Posts from — October 2009

Earlier this week I reluctantly went to the camera fix ‘em up store to drop my Precious off to be repaired, since repeated bangings on the table did not seem to be working.  I was reluctant not so much because of having to leave the camera there (because it is all kinds of broke, so it’s not like I was using it) (although dropping it off DOES suck) (especially when it is going to take them two weeks just to assess what’s wrong before they even start to repair it)(and then repairs can take up to 5-8 weeks)(which GAH I can’t even think about)(I’m not sure I can stop typing in parentheses now) but because the guy who owns the store is one curmudgeonly old sumbitch.  I have been by there before with smaller issues and have left feeling not so much like I’ve had a conversation as much as had a Very Stern Reprimanding for asking simple questions about, you know, CAMERAS. But he is close to my house, and having a broken camera was making me start to feel like I was missing an eyebrow or earlobes, or something like that. Not really crucial to functionality, but you know, NOTICEABLE.  The kicker for using him was that he offered me a loaner camera while he had mine in the shop, which was really enticing, since one of my kids was starting to take her first steps and was about to have her first birthday party. Which I might want documentation of.  Maybe you didn’t know, BUT -  I like to document things.

I spent some time steeling myself up for what was surely to be a challenging exchange of information, and by “steeling myself up”, I mean baraging L with a whole lot of reasons why that guy was not going to make me feel like a jackass this time, most of which included head waving and finger snapping and started with “and Ima tell you what ELSE…” I found this helpful. Not sure if L would agree.  So, appropriately moxied, I drove over to the store, hitched up the waistband of my pants and strode through the door.

Aaaaaand…..the anti-climax to that is that he had just undergone gallbladder surgery the week before, and maybe I wasn’t in med school long enough to learn about this, but I think the gallbladder may be where all the Curmudgeonly Toxins are stored because he was as meek and mild mannered as a grandma as he located a replacement camera for me, chatting like a normal even-tempered non-asshole person would.  Hopefully, since I still have my gallbladder, all my extra unused Moxie went there and is awaiting my next confrontational moment.  However, on the customer side of the counter sat a large older man dressed in a flannel shirt and trucker hat, obviously friends with the owner and familiar with his usual stool at the….camera repair shop (?). He gave me a nice long disturbing once over and then attempted to chat me up while the owner went to get a memory card for my loaner. When the owner returned with the card he slipped it in the camera to check to see if there were any pictures left on it, and Camera Shop Counter Creep chuckled and leaned over to me conspiratorially and said, “He’s deletin’ all the Gay Pride pictures offa there. Heh heh.”  Which I guess he thought was funny? Because it’s hilarious to infer that someone might have pictures of a joyful and celebratory occasion on their camera?

It turns out my gallbladder is working just fine, because I looked at him as innocent and doe eyed as a lamb and said, “Oh, so that camera is YOURS? Happy Pride Weekend!”  And then me, my camera and my rainbow colored memory stick walked out the front door.

Noah, Patron Saint of Freakishly Abnormal Behavior: A Play in Two Acts

“Are you done with your lunch?”

“Um…actually, can I have some more carrots?”

“…..”

“Can I?”

“Yes! Good Lord.  Sorry.  YES.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Oh, anytime.  Any old time.”

(later)

“I’m done Mom.”

“Ok, make sure you take your - oh.  You’re already cleaning up.”

“Hey Mom can we play a game?”

“Yeah, sure buddy, but I need to put Rosie down for her nap first, so it’s going to be a few minutes.”

“Ok.  I’ll go read the Bible until you’re done.  Ok, Mom?”*

“Um. Ok. You…do that.”

“Night night Rosie!  Sweet dreams!  I love you!”

(fin)

*I SWEAR TO YOU ON ALL FIVE JUMBO BAGS OF HALLOWEEN CANDY IN MY PANTRY THAT HE SAID THOSE EXACT WORDS.

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Live Action Action

Though I clearly had forgotten to take my Creative or Interesting Pills this day, Noah was agreeable to my True Hollywood Story moment and indulged my random line of questioning in the following video.  Note how even when police cars with flashing lights are racing down my small residential street behind me I keep my subject on subject Geraldo Rivera style, unwavered by residential tomfoolery.  Because I am a hardcore journalist! Who always gets her story!

Inside the Four Year Old’s Studio from racher on Vimeo.

No, For Real Dudes, I Heart My Mom

Last year when Noah was bequeathed a bike (fo free - Holla!), he was fairly dismayed to discover it had no bell like his trusty tricycle.  Oh HO, I said.  We shall remedy that!  And continued on not only to find him a bell but to find him the best bell ever.

Who’s the coolest kid on the block?  The one with the “I love my mom” bell! Am I right? HIGH FIVE!  When he upgrades to four wheels and a motor, we’ll get the bumper sticker!

Future therapy sessions aside, he truly loved the bell. Mostly, I suspect, because I did.  And so lo, last week when the skies did but pour in Atlanta for a fortnight and the humidity did increaseth, the sticker fell right off one day, mid-ride.  Devastated, Noah retraced his tracks, but to no avail.  Head hung low and spirits lower, he returned home with L, stickerless.  In an attempt to cheer him up, L vaguely suggested that maybe he could make one to replace it, and HOO BOY did he perk right up.  The solution was found!

And so I say to you, if you see a small boy riding his tiny dirt bike down the sidewalks of a friendly neighborhood with paper and tape atop his handlebar bell, know this: though the days of broadcasting it to the world may be drawing to a close, for now he’s not ashamed to tell you in plain black crayon: he loves his mama.

After my last post I decided that I needed to get a plan of action to help me get out of my doldrumarific state.  This plan included a lot of Getting A Grip and Sucking It Up.  Also employed: Trolling the Nets.  I turned to that great haven of treasure, Craigslist, and almost immediately stumbled upon a fairly legitimate looking listing for a used Macbook.  After a few emails back and forth, in which I 1.) haggled 2.) begged and 3.) attempted to barter with baked goods, a deal was struck, and it was confirmed that I was indeed less than 24 hours away from having a computer of my very own for the first time in my life. L picked it up downtown the next day and sent me the best text I’ve received in a month of Sundays: “I got you a computer.”

And so!  Here I sit typing on my gently-used Macbook!  Look at me go!  TYPETYPETYPETYPETYPE. (Caps lock key was the first thing I inspected upon purchase.) Huzzah for Grip Getting and It Up Sucking!

I have downloaded a few pictures that I took after my computer died but before my camera died, so here, in grand dump truck fashion, I will post some of them in disjointed manner.

Hurricane Rosie (who is spending more time upright these days) is frequently too quick to be caught on film, but the aftermath tells the story:

However, she will be still enough to watch with adoration her v. fave person in the whole world:

As, sometimes, will I:

With the arrival of colder weather comes new, massively large, holy-cow-how-am-I-buying-clothes-this-size-for-someone-I-birthed pajamas:

I’m not one to point fingers, but let’s just say there is a reason that the floor looks this way and it has a whole lot to do with the middle and top corner of the right side of this picture.

We likes us some books ’round these parts:

And while my camera is away, I can always use my handy new webcam to show you important things like the result of the occasion of getting my hairs did while under the influence:

Ok! Now that we’re up to speed, it’s time to get back to normal. PREPARE YOURSELVES.

This post would have been published earlier, but I have spent the whole of my free time today tinkering with my camera and making a few sailors blush.  In all the melee about the laptop dying I may have forgotten to mention that I dropped my camera a few weeks ago, catching it  ninja-style between my knees and shattering the LCD screen.  Which was not a huge deal, the camera still worked.  Until it didn’t.  Now when I turn it on, it turns itself right back off.  I have changed all the batteries, checked the new LCD screen connection, cried, removed the batteries and cleaned the connections, and now am obsessively searching Google hoping in desperation to find a site that will say with authority that the solution to my problem is just to go on and give it a good whack on the table.

Because seriously.  Seriously?  I barely finish chiseling the R.I.P on my computer’s gravestone when the only piece of technology that I religiously carry with me bites it too?  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Universe.  I started out dealing with this situation in a very Beatlesque, We Can Work It Out kind of manner, and now I am just pissed off.  Like too pissed off to even think of some hyperbolic way to say pissed off like I normally would.

Being pissed off about this makes me the Great Potentate of First World Whining, but frankly, facing each day without the tools that I have been using for the past two years to help me find sanity and community and fulfillment in this life of non-adult interaction has been tough for me.  It has become clear to me over the last year or so that I am on a journey to find the next thing on the horizon outside of child-raising, and in the baby-filled interim this chronicling of life has been a bridge to whatever it is that waits for me out there.  But the bridge is growing less structurally sound by the day, and I feel like I am standing on the banks watching it crumble.

WOE. LE SIGH.  AND OTHER MELODRAMATIC STATEMENTS. I am writing through my frustration.  And now you have been brought along for the ride. If you have a personal rant of your own, I would be more than willing to relieve you of it in the comments section.  If not, please enjoy this photo (taken a while ago, since MY CAMERA IS CURRENTLY BROKEN) which just so happens to punctuate this post quite nicely.