In My Copious Free Time

The worst reason to blog

It's really pathetic when you decide to write a blog post only because what you wanted to share is too long for a Facebook status. But since I'm not above being pathetic, here we are.

A few things about Alex:

1. He's been picking up Starbucks lingo but isn't sure how to use it. Tonight he requested a 19-shot lemon pound cake.
2. When I pulled in the driveway and grumbled that that I had a lot of things to carry into the house, he picked up his little bag of the aforementioned pound cake and said, "Don't worry, I'll carry my cake!" Gee, thanks. ;)
3. We had a lovely evening playing Mario Kart (ending in a rare tie!) and watching 2 episodes of Jeopardy, his new favorite thing. 
4. He decided he wanted to make a "TB" (he says that means "temporary bed") on the couch and asked if I'd leave the TV on the 80's Music Choice channel. <3
5. His first few days of school have gone very well. He called to report he had a good day today, except for one bad thing. When I asked what that was, he said, "Well, let me just tell you the good things first." The kid understands positioning. (And it turns out the bad thing was the dreaded fire drill.)

 

The payoff of housework

I've been cleaning house all morning - lovely way to spend a Saturday, right? I was just straightening up Alex's work table, sorting through school papers to keep and toss and deciding which drawings to save. Lately Alex has been writing more, jotting down short thoughts on a page and then drawing all around them. I just found this one (all spelling and punctuation is his:

If i had war to peace i would end the war in IRAQ and go up to hevan. Then i would save some other people who were sick. And get along with everybody. And make every planet have life.

How did I get so lucky to have such a sweet child?

Weekend bits

I spent most of the week in Virginia at a 3-day event for a client. The client site is in a fairly rural area, so we typically stay at a Marriott Courtyard that's about 30 minutes away. That means that on a good morning, we have to be up pretty darned early to get ready, drive there (well, take a cab), make sure we're all set up and greet people as they arrive. In this case, on the first morning I needed to be up by 5:30 for a 7:00 departure from the hotel. So I set the alarm on my iPhone and went to sleep.

The next thing I was aware of was my iPhone - it was making a sound, and as I dragged myself into consciousness, my first coherent thought was "that's not my alarm tone." No, it wasn't. It was a phone call from a colleague saying it was 7:00. The bad news is that I had overslept by 90 minutes. It turns out I'd neglected to switch the AM/PM setting on the alarm. Textbook. The "good" news was that our cab was going to be 30 minutes late due to icy weather in the area. You know those scenes in cartoons where the Tazmanian Devil whirls around in a blur to get from one place to another? Add wet hair and lip gloss, and that was me.

So that was a good scare and really jolted me out of bed. You'd think that would be the end of its impact, but you'd be wrong. That evening I set my alarm and went to bed, only to wake up approximately 87 times, each time with that special brand of "omigodwhattimeisitdidioversleep?" Although my alarm was set for 5:45, when I woke up again at 5:15, I finally gave in. Rinse and repeat for the next night.

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I arrived home late on Friday night, so Alex was already asleep. The next morning while we were talking he asked me if I'd had any dreams the night before. I didn't remember. Alex said he wasn't sure what he dreamed. Then he paused thoughtfully and added, "I was probably just dreaming about you coming home."

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Alex is quite the amateur astronomer. He can draw most of the constellations by heart. He knows dozens (perhaps over 100) galaxies and other space objects by sight and, in most cases, can give their name, their catalog number (either the Messier number or the New General Catalog- NGC- number). On the trip home I read about a new planet discovery and was sure to share the news with him on Saturday. In the story I showed him, there was also an image of a galaxy. He said "That's NGC-253." I looked at the caption and it said "Sculptor Galaxy" so I asked him, "Are you sure, sweetie? This says it's Sculptor." He looked at me with pity and said, "Yes Mommy, that's the same thing. NGC-253 is Sculptor." Okay then.

On Sunday he pulled up a page of galaxy images and asked me to draw some of them. I decided to test him, so I began pulling up images in ways that he couldn't see the captions. Of about 40 we looked at, he knew about 90%. And when I say he knew them, I mean he not only knew the name, he knew the catalog number and in the majority of cases, in which constellation the object can be found. In many cases, he could also tell me approximately how many light years from Earth the object is. Color me amazed.

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Alex ended up staying up late last night and saw the beginning of "The Office" after the Super Bowl. As Dwight created a fire drill with an actual fire, Alex began singing "Dwight started the fire!" Real Office fans will totally understand what this means. The kid apparently knows his Office history.

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the Joe Biden song

It's no secret that my son has a penchant for the music I like and often sings along with me to whatever is on the car stereo. What you may not know (because I've been a pathetic blogger of late) is that he's also a big fan of Barack Obama, and of Joe Biden by extension.

So a few days ago it wasn't necessarily surprising, but it was puzzling when he exclaimed, "Hey, that song is about Joe Biden!" as we drove home from Target. I was baffled...what was he hearing? Did they sing some political song in music at school?" (And what sort of song could that have been?) It's amazing the bewildered thoughts that can flash through your brain in an instant when you hear or see something that doesn't add up.

I aksed him what he was talking about and he said "Joe Biden! That song talks about Joe Biden!" I looked at the display and it said "T.I. Whatever You Like." Joe Biden? What on earth was he talking about?

And then it hit me.

If you listen starting at about 1:29 in and you'll hear exactly what Alex was referring to and the reason we now refer to this as the Joe Biden song. Alex gets the cutest grin every time he hears this now. :)

(And for the record, we listen to the clean version on XM. In this case, I think the clean version is superior to the original.)

Cousins

Haircut time

The iPod report card

Maybe it's the start of the school year (gee, need to blog about that), but during the past few days, Alex has been all about grading. Everything gets a grade, from the idea that he needs to brush his teeth ("I wish we had a grade Z so it could be the lowest grade.") to the die-cast airplane models he likes ("The Southwest brown livery 737-200 gets an A with 999 pluses.").

Tonight on the way to dinner I asked him if he liked a certain song (Duffy's "Warwick Avenue") and he replied that it was an F or maybe even a G. Grading songs intrigued me, so I started going through songs to see what made the grade and what didn't. Here's the top of the class, at least the portion of the class we flipped through before he was bored with the activity. ;)

A+

White & Nerdy – Weird Al Yankovic
Happy Working Song – Amy Adams (Enchanted soundtrack)
I Don’t Even Know Your Name – Alan Jackson
Wide Open Spaces – The Dixie Chicks
Fergalicious – Fergie
All Star – Smashmouth
4 Minutes – Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake

A
The Emperor’s New Clothes – Sinead O’Connor
Wind it Up – Gwen Stefani
Pork and Beans – Weezer
Jesse – Carly Simon
Mrs. Robinson – Simon & Garfunkel

B+
Don’t Mess With My Heart (clean version of Phunk) - Black Eyed Peas
Where’d You Go – Fort Minor
N Dey Say – Nelly
Diamonds Are Forever (the remix version that’s really about diamonds) – Kanye West
Gone – Kanye West (feat. Consequence and Camron)
Stay (I Missed You) – Lisa Loeb

B
Landslide – The Dixie Chicks
Grace Kelly – Mika

blogging the old-fashioned way

Hello everyone, it's me again.

Lest you all think I've forgotten how to type, I figured I'd blog the old-fashioned way for a change. Just  a quick update on what's going on as that's about all I have mental bandwidth for at this moment.

I had a terrific work experience in Trinidad and I'm almost done with a piece about being in the minority and how that impacted me. I did post some pictures from the trip on my Flickr account, though.

After four days away, I came home Sunday before last and Joe and Alex left the next day to go to Pennsylvania. Joe's father is very ill and since Joe is in the down period before starting his new job, there's really no sense in him not spending as much time with his parents as possible. He was planning to drive home today, but those plans needed to change, so now I'm planning on going to get Alex either this afternoon or tomorrow. I miss them both, but Alex is really ready to be home and needs to start getting settled in to a school-like routine. I'd just give anything if Joe weren't having to go through this, though.

On Sunday my friend Chris came over and made brunch (among his many talents, he's an excellent cook and went to culinary school) and we just chilled on the couch and watched Katt Williams.

It's hard to believe that Alex is starting school next week. I said something about being on maternity leave 7 years ago and still being mad that someone took my inbox while I was out. A co-worker chastised me saying it hadn't been 7 years and was floored to realize that Alex is in fact turning 7 in 6 weeks. SEVEN!!! In the SECOND GRADE!!!

This weekend I broke out the TED 2008 DVD set and watched a few of the talks. It's such a shame that many of them are so edited for online posting. Ben Zander's talk is fully twice as long on the DVD as it is on the TED site. I understand why they do it, but the editing means web viewers miss the "beyond the fuck it" story.

If you can't tell, I am really enjoying video blogging and I can't say enough about how wonderful everyone's feedback and support has been. I'm pretty floored by the response, to be honest. I never expected to be getting comments from mostly strangers, or to have people SUBSCRIBING to my channel! But then again, I never expected to vlog in the first place. My videos can be found on my channel at YouTube. Do drop by and say hello and join in the fun by giving vlogging a whirl!

And rather than telling you what I thought about Hillary Clinton's speech last night at the Democratic National Convention, I'll just embed last night's vlog. Which is a little about the speech and a little about the poem it made me think of. (If you read enough poetry, everything reminds you of a poem. That is a good thing.)

odds and ends

A few random things I've been meaning to post...

About 2 months ago, I was at Boston Market eating lunch alone during an afternoon of running errands. I heard a guy at the counter ask for popcorn chicken and that got my attention right away. "Popcorn chicken?" I thought, "What does he think this is, KFC?" The Boston Market Woman (we'll call her BMW) told him they don't serve popcorn chicken and I kid you not, his next words were "Is there a KFC around here?" I couldn't help but look through the windows at the long-closed, weed-surrounded KFC building across the street. BMW said she didn't know where a KFC was, so KFC Guy orders several things and then tries to figure out what he wants for himself. He settles on an entree and begins picking out sides. He points to a side dish and and asks what it is. "Macaroni and Asiago," is the answer.

"Asi what?"

"Asiago."

"Asiago? What's that? Australian cheese?

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I've noticed that sometimes random play on my ipod seems anything but.Okay, so it served up the only two Poison songs on the list right in a row. Big deal. "Alone" by Heart followed by "Heartbreaker" by Dionne Warwick? So what? But here are a couple of not-so-random consecutive songs that made wonder just what was going on in that little bit of gadgetry:

Jesse by Carly Simon followed by "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield
"Hey There, Delilah" by the Plain White T's followed by "Samson" by Regina Spektor

and my all time favorite...

The Bee Gees poignant question "How Deep is Your Love" seemed to be answered by Randy Travis's "[My Love is] Deeper Than the Holler."
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Good news - Joe finally got his security clearance so he can start his new job. 

Bad news - His start date is 22 September.

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Two weekends ago I was in Washington, DC for work. On Saturday morning Alex called me and we had this conversation:

Alex:  Mommy, I have good news and bad news.
Me:  Okay, what's the good news.

Alex: No, Mommy. Today we're starting with the bad news.

Turns out he had thrown up that morning. "My tummy didn't feel good so I went to the bathroom and after a minute I decided to throw up. I don't know why that happened. Has that ever happened to you?"

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Last night I was playing an online "The Office" trivia game with my sister. Each question is punctuated by audio of Dwight saying "Question." Each incorrect answer is greeted with Dwight's frantic"Noooooo!" While I was playing this on the couch, Alex was playing Wii. After about 10 minutes he turned to look at me and ask, "Mommy, what is that your watching? Is that the 'Leave Britney Alone' guy?"

(picture me falling off the couch laughing)

I continued playing and a few minutes later he turned to me again, looking skeptical and asked, "Are you sure it isn't 'Leave Britney Alone' guy???"

snippets from the day

I asked Alex what he was doing as he played Lego Star Wars (Wii) and he said, "Oh, I'm just adventuring right now."

This morning Alex came and got in our bed and we stayed there talking and snuggling together until almost noon. We had so much fun, giggling and playing. There was much talk about Alex's belief that he owns the middle, including speculation about where any future sibling would be allowed in the mix. Alex insisted he would remain in between Joe and me and any future baby could sleep on my other side (the outside). Trying to explain how Alex could share the middle, Joe held up four fingers of one hand, saying that the index finger was him, the middle finger was Alex, the ring finger was the baby and the pinkie was me. Alex protested, "But why does Mommy have to be so short???" Way to sidetrack the discussion, kiddo.

(No, I am not pregnant and not trying to get pregnant.)

After we finally got up I cleaned up and went out to meet some friends for makeovers at the MAC counter. Chris did terrific work as usual, doing my eyes up in a fabulous combination of Shroom, Aquadisiac and Plumage. I wouldn't have chosen these colors normally, but wow, were they ever gorgeous on.

Swatches from Temptalia, one of the most awesome of awesome beauty sites - her collection of product color images (swatches) is staggering, her reviews are always very informative and her makeup artistry is phenomenal. Plumage looks more dark navy/teal than purple in real life. I would swatch the actual colors on my hand, but it turned out that both Aquadisiac and Plumage were out of stock:

I noticed Eddie, one of the national makeup artists for Chanel, walk through the store and realized the Chanel counter was having an event, so I went over to say hi. Eddie has done my makeup a number of times and always does something really cool and inventive. Eddie loved what Chris had put on me, asking "Is there any color you can't wear?" Lately I'm realizing that I used to think I could only wear a few colors, but that is so wrong. I'm cool-to-neutral toned, so I can get away with a lot of warmer shades in addition to cools, and there isn't a color that I don't own and wear. It's all about finding the right shade and texture. I ought to post something girly and picture-laden about some of my recent makeup finds, but not tonight. :)

When I came home, Alex was playing Wii and we were all talking. Joe said something about Alex looking handsome and Alex agreed, saying he and Joe were both handsome. And I was the beautiful one. :)

A very grainy picture taken with my laptop camera - I love how he's reaching back to touch my face -- he is just the sweetest boy: