Cold Spaghetti

There’s been a lot of moaning over here lately regarding my first born.  It’s been well-deserved moaning.  Over more than excessive amounts of whining.  More than general not-listening.  More than forgetting to be nice.  More than things that make my head actually lift off of my shoulders.  The sort of stuff that makes me pause and look around for the hidden camera, because it’s way more than conniption causing… it makes me sound like my Mother.*

Then yesterday evening, the Universe smiled down upon me and granted me the greatest wish, one that every parent longs to receive.  The one where we learn that other children are possessed by the same demons as your own.

A saw a friend whose child also attends an immersion school and she lamented on how hard the first few months were… how tired and cranky and difficult and unpleasant her child was for those first few months… AND HOW THE SCHOOL TOLD THEM THAT WOULD HAPPEN.  Yes, I understand it must have been an unpleasant back-to-school note: “Dear Parents, be warned that your child’s behavior over the next few months will turn you into an alcoholic.  In November, we will start an evening AA group with free babysitting to help you get past this hurdle and safely into the rest of the school year.”  Still, it’s a note that would have helped us tremendously as I contemplated how old a kid has to be before Boarding School.  At least I know now and can relish in the relief that my kid is not in need of exorcism, he is simply adjusting to a big transition.  For the record: acting the angel all day long, collecting girlfriends left and right covering 3 grade levels, and excelling everywhere — while coming home to pick fights, whine, refuse food, throw tantrums, miss bedtime, and insult family… THIS is what ‘adjusting to a big transition’ looks like.

Now that Will has set the bar, I have a much clearer picture about what I am going to do when I hit menopause.

*Incidentally, when I share these episodes with my Mom, she finds them HILARIOUS.  As in, snorting milk through her nose, a total riot.  Which I will remember when I pick her nursing home.  (Hi Mom!  I love you!)

Youtube is eating my videos and randomly re-categorizing ones as private, so we’re moving on to try Vimeo.

Here is my brother, strummin’ away, while the kids try to destroy listen — compliments of Vimeo.

Uncle Skip Plays for the Kids from Cold Spaghetti on Vimeo.

We have lights in our bathroom!

Behold.  A chandelier.  In the bathroom.  On a dimmer switch that turns the lights low, WAAAAY LOW.  Honestly, it’s so romantic and beautiful that I’m afraid to share it.  Really, I am.  You walk in, the light goes dim, and you’re filled with the urge to strip down and dip sloooowly into that waaaarrrrrm waaaterrr…

It could make dinner parties a bit more intimate than we’d intended.

Luckily, we have kids.  They are REALLY GOOD at spoiling the mood.  It’s one of the things they do best.

Yes, yes, I know that there is nothing on the walls.  Good heavens, people.  We just got lights!  There are no doors!  There aren’t baseboards in half of the room and the shower is in pieces!  Stuff isn’t scheduled to go on the walls for at least 2 or 3 more years.

While I picked up the kids tonight, Paul took the progress one step further and installed the base boards around the vanity.  The pictures don’t do it justice.  It is starting to look like an actual bathroom.  (Please ignore the shower, the trauma of which we are still in the therapeutic stages of recovery and not yet ready to face with a solution.)

We knew we wanted a chandelier in the room from the beginning.  I searched some of the local salvage places a few times, but nothing particularly interesting turned up.  The idea was to find something unique, with classic details, New Orleans charm, and not at all what you’d find at Home Depot.  I found this particular model on Big Time Clearance online — with a coordinating vanity light.  It was some fancy-shmancy designer that makes no difference in quality and was about 80% percent off.  We agreed that the pictures were risky, but intriguing and we for it, picking up the set for a song.

Except for the mirror.  That’s just a place holder.  The actual mirror should arrive later this week — it’s a hugely discounted return on a slightly damaged product.  (We get our best stuff that way.)

Here’s the shocker: the accessorizing doesn’t stop there!  Today, we went to The Bank (local architectural salvage) and ordered DOORS.  Next week, we’ll be able to install doors on this bathroom!  It will put a real damper on the conversations we’re able to have with company — that’s quality bonding time, sharing those moments — but it will make it so much easier to keep the kids out of the bathroom when those lights take over and we just can’t help ourselves…

Here’s a few mood-spoiling pictures of the kids in the tub.  Just like a cold shower.

(Paul took this one, cute eh?)

We saw WALL-E again over Thanksgiving and I was reminded at how much I like the Peter Gabriel song, “Down to the Earth.”

I don’t have an Ipod.  I don’t use iTunes (yes, I do have a Mac).  I have not bought any online music, ever, except for ordering CDs every once in awhile from Amazon or Basin Street.

So I wondered, if I just want the Peter Gabriel song that I like, how can I get this song?  Where can I listen to it?  Can I listen to it on my interview recorder (which will play MP3s)?  If I buy a used Ipod, will it play there, too?  What if I upgrade the Ipod?  And what happens when I get a laptop — I’m not going to use only my desktop forever?

Paul started trying to explain the facts… which are basically that you never own an MP3, the player you use could be obsolete tomorrow, and compatibility is something you determine through fine print.  I’m not really into buying things I don’t need and not at all into re-buying anything ever.  The whole thing just got me more and more confused.  Then Paul remembered an xkcd cartoon that he said, explained it all very clearly.

Okay.  NOW I understand.

What I wonder now is how people use their Ipods, and what experiences with incompatibility have they had?  Do you have advice or stories on how you enjoy music, where you store it, how much you spend, etc. etc?  Me, the music Luddite, wants to know.

And just ’cause I like it, you can hear it here…

(Writ in the style of “The Piggy in the Puddle” — my favorite children’s story to read out loud.)

See the Mommy.
See her study.
See the Mommy in the middle of her silly little study.
See her cruddy, see her bloody
in the fuddy, duddy, study.
See her muddy, down and ruddy, in the silly little study.

See the Daddy,
chummy-tummy, chummy-tummy, chummy-tummy.
“Don’t you get all crummy, dummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!
You are much to smart and sassy to be in the down and ruddies.
Research is oofy, research is poofy, research is oh-so oofy-poofy!
What you need is lots of HOPE.
But the Mommy answered, “oofy-poofy, oofy-poofy, NOPE!”

See her Babies.
Cutey-tooty, cutey-tooty, cutey-tooty.
“Just stop that writing – lighting, nighting, fighting, miting, citing!
You are much too Mommy Dearest not to be so often near us.
Research is willy, research is nilly, research is oh-so willy-nilly.
What you need is lots of HOPE.”
But the Mommy answered, “willy-nilly, willy-nilly, NOPE.”

Now they all stood by her research,
Right beside the murky research.
And they looked into the ‘search,
What a messy, murky, murch!

There was Mommy, cruddy and bloody,
getting beat up by her study.
She was reading, she was writing,
she was drinking to be wired.
She was listening, she was talking,
she was very very tired.

Said the Daddy,
Mummy-Mommy, you have made me very proud.

Said the Babies,
Mommy-Mummy, you are a sun behind a cloud.

Said the Mommy,
I thank you, but for this I am avowed.

See the Mommy and her study
with her family in a huddy.
They are loving, they are listening,
to the very daunting study.

Said the Mommy,
“Oofy-poofy, willy-nilly, oofy-poofy…
Indeed,” said tired Mommy,
“I think we lack in hope.”

But Daddy and the Babies answered,
“Oofy-poofy — NOPE!”

This post is a Monday Mission, to write a post in the style of a children’s story, as inspired by The Painted Maypole.

I’ve been feeling uninspired lately and needed to remind myself of a few things.

Everyday I blogged for the 30 day month of November.

I like that I was forced to think of something to write each day.

It did take me away from my research in the sense that it was time not committed to translating or considering codes.  But it made me think about writing, and the things I like to write about.  Even if I didn’t get a chance to finish what I wanted to say — more than a few days I just filled what I could.

After reading Alejna’s post about the event, I am realizing that there is a lot more I could have done and gotten out of the experience.  I didn’t log-on to the website at all, didn’t participate.  Maybe I should do it again and see what happens?  Or maybe my family will commit me?

UPDATE: I’m doin’ it for December.  What the hell?

Motorcycles and mototaxis, Iquitos, Peru.  Taken late afternoon in the main square.

Both taken by the 10D with 1/20 shutter speed at f/4.  I wanted to get a slight blur with the taxis in the background, but didn’t have a tripod to risk slower than 1/20 and/or higher than f/4.

PhotoHunt

“I want to write books and make them all myself.  That’s what I want to do when I grow up.”

So announces Will toward the end of the trip back from Mobile.  He makes the declaration while producing the Ipod touch, where he has been typing for a solid hour… or so it seems.  It did not read like Hamlet, but I’m willing to bet that three monkeys with typewriters could have re-produced it.

“That’s great, Will” we said.  Paul added that I could help him write and make illustrations, that I was in to that sort of thing.

“Yes, Will,” I added, “I’ve kind of been writing a book online for the past 4 years… on The Blog.”

“I’ve been writing a long time, too, Mommy.  Since we left Granna and PapPap’s house… a REALLY long time.”

—

When we got home, Will asked to start his book.  This is what he wrote and drew.

Not to be left out of the fun, Kate made a picture, too:

We head home tomorrow, after the two days of monsoon rains have moved on.  Will is complaining of sore throat and an ear that hurts when he swallows… we may not be done trading viruses quite yet.  Progress on all fronts continues to painfully crawl forward.

The outbuilding work will continue when we get back.  Here is a video of progress as of the 15th, with a good look at the back of the house, the old outbuilding face, and the huge pile of growing debris.

Be warned that I speak on this video.  I may even laugh.  I apologize and completely understand if the sound compels to you run screaming from the room.

The combined force of the holiday, the family, and the pending inevitability that Someone Else (aka: my parents) would show it to him first, we did it. We showed The Little Man Star Wars.

Parts were scary. Parts we had to explain. At one point, he asked to turn it off for a little while. It made me feel vindicated, in a way, to have to my point made about why we had wanted to wait in the first place. But at least now he knows, he’s been there, and we can move on. But there are some things that remain difficult to understand.

“Mommy, why did Darth Vader kill Obi Wan?”

“Well, they had a big disagreement and fought over it… but Obi Wan really didn’t die, he became one with the force… you know it’s all pretend anyway.”

“But why did they fight?”

“Sometimes that’s how people handle disagreements, in movies and in life.”

Quiet. Thinking. Squirming.

“You know that Mommy and Daddy believe that fighting is not the best way to solve problems.”

“Why?”

“Well, we just think that fighting hurts people and makes them want to fight back.”

“Then why do people fight?”

“Because… it’s what they know. It’s harder to think of other things to do when you’re upset. It’s easier to just fight.”

Pause.

(Tentative, in a whisper.) “Mommy, when you yell at me, it’s just like fighting.”

Quick, deep breath. Wipe away sudden tears.

“You’re right Will, it is. Let’s work together so that I can learn a better way, too.”