimes he just chills in his room on his own.  This morning he was just sitting on his chair looking at a book when I woke up; I have no idea for how long.  When I went into his room to get him, he smiled at me and said, "I reading, Daddy".  It was a heart-melting moment.

His birthday is coming up -- he'll be two in a few weeks -- and we're having a party for him, which is one of the many activities we have planned this month.  It's shaping up to be a busy month of August (and even into September).  One of S's really good friends (A of the infamous Routeburn Trail trip -- still one of my favorite, and surely one of S's least favorite, anecdotes) is getting married tomorrow.  In fact, S is at the rehearsal dinner right now.  It's funny, when I'm watching the little man, S will often try to persuade me to do the things with him that she would do, even though I have no interest in doing them.  For example, she wanted me to take him to a music festival tonight that sounded like way more hassle than payoff.  And on Saturday morning (my weekend morning with him) she always wants me to go to the farmer's market.  But I don't like markets, farmer or otherwise.

"He loves it, though," S argues.
"Well," I counter, "he also loves pouring water down his pants, and we can do that in our backyard."

I mean, c'mon, who's the one who really loves it?

[Random Routeburn shot]

Tomorrow our friend RB is coming over to watch him during the wedding, which might be interesting, but hopefully won't be.  Interesting is bad when it comes to babysitting a toddler.  It will be the first time a non-family member will have to put him to bed.  Intuitively, it seems like it should go badly, but I'm guessing that it won't.  My rationale is explained in the following.  I've learned from talking to Lil' S's teachers at daycare (through S, of course, I generally just say hi and bye to them) that he acts differently around us than he does around them.  He's much fussier around us, and in particular, he's much, much fussier around S.  Why?  Because S will indulge it.  She, admittedly, will cave.  (It's at the point where I have to get him every time he wakes up because if S gets him, he won't go back to sleep without huge production of milk and pacifiers and hugs and cuddles.)  The people at daycare don't indulge his crankiness (I try not to, but I cave sometimes too), and so he doesn't do it with them.  My hope is that he'll treat RB like he does his daycare teachers and more or less just be a good kid.  Plus, he knows RB well, and likes her, so I think the "freak-out factor" is pretty low.  I think it will be fine.  We shall see.

My back is also feeling a little better this week.  I got some anti-inflammatories that I think are helping.  I was suppose to review the MRI results with a specialist on Thursday, but they canceled the appointment because the doctor I was supposed to see quit the practice.  Not only that, but they don't have another doctor on staff who does what he does, so I had to find an entirely new clinic.  At first I was incredibly annoyed (How unprofessional is it to quit while you have patients scheduled with no contingency plan for them?), but I found a place close to my work, and I wasn't that impressed with the other clinic anyway.  So ... whatever.

[And another one]

In other news, the Seahawks played their first preseason game last night against the Denver Broncos.  Don't worry, I'm not going to blather on about the Seahawks; I have a whole other blog for that, and I hate preseason football, anyway.  I'm bringing up the Seahawks strictly as a segue to talk about an underrated aspect of being a sports nerd that doesn't have much to do with sports.  As you get older, which I am doing, sports associations become a great way to mark time.  For example, I know my oldest nephew was born in 2005 because that was the year the Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl (the first time), and I remember watching games from that season while holding him as a newborn.  Also, I know I went to summer camp in 1989 because I remember talking about Mike Tyson's fight against Carl Williams with the other kids.  And I know we took a family vacation to Ohio in 1988 because I remember reading about the Reds' hot rookie Chris Sabo at my grandparents' house.  I could go on and on and on.  My batting average (pardon the pun) of knowing when life events occurred is very high because I associate them with the sporting news of the day, and sports happen in fixed, easy-to-remember seasons, and even if you forget a year, you can look it up in a second.

I was thinking of this today because I was thinking of my ninth grade dance for some unknown random reason.  I took a girl named J who was only in our school district for half a year.  (Because she came late, her picture was at the end of the yearbook with, as it so happened, all the special ed students.  So my friend JY's favorite joke was to point to the picture next to hers, an obviously "challenged" young man, and proclaim, "This was DG's date to the ninth grade dance".  Not a very sensitive joke in retrospect.)  On the night of the dance I went over to her house and hung out with her kinda charming, kinda dickheaded dad while she finished getting ready.  He was watching baseball and drinking beer.  I remember he had a half-empty six-pack sitting on the table next to him, which is a good tipoff he probably had a drinking problem.  When you don't even bother to refrigerate your beers because you will be drinking them so quickly -- that's a bad sign.

Anyway, I remember him getting really excited because Dave Valle drove in a run.  Based on this information I decided to try to figure out the exact game we were watching.  And I believe I did.  It was actually really easy to figure out.  I knew the year (1993), the approximate month (May or June, since it was at the end of the school year), the approximate day of week (Friday, maybe Saturday, but very likely Friday), and the approximate time (5:00 pm, we ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant beforehand, so it had to be on the early side).  From there, I looked at Dave Valle's game logs and found just one candidate (click here if your inner baseball nerd is making you curious).  It was Friday June 4, 1993.  The game was in Baltimore which means it was a 4:30 West Coast start time, and Dave Valle delivered an RBI single in the 4th inning, which would have been right around 5:30.  It all fits perfectly.  This has to be the game.  It looks like a tough one for the Mariners too, as they blew a two-run lead in the ninth before losing in the tenth.

Usually I would've been home watching the Mariners, but on that night, I had better things to do -- by which I mean, I went to a junior high dance with a girl who actually seemed to like me (a rarity in those days), and then I chickened out when it came time for a good night kiss, and then I never saw her again.  But hey, we will always have Moctezuma's and Vanessa Williams.



Until next time ...

Entry 244: Feeling Down

I'll be honest.  I'm feeling a bit down heading into this weekend.  Typical life stuff.  It doesn't always go the way you want it to, now does it?  Something is up with Lil' S -- just a phase hopefully -- but he's been Little Mr. Crankshaft the past few weeks.  He might have a lingering bug or something.  He's been getting a temperature seemingly out of the blue at night, and then it's gone in the morning.  Then it will come back at night three days later.  It's weird; I'm not sure what's going on.  Whatever the case, his tantrums have been off the hook.  If the smallest thing doesn't go his way -- like, you peel the paper off his crayon all the way when he only wanted it half-way -- he starts bawling and goes into conniptions.  And he's gotten super clingy with S, so the only way she can get a break is to leave the house or hide (and even hiding doesn't always work -- he's perceptive now about that type of thing, "Amma! *cry, cry, cry* Amma downstairs! *cry, cry, cry* Amma downstairs!").  As you might imagine this is really wearing her out, and when she gets worn out, I get worn out by proxy.  Also, he constantly wants the iPad ("Bubble Gu-p-p-ies *cry, cry, cry* G-e-orge *cry, cry, cry*) or a pacifier, and we've been trying very hard to limit his exposure to both of these things.  The iPad is meant to be a once-in-a-while treat, and pacifiers are now only for bed time.  Partly this is because these things aren't good for him in large doses, but also it's because I want him to get used to hearing "no" sometimes.  I don't want him to expect to get everything he wants the moment he wants it.  This is good parenting, right?  Eh ... who the hell knows?  Everybody just makes it up as they go.

He's actually been sleeping more consistently lately, which is nice -- to put it very mildly.  S and I have been, well, not well-rested, but not abjectly sleep-deprived.  It helps a ton.  Dealing with a perpetually cranky kid is like being trapped in a house by a crazy woman.  Not getting any sleep while dealing with a perpetually cranky kid is like having this crazy woman hit you in the knees with a sledgehammer.  It makes everything way, way, way worse... And I have no idea why I decided to reference a good-but-not-great 25-year old horror movie here.  I just did for some reason.

The consolation line for people when they're singing the blues is often "well, at least you've got your health".  But even that isn't true for me at the moment.  It's my back.  It's just nagging me.  It's not a serious injury -- at least it doesn't fell like one.  I can still do all the physical activities I want to do -- jogging, weight lifting, yoga -- no problem.  But then I'll randomly twist the right-wrong way and pain will shoot through the right side of my lower back.  I keep waiting for it to go away, but it's just not.

So I broke down and saw a specialist, and he sent me to get an MRI, which I did today, and then I have a followup with a different type of specialist on Wednesday.  We shall see.  The MRI was a pain, and I mean that literally.  It hurts to lie in a hard plastic box for thirty minutes without moving.  You realize about eight minutes into it that some part of your body is in a slightly awkward position, and then eight minutes later that awkwardness becomes severe discomfort, and then eight minutes later that severe discomfort becomes full-fledged pain, and you spend the last few minutes in utter agony.  It's tortuous -- almost literally.  You're crammed into a box in an uncomfortable position.  If there was no medical reason for it, it would actually be considered torture.  One thing that would be nice is if there was a "shot clock" on the inside of the machine you could watch.  Knowing how much time I have left to suffer really helps.  (Unless it's like that Homer Simpson clip where he's getting pummeled in a boxing match by Drederick Tatum, and looks up and sees six seconds have ticked off.)

One good thing about this MRI: It didn't take all that long.  Well, it did, but it was my fault.  I forgot the scrip from the specialist who ordered the MRI, and they couldn't do the procedure without it because it contains specific instructions.  (It was definitely my fault, but the office assistant at the specialist's who set up my appointment could have done me a solid by underscoring how important it was.  She just stuck it in with a slew of other documents, many of which aren't important.)  So I had to drive home and pick it up and drive back.  This bumped me down in the queue a bit, but to the clinic's credit, they handled it pretty well, and got me in without too much wait time.  The man running the desk was competent and helpful, which made me happy.  It's amazing how much more smoothly things can operate when that's the case.  It's also amazing how conditioned we are to deal with incompetent, unhelpful people in positions like this.  Why is that?  Are there just not enough competent people in the U.S.?  Or do many people in these types of positions just quit trying at some point?  I'm not sure.

It's a good thing there wasn't a long wait because, well, because waiting sucks, but also because the place was packed and the only chair was in front of a bench that an old man was sitting on with his legs spread, so I had to sit in direct proximity to his crotch.  And then they didn't get very good cell service, so I had to settle for an old Sports Illustrated (although reading the "Five Reasons the Broncos Will Win the Super Bowl" was rather amusing) and the local news on the waiting room TV for entertainment.  At one point a story came on about a black man who was asphyxiated by NYPD, and they showed some cellphone footage of him being put in a very excessive-looking choke-hold by an officer.  All the people waiting tsk-tsked and shook their heads.  I looked around and realized I was the only white person in the office (I was also the only person under the age of 55 for some reason), and I briefly contemplated standing up and pronouncing, "Hey, everybody, I think that's just as fucked up as you do!"  But I didn't because that would have been really, really weird.

The other big story was about a supposed trend in which teenagers light themselves on fire and then post it on social media.  If this is true it's absolutely insane, but I suspect it's not true -- meaning it's not actually a trend, but rather something a few stupid kids did (as everybody knows, there is no paucity of stupid people doing stupid things on the Internet), and then this news station thought it was just the right mix of intrigue and terror for fearful parents, so it might grab some eyeballs.  Well, it didn't work because after continually teasing it, they had technical difficulties, and their prepared bit wouldn't play.  So instead a caught-off-guard anchor had to ad lib for a few minutes about something he clearly didn't know anything about, "See ... uh ... what they're doing ... uh ... is they're ... uh ... lighting themselves on ... uh ... fire ... and then ... uh ... Facebook ... uh ... yeah ... uh ..."

Well, that's about it.  Until next time ...

[Update: I finished putting Lil' S to bed, and he was really good all night.  Maybe the phase is starting to pass.]

Entry 243: Cat's Away, Mouse Will Sleep ... and Play, but Sleep First

S took the little man to Atlanta to visit her family at her sister's place.  I gave them a ride to the airport at 5 a.m. yesterday morning, and then I came home and went back to sleep.  I was working from home, so I figured I'd just get a few more hours in before I started my day.  I didn't set an alarm figuring I'd wake up around 8 -- 9 at the latest.  I woke up at 11.  I couldn't believe it.  I hadn't slept in that late since ... I dunno, grad school?  Things have been especially rough on us sleep-wise the past few weeks, so this was like I'd financed a luxury vacation on my credit card and paid off the debt in one huge payment.  It felt go-o-d.  It meant I had to work later than usual, but that's not a trade I mind making -- not at all.

 [In honor of my wife and kid going to Atlanta, here's 1980s Braves pitcher Zane Smith.]

At night, I had plans to meet my friend RB, whom I see fairly regularly, and our friend A, whom I almost never see.  A is an interesting cat.  She's a corporate attorney who has a very "DC" lifestyle.  She lives and works in Dupont Circle (the heart of the city); she has a really expensive apartment with a rooftop pool; she's a total workaholic; she's single; she's queer (her term); she's witty; and she's the slightest bit neurotic.  That's a stereotypical thirty-something DC-ite if there ever was one.  She's also really fun to hang out with.  I met her randomly at a bar like five years ago when I made an obscure Simpsons reference to the bartender that she overheard and understood (unlike the bartender).  We got to talking, and soon she became part of "Sea-Fence" -- a motley crew of personalities assembled for the purposes of drinking beer, eating mediocre pub food, playing trivia, and watching sports, usually at Ventnor's Sports Cafe.  It was a fun time in my life, and I'd be lying if I said that sometimes when my son is screaming "daddy! daddy! poo-poo!" at 5:30 in the morning, I don't pine for those days just a little bit.

Anyway, the plan was to meet at a new German-style beer garden for happy hour.  I was a bit apprehensive when I saw it just opened two days ago for fear that it would be packed, but I decided to let it play out.  Sure enough by the time I got there there was a line for entrance going around the block.  I take a principled stance against standing in line to get into a bar, so I texted RB who was already inside, and started to walk up the street half-looking for a different place, half-heading home.  I ran into my friend T and her new boyfriend, and then I realized that there were actually a lot of people in on this happy hour.  RB made it sound like it was just going to be she, A, and I.  RB is a great friend, but making plans with her can be trying because you never feel like things are set, and you have all the information.  She's the queen of the one-line email or text, and she always seems to leave things somewhat opened-ended.  This happy hour is a great example.  She "invited" A and I by sending an email with the subject line "Happy hour here tomorrow if you're interested", and then the body was a link to the bar's webpage.  That's it.  No further explanation.  She didn't even say she was going (granted, it's implied).  If it was me it would have said something like, "I'm going to happy hour here tomorrow at 5 with some folks.  You guys should join me."  Two sentences, 15 seconds worth or typing, and it conveys all the necessary information.

I was glad to run into T and her boyfriend because we could all go some place else together and tell everybody else to meet us there.  So we went to this place called Glen's which is one of those hipster-y market bars where you can buy groceries, but they also have a beer and wine bar and some seating  (like Chuck's Hop Shop in Seattle).  I like the vibe in places like this, and you can usually get good beer, but they are often confusing and inefficient when it comes to what to order where.  Instead of having bartenders and bar tabs they have cashiers that ring people up for individual beers, and then if you want a sandwich or something you have to go a whole different part of the store.  Everything takes about 50% longer than it should.  In theory Glen's is a good idea, but in practice it needs some work.

[And 1980s Falcons running back Gerald Riggs]

But at least it was a fixed location where everybody could congregate.  Plus the slow service made it harder to over-drink.  I have a habit of drinking beverages, alcoholic or otherwise, very quickly, so if I'm not careful, I'll tie one on without even realizing it.  Our friend J's band had a show last night, so the happy hour was basically pre-funk for it.  I didn't really want to go.  I like J and his music and all that, but I wanted to talk to people, and shows aren't social events -- you just stand there looking at the back of your friends' heads and every now and then somebody shouts something into your ear that you can't hear, so you nod your head and say, "yeah".  Nights out are few and far between for me, and I happened to be out on a gorgeous one, so I wanted to sit outside at an overpriced bar in trendy neighborhood and have a peeve and a blather with some mates.  Plus the show was in Virginia; as a rule of thumb, I don't hang out there.

So A and I wanted to keep it local, but we needed to get RB in on it too because it doesn't work well with two; you need that third person as the conversation buffer.  We convinced her to come with us to a different bar for one drink and go to the show later, but then one drink turns into three and the show will be over by the time she gets there, so she might as well stay here and have a fourth round with us and enjoy -- which was probably the plan all along.

[And we can't leave out 1980s Hawks little man Spud Webb]

It was good night, but a late one.  Whenever your companions for the night declare that they can't stay out all night, and you follow it up with a "yeah, I shouldn't either", you can pretty much guarantee you'll be shutting down the bar -- which we did.  After we left, I started walking the three miles back to my place with the idea that I could take the bus once I got far enough away from the circle (the bus is usually so full at that time of the night that it doesn't stop until it gets into the more residential area; there are few things worse than waiting for a bus for twenty minutes at 2 a.m. only to have it drive right by you).  But no buses came until I was just a few blocks from my house, so I just walked the entire way.  Actually, walking back half-drunk is a good thing because its exercise you don't even remember.  You just set out and then all the sudden you're home and you burned 350 calories in the process.  Plus, I was listening to Harland Williams on a podcast, and he's such a nut that he was cracking me up the whole way.

I weirdly stayed up for a little while and stretched and read when I got home, even though I was really tired.  I have no idea when I actually went to sleep, but I woke up long before 11.

Until next time...

Entry 242: Tiring Times, But At Least I'm Not Under Arrest

These are tiring times in the G & G household.  Transitioning Lil' S from his crib into his toddler bed has been more difficult than anticipated.  He's consistently doing one of two things and sometimes both: (1) waking up a half dozen times throughout the night, usually with a major meltdown around 3:30 in the morning, (2) "only" waking up once or twice during the night, but waking up for good at 5:30 a.m., even though he's still tired and cranky.  We can't seem to get him on a schedule where he sleeps through the night and gets up at a reasonable hour. It's especially frustrating because he was actually sleeping pretty well in his crib, and if it was up to us, he'd still be in it for a few more months.  We didn't decide to move him from his crib; he learned how to climb out.  Our collective hand was forced.  Now we have to struggle through a period in which he's still a bit too young to handle free range nights, but short of cosleeping with him (no) or moving him back to the crib and lining it with barbed wired, it's really our only option.

This is yet another example of how having a child who develops physically faster than average is a mixed blessing.  It's cool to see your kid be able to do things other kids his age can't -- like, say, get to the top of a big toy meant for five-year olds-- but it sucks to deal with the ramifications on a daily basis.  I try to console myself with the fact that it's just temporary, one day he will learn to sleep through the night like a normal human.  But then of course I also have to concede that his fast start is just as temporary, other kids are going to catch up.  The people who are the most physically gifted as kids are never the best athletes as adults -- except for Tiger Woods ... and Lebron James ... and Wayne Gretzky ... and Ken Griffey Jr. ... and ... okay, sometimes they are, but often they're not. (Enjoy the pics.)

On the topic of parenting, one thing I can take solace in is that I have yet to be arrested for being a negligent parent.  This seems to be happening a lot for very innocuous "offenses".  And by a lot, I mean I've recently come across two stories in which it happened.  Here's one and here's the other.

In the first one, the author left her four-year old in the car while she went in to an electronics store to (quickly) purchase a pair of headphones.  She was in a hurry to catch a flight and the headphones were to placate her son on the flight.  I definitely don't think this woman should have been arrested, but I do think it was the wrong decision.  And I'm not completely on board with all her justifications.  For one thing, how bad would it really have been to bring the kid inside.  Even if he throws a fit, it would have been a very temporary annoyance at worst.  Plus, she says he had an iPad, take it and tell him he has to come inside the store to use it.

For another thing -- and this is the bigger thing -- the basic crux of her defense is that what she did wasn't really unsafe, if you actually look at the evidence.  This is true, but it is also very specious.  Yes, it's extremely improbable that anything bad will happen if you leave your four-year old son in a car by himself.  But it's extremely improbable that anything bad will happen to him doing just about any "risky" behavior; this doesn't mean it's okay to engage in them.  For example, if you left your sleeping baby boy alone in a crib at night and then went clubbing out on the town and came back hours later, chances are nothing "bad" would happen to him.  Even if he woke up, he'd probably just cry himself back to sleep, which is often what happens when parents are there anyway (it's called sleep training).  But I think just about everybody would agree that that is unacceptable parenting.  Just because an individual act has a low probability of going badly, it doesn't make it okay to do it.  It also matters how "necessary" that act is (however you want to define necessary), and whether or not that act is part of a bigger network of risky behaviors in which no individual strand has a high probability of going badly, but taken as a whole they constitute something that does.  

Also, although I agree with the general sentiment that we have little reason to live in constant fear for our children's safety, and our society can be completely irrational about what constitutes risky behavior, the "our parents let us do a bunch of way worse thing" and "it's safer today than it was back then" arguments are not particularly convincing.  After all, it could be that the increase in safety is precisely because parents are more protective now.  Nobody argues that seat belts and airbags should be taken out of cars because the rate of serious injury from car crashes has dropped dramatically since 1975.

Lastly, the author fails to underscore what I believe are the two biggest concerns with leaving an unattended four-year old in a car while you shop: 1) the kid could take his seat belt off and do something like take the e-break off* or get out of the car and wander around the parking lot, 2) it freaks people out!  Calling the cops on this woman is very harsh, but it's somewhat understandable.  The "good samaritan" in this story doesn't know the woman or her intention or how long she's going to be gone.  If you see a kid alone in a car who shouldn't be, what are you supposed to do?  Kids do get abandoned in vehicles for long periods of time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes accidentally, and just because it's rare, does that mean you should always assume it's not happening if you see something fishy?  Now, the better course of action for the samaritan probably would have been to talk to the woman (Although what do you say -- "excuse ma'am I couldn't help but notice you might be a bad mother"?) or to wait and see if she's coming back out right away (probably what I would've done), but turning it over to the authorities isn't ­that unreasonable -- is it?

With all that said, I don't want it seem like I'm coming down too hard on this woman because the fact she faced criminal charges for this and that the possibility of her losing her son was even somewhere on the peripherals of the conversation is absolutely outrageous.  A warning from the police, something along the lines of, "Hey, people take it seriously if they see a toddler alone in a car, so don't do it anymore", would have been perfectly sufficient, I'm sure.    

Anyway ...

The second story is of a woman who let her nine-year old play in the park unsupervised while she worked at a nearby McDonald's.  And if all the facts are reported accurately, then this case, unlike the first one, is unmitigated horseshit.  Since when it is wrong to let a nine-year old play in a park unattended?  I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure my parents let me do things like that at that age without supervision -- especially in a public area where I could go "check in" with them periodically.

Also, who sees a nine-year old playing unattended at a playground and calls the police?  (This is so different to me than a four-year old left alone in a car.)  I feel like I see this all the time.  Just a few weeks ago I was at a picnic/birthday party at a park and some little kid about nine came cruising up on his bike and just started chatting with one of the kids at the party.**  It never crossed my mind that the kid had been abandoned, and I should call the police.  I did wonder if his parents were keeping an eye on him, but that was not because he was potentially in danger; it was because he was potentially crashing the party.  (We were joking about how at parties in public parks, you always see a few kids in the mix and think, "Wait a second where did they come from?  Are they with us?  What's going on here?)  That would be my main concern as a parent, not "Is my son safe?", but "Is he bothering those people?".

There is also a racial/class element to this story that I won't go into because I don't have time and because the author of the story to which I linked pretty much nails it.  I don't really have anything to add other than to say it's fucked up, and I'm probably going to contribute some money to her defense.

Okay, that's all.  Until next time ...

*I did this once in my driveway as a kid, and my mom was just standing outside next to the car with the door open.  It started to roll down the driveway, but my mom was able to open the door and hop in and apply the brake before we got too far.

**He was trying to get the kid to get on his bike pegs and ride with him.  The kid declined, which was good, I would have had to intervene otherwise.

Entry 241: An Irritating Wall of Granola and Other Pics

You know how when you're married to somebody, no matter how much you love them, little things they do really get under your skin and annoy you far beyond what they should?  Well, I'm going to share one these things with you in my marriage.  I only feel comfortable doing this because S and I have such a strong relationship that a silly blog post could never do it any harm.  Also, I know that she almost never reads this thing.

The annoyance is this: S cannot be trusted to get the right thing from the grocery store.  Like many couples, we split the food shopping more or less evenly.  Sometimes she goes; sometimes I go.  The one who doesn't go will give the other one a list, and it's expected that the shopper will get everything on the list as specified.  Of course there are exceptions (the store is out of an item, Lil' S started having a melt down in the store, etc.), but in general this is how it's supposed to go.  But for some reason, a non-trivial percentage of the time S does the shopping, she will come back with at least one wrong item.  For instance, the other week I asked for unsalted, roasted cashews, and she brought back unsalted, raw cashews.  It's not like this is a huge deal -- it's not even worth getting "mad" about it -- but there is a substantial difference in the taste of the two varieties.  Also, I texted my list -- the specifications were very clear and simple -- and raw and roasted cashews are right next to each other in the store.  That's kicker.  It's not like there was anything in it for her to get the wrong cashews.  She just wasn't careful.  And this, I believe, gets to the heart of the issue.  I've been in the grocery store with S before and seen her operate -- it's all about speed, not enough about accuracy.  As I've mentioned before (see the paragraph immediately preceding the picture of bananas), her food forethought isn't always on point, and in her haste she gets the wrong thing.  She likes to make fun of me for doing things (like shopping) so slowly, but I like to make sure I get what we want and don't have to come back again.

The most annoying instance of this happened recently when I asked S to get me a bag Michele's cherry chocolate granola.  I've developed something of a dependency on it; I eat a bowl every evening with yogurt.  So the other night I pour myself a bowl and start eating it when I notice the cherries taste funny ... they taste kinda like ... dear lord, no ... are these ... oh-no ... raisins!  It's not cherry chocolate granola at all!  It's cinnamon raisin!  Such a let down.  And it was made even worse the next day when I went to the store to rectify this tragedy and saw this scene.

That is a wall of Michele's granola.  There's what, a hundred bags there?  Not a single one of chocolate cherry.  And they have another display stand right by the yogurt with about 50 more bags on it, and there were none on it either.  WTF?  Well, don't cry for me too hard.  I begrudgingly tried a new kind, lemon pistachio, and although it hurts my point, I must admit, I found it quite scrumptious.

Anyway, since I already started down the annoying picture road, I figured I'd throw up a couple others.

This is at the entrance of Lil' S's daycare which is in a church.  Tell me, does this sign make it any clearer which bell you should use?  Which one is the church bell?  Is it the one with the label, or is the label telling you not to use that one, like when a door says "use other entrance"?  I honestly don't know, so when I need to ring, I just press them both.  Of course, this whole thing could be avoided if the sign said "use this bell" or "use other bell".  The fact that one of the bells is the church bell really isn't relevant to a guest anyway.

I bought some hand weights the other day and they had these stickers wrapped around them.  I figured they would peel right off, but they don't.  I scraped for 15 minutes and didn't even get it all.  Why are they so difficult to get off?  What marketing genius decided, "Hey you know what would be great on our product?  A sticker that will gradually flake off and become sticky and gross over time, but that our customers won't want to remove immediately because it's incredibly annoying."

Speaking of bad products: Here's the attachment guardrail we bought for Lil' S's crib to convert it into a bed.  It sticks up about an inch above the mattress and only extends to cover half of it -- totally worth $50.  Not! (By the way notice the half torn sticker in the top-center of the pic.  What is with putting a sticker on everything that doesn't easily come off?  Are customers demanding this?)

And just so that they're not all complaints, above is a picture on an anoa I saw at the zoo -- not the actual animal itself but the word ANOA.  It's a word I had previously only ever seen in Scrabble and crossword puzzles, so I took this picture as evidence that it is, in fact, used outside of word games.

Along those same lines, a restaurant I went to the other night was serving Belgian Ghentse waterzooi -- a creamy stew.  In Stephan Fatsis's book Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble (highly recommended, by the way), the author talks about a miracle Scrabble play in which somebody played WATERZOOI with the W and the I already on the board.  Turns out waterzooi, like anoa, is a really thing, not just a crazy word that only exists in word games.  Although, I'm not sure if you could get a crossword puzzle with WATERZOOI in it accepted in a major publication.  Maybe I'll try it someday.  But it'll have to wait -- I have to make one with ZUGZWANG in it first.

Until next time ... 

Entry 240: I Might Have to Outfit My Son with Carabiners

It's all over now.  Lil' S can climb out of his crib.  He's not even two, and he can go right over the top.  So goes our last line of defense against bedtime tantrums.  Now we are not sure what to do.  We are thinking about just taking a side off, so that it's just a normal bed, but he still rolls around a lot at night, and S is worried he's going to roll off and hurt himself.  Also, I don't like the idea of him being able to wander around his room at night.  It's pretty well babyproofed, but short of removing every piece of furniture and padding the walls like an insane asylum, there's still going to something he can (and will) get into that he shouldn't.  He'll climb his dresser or the window sill, or he'll mess with the space heater or the blinds.  He doesn't have enough sense yet to stay away from things that could hurt him, and he's still a bit too young to understand "no" -- punishing him is starting to work a little bit, but it still has a very limited effect.  So I'm thinking we leave the crib intact for now.  It will be, at the very least, a deterrent for getting out of his crib ... hopefully.

[Conquered]

My sister and brother-in-law, K & F, came to visit for a few days, which was excellent.  They have two kids B & G, whom Lil' S loves to follow around.  We just hung around the neighborhood, which was nice.  Downtown DC gets ca-ray-zee on the 4th and unless you enjoy spending the day being stampeded by droves of drunk, sweaty, red-white-and-blue-clad patriots, you should it avoid it altogether.  I used to go to the National Mall for the fireworks back in my carefree, singles days (it's a fun stampede, at least), but I couldn't image doing it now with a 22-month old.  We actually didn't even see any fireworks.  S applied to get tickets to watch from the rooftop of her office, but she lost the lottery.  It's just as well -- all the kids (and most the adults) were asleep before the big show even started.

We had a cookout here, at our place, which was actually a "cook-in", because we don't own a grill.  That's on me.  I've been meaning to buy one since we moved in two and a half years ago.  I've just been putting it off because I don't know what to buy, and I've been too lazy to do the research on it.  It's a lame excuse, I know.  I should just go to Ace Hardware and buy something.  If it's not the world's greatest grill, who cares; I'm not the world's greatest griller.  But anyway, we don't have one now, so we had to cook everything in the oven, which is fine, it still tastes good, but it's much less satisfying -- less American.

[I snagged this off a Facebook friend's page.  The caption was "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter".]

Our big outing on the 4th was taking the wee ones to the playground.  It's one of those playgrounds that's divided into two -- one for the little kids and one for the big kids.  Lil' S is actually too young for the little kid section -- the posted age range is 2-5 -- but I've seen even littler kids there, and it's perfectly fine.  He definitely shouldn't be in the big kid section, but his cousins were there (they're 8 and 6), so of course he wanted to be there too, so I let him run around.  The problem isn't that he can't climb any of the big-kid toys.  It's that he can climb them, and then he gets stuck and I have to get him, or he doesn't get stuck but I think he's going to get stuck and it makes me nervous.

There is one toy in particular, it's like a 20-foot high turret, and to get up to the very top, you have to go up a ladder that's like a set of monkey bars turned perpendicular to the ground.  It's about five or six rungs high.  He climbed it!  I couldn't believe it.  I was pretty proud, I must admit, but I also felt very uneasy about the whole thing.  It's all enclosed up top, so it's pretty safe, but he started dangling his legs between the safety bars, which even though he couldn't fit through them, just looks bad.  We got him to go down the slide (which are enclosed like water park slides and my sister was on the other end to catch him), which I could tell was kinda scary for him, but he popped right up and ran back for another round.  I let him go one more time, and then that was it.  I was starting to get self-conscious about being judged by the other parents.  If he somehow got hurt, I could imagine them all later saying, "Well, he was too young; he shouldn't have been there in the first place!"  Plus, it really is for bigger kids.  If there is a helicopter dad hovering around to make sure his way underage son doesn't slip through the gaps, it kinda ruins the experience for the other children.  I'd probably raise an eyebrow at me if I was one of the other parents there.  It should be noted, however, that the big toy was basically empty when we were doing this.

[In honor of the 4th]

My worry now is that the next time we go back to that playground, Lil' S is going to just want to go to the big kid section the entire time, and then I'm going to be one of those d-bag parents explaining to all the other parents that my child is "bored" with the all the age appropriate toys, and that he needs to "properly challenged".

In other news of the past few days, my nephew B has an iPhone that doesn't have phone service, but can still send texts to other iPhones.  So we were goofing off and text each other silly messages while he was here.  And then a few hours after they left this afternoon, I get a message from him "What r u doing?" followed 10 seconds later by "Hello?" and then "Helllllllllo?", and that's when I thought--oh, right, giving a 8-year old my phone number might not be the greatest idea in the world.  But I don't really mind.  It's cute.  (He's asked me a few times if he's "interrupting" me, which I found really sweet.)  I just have to be careful what I say.  I wouldn't say anything inappropriate, but I like to joke with him, and jokes don't translate well via texts to adults, let alone to prepubescent kids.  I'll just have to be sure to be nice and use lots of LOLs when I make jokes.

Alright that'll do 'er this week.  Until next time ...

Entry 239: Cable Freedom and Password Woes

Something strange happened upon our return from vacation: Our DirecTV no longer worked.  It just wasn't getting a signal anymore.  I was unable to fix it (by which I mean unplugging it and plugging it back in didn't work), so I had a technician come out to diagnosis the situation.  He went to the satellite, pointed a receptor to the sky, and then we had the following conversation.

Him: It's that tree.  It's blocking the signal.
Me: Really?  That tree has been here since we started our service two years ago.
Him: Maybe it grew.
Me: Nothing noticeable ... I mean, it could have filled out, I suppose.
Him: Trees grow more leaves in the spring.
Me: [?] ... Uh ... Yeah ... I know ... But we had reception last spring, and we've had it up until now.
Him: I dunno, man.  It's the tree.
Me: Okay, can we point the satellite a different way?
Him: No.
Me: Okay, so what can we do?
Him: You can cut down down the tree.
Me: I don't want to cut down the tree.  Is there anything else?
Him: No.
Me: So ... should I cancel my service?
Him: Yes.

[This is not the tree that is blocking my satellite dish.  In fact, it's pretty meager, which is understandable being that it's Old Tjikko, the oldest tree in the world.  It sprouted up nearly 10,000 years ago!  It was the first tree God created, and He gave it all the markings to make it look like it was already 4,000 years old.]   

And that was that.  Obviously he doesn't work on commission.  I'm not 100% sure the problem really was the tree, and the rep I talked to when I canceled really pushed for a second opinion and a free "satellite dish relocation test" (obviously he does work on commission), but honestly I feel like DirecTV is a ripoff and was looking for motivation to cancel anyway.

Cable TV in general is a very consumer-unfriendly model in that you have to buy hundreds of channels you don't want for the five you do want.  And with DirecTV the only thing I wanted was to watch the Seahawks, and because the NFL relishes bleeding their fans for every last nickel, they only offer their NFL Sunday Ticket through DirecTV, and of course DirecTV only offers Sunday Ticket if you buy an entire package.  So basically I was paying $110 a month to watch 16 games -- and even that isn't quite right because some of the games are nationally televised and aren't available on Sunday Ticket.  If you do the math, I was basically paying $130 a game to watch the Seahawks.  Like I said -- rip off.  I mean, for that price I could go to all the games!*

So no more cable, and that's not a bad thing.  We will manage somehow, someway.  (In fact, the most annoying thing is that we now have a giant DirecTV satellite dish in our backyard that we aren't using.  They don't collect them.  Once you get one, it's yours for good.  Gee, thanks.  A nice little f-you by DirecTV on your way out the door.)  I'm looking into getting a decent digital antenna; S has all her shows on Hulu; and we have Netflix and iTunes for most everything else.  Plus if we really want to watch something not available through these channels we'll just get creative.  For instance, I've been streaming the World Cup games through Univision and through a friend's cable account (thanks M!).  Then I've already arranged with a friend who has DirecTV to pay for his upgrade to Sunday Ticket in exchange for his online log-in info for this upcoming football season.  This will still cost me about $20 a game to watch the Seahawks, but so be it.  That's not unreasonable for access to the Super Bowl champs (hell, yeah!).

See, I'm not one of those people who believes everything should be free just because we have the Internet now.  I think you should pay for what you use.**  So if there is a legit way to get something, I will.  The exception is when I feel like I'm being ripped off, or a provider is exploiting the market unfairly or something like that.  In those cases, I look for "creative" ways to bypass the unfair system and still get what I want.  This does occasionally put me into murky moral grounds -- like is it okay to watch an illegal stream of Game of Thrones because it's the only thing I want to see on HBO (thankfully, this one resolved itself, when that show become utterly unwatchable for me) -- but generally I don't have any compunction about it.  In fact, I think everybody should do it because then companies will have to change their models in ways that are more friendly to the consumer (like a la carte service).  This might already be happening.  My perception is that more and more people are getting rid of cable, so perhaps cable TV will be like land lines in 20 years.  Or perhaps not -- nobody really knows anything when it comes to the landscape of technological commercialism in the future.

Speaking of technology and not knowing anything, I had one of those "forgot my password" moments the other day, where I had to do the retreaded dance of trying to guess my user ID and password before being "locked out".  That never goes well.  I have about five standard user IDs and about five standard passwords, so with only three guesses, chances are I'm not hitting the combination (12% if you're wondering).

To make matters worse, I couldn't answer my security question, which isn't surprising because they rarely give you the option of a good security question.  This time it was "What is your favorite sports team?", which perfectly illustrates what I'm talking about.  The answer, I assumed, was "Seahawks" or "Mariners", but neither of them worked -- because maybe it's "Seattle Seahawks" or "Seattle Mariners" or "The Seattle Seahawks" or "The Seattle Mariners".  Who knows?  It's so frustrating.  They need to come with security questions that for the vast majority of people could only have ONE possible answer.  What were the last four digits of your phone number as a kid?  What's your mom's maiden name?  At what age did you first have sexual intercourse (note: blowjobs don't count)?  Stuff like that.  Sometimes you get questions like this, but most the time it's ambiguous crap: Who was your most influential teacher?  What was your favorite pet as a kid?  What word or phrase do you most associate with the art of Gustav Klimt?

And, as my "favorite team" example above illustrates, even when you get something that has a pretty straightforward answer, it's still a bad question if there are different ways to express the answer.  For instance, one time, when trying to log into my bank, I got a security question, "What was the name of the first school you attended?"  And I put "Narrows View" -- where I went to kindergarten -- but it was wrong.  Then I tried my preschool which was also wrong, so then I tried where I went to first grade -- again wrong.  Then I got locked out.  I had to physically go into a branch and show my ID before they would let me reset my password, and in doing so, I saw the original answer to my security question: "Narrows View Elementary".  Doh!

Now, of course, I could write this all down, but if I had the wherewithal to write it all down, I would've just written down my user ID and password in the first place, so I wouldn't need the security questions.  Security questions are supposed to be backup for precisely the situation when you don't write things down.  Also, isn't it weird that we now have so many security measures that we have to write down all our secret information somewhere?  (If you can remember all your user IDs and passwords for all your accounts, you are a better person than me ... and Eric Schmidt of Google who said during an interview that he kept all his secret info on a piece of notebook paper hidden in his house).  It's kinda strange and counter-intuitive.  And it's a situation where the old-school method of pen and paper is safer than storing everything on your computer because somebody is much more likely to steal (or hack) your computer than they are to steal a piece of paper from your house they don't know exists.  Actually, what I do is I keep them on my computer, but I use a code that only I know.  I mean, if you can crack "yahoo, usual no.1", you can go ahead and rent a movie on my iTunes account.

Well, I think that'll do 'er.  Until next time ...

*Actually I couldn't because I don't live near Seattle.  Also the not-so-secret secret about football is that it's actually more enjoyable to watch on TV than to go to the games.  But you get my point. 

**My preferred model is the This American Life podcast model, where they give you the show for free, but ask for a donation from time to time.  I always give money to shows I listen to that do this.  I also like the Savage Love model, where you can have a limited product for free, but you have to pay for the "deluxe" version (which I usually do).  And if you have a big enough audience, you can also get by just by selling ads or by charging a very reasonable amount -- like Louis CK who put his comedy special online for $5 or Radiohead who charged whatever you wanted to pay for their album In Rainbows.