So... long time, no write

I'm thinking I should start writing a bit more. Now that I'm past the highly-uncomfortable-pregnancy bit, finished with bedrest and baby boy's stint in the NICU. And since I don't have a job anymore - I was "let go" at one month postpartum, called in for a meeting to be told this since I hadn't been to work in many weeks due to bedrest, delivery, etc. I have a lot of bitterness and anger and frustration about the poor way it was all handled, but I'm trying not to stew over it since it gives me heartburn and headaches.

But now I have this adorable baby boy, and I'm thinking I should write more, about him and his two fabulous siblings, and maybe that can help me work through what I'll do next, besides being a wife and mother (which is a lot of wonderful work, but the financial benefits are even worse than adjuncting). I'm thinking that making writing a regular routine for me would be good mental exercise, keeping the mind sharp in between episodes of Team Umizoomi and The Deadliest Catch (favorites of my children and husband, respectively). So I'm going to set up a schedule and some expectations for myself, to get in the habit.

Noggin's great conspiracy

The folks at Noggin have developed a grand conspiracy to drive me insane. If I see the insipid, saccharine previews for The Fresh Beat Band, f/k/a The Jumparounds, one more time, I may lose it. The lame lyrics and bubble gum pop tunes are already affixed into my brain, stuck there like old gum on the under side of a desk. And to think, I've read rumors online that Noggin cut the fabulous Jack's Big Music Show in favor of this drivel.

Did Dave Ramsey watch a lot of Dragnet?

Envelope budgeting, made famous by Dave Ramsey, makes a cameo in a 1968 episode of Dragnet. Hubs and I have been watching Dragnet and Emergency! episodes on RetroTV lately and I starting laughing when I saw the envelope scene between Friday and Gannon early in this episode.

Late night ramblings

It's late. I'm awake, can't sleep. I've been watching tv but got tired of it - I can only watch for so long before my eyes get all funky and dried out. My sweet Big Girl has kindly shared her germs, and my throat's bugging me. Plus my ears itch, deep inside my ears close to my throat - do you ever get that? Drives me nuts.

It rained a lot today. So the kids spent too much time indoors, cooped up, slightly hyper. Hopefully I can take them out for some fresh air tomorrow.

I'm loving PaperbackSwap again - I have several books to mail off in the morning, and then soon I'll get the credits to request more books to read. Not sure what I'll request next - so many books, it's hard to decide. I have an extensive list, which keeps growing longer and longer, of books I want to read over at goodreads. And, well, honestly I have plenty of books I could read here in my house - but that won't stop me from requesting more to add to my to-read collection. I've been indulging in a lot of fantasy, sci-fi-type stuff lately, which is fun and engaging without being too demanding (in the way that I can't help myself when I read works by authors I studied seriously in grad school), and I've been working through a few behavioral-type books dealing with kids and relationships, too. Any books I shouldn't miss? Let me know in the comments.

I watched Hanging Up earlier today - I DVRed it when it was on a few days back - and was reminded, through the relationship between Meg Ryan's character and her father, played by Walter Matthau (love him), that you can't make people be who you want or need them to be. No matter how desperately you wish a relationship or a person were something better, or more meaningful, or supportive, whatever, you cannot force other people to be who you want them to be, or who you think they should be. I know this is true, of course, but sometimes it's still incredibly frustrating. The movie's cheesy. Decent casting, but a somewhat frivolous plot that was resolved a little too neatly, and yet it still made me tear up. I'm an easy crier. Anyway, I've been reminding myself frequently of late, in the middle of frustrations, that I can only control myself. It's hard for me to make peace with that concept.

I love Boston Legal

and hate that ABC canceled it. Just a thought.

to quote James Spader.

Watch out for pumas!

Today the kids and I visited at my parents' house after Big Girl got out of preschool. Two had been there for a few hours during the morning while I worked in my office. Apparently he went shopping with my mom at Tuesday Morning (love that store), where he put on a performance as "charming grandson" for some of her friends who were also there shopping. For his efforts, he won a toy, but he doesn't get it until Christmas - fortunately he was distracted by the time they got back to the house and didn't ask about it.

So while the kids and my mom read books in the living room and watched us out the big front picture window, my dad and I put out lights on the bushes in the front yard. The kids kept knocking on the window and yelling at us, but I couldn't really understand what they were saying. Big Girl came to the front door and opened it and stood there trying to interrupt my conversation with my dad, and - annoying mother that I am - I told her to close the door and not interrupt.

When we finally came inside, the kids raced up to us, and Two grabbed my leg and kept saying "pumas bite!" repeatedly. Big Girl was chattering about pumas too. My mother explained: they wanted to warn us to watch out for pumas hiding in the grass. Because, you know, there might be a puma hiding there (in the front yard of a house, in the middle of town, in Georgia during December) and it might go for our legs. It would be a shame to be surprised and suffer a puma bite, particularly this close to Christmas.

I know two highly imaginative kids who love to watch Go, Diego, Go!

image from National Geographic

Spectacled Bears and the Amazon, and more!

This morning the kids and I watched an episode of Go, Diego, Go! that focused on spectacled bears, and the kids thought the bears were pretty neat. So I found this BBC video on youtube that includes footage of some real spectacled bears. Two stood next to me watching it with great interest. Then he ran off and started harassing Big Girl, but his intellectual curiousity was great while it lasted...

Other sites with information on spectacled bears:

• National Geographic
  
• San Diego Zoo
  
• Wikipedia
  
• Smithsonian National Zoological Park
  
• "A Spectacular Spectacled Bear Story" (WWF)
  
• Spectacled Bear coloring page and species profile from Rainforest Alliance

Chuck alert - watch for the actor playing Barry Rommel on Monday night!

My college classmate Zach Hanks will be on Chuck on Monday night, playing "Barry Rommel." Check him out! I'm a big Chuck fan, so you know I won't miss it!

Boo, NBC! Booooo!

No Chuck tonight, as Natalie points out in response to my previous post. I have to wait for next week. And how does that make me feel?


more animals

Big TV night for me!

This fall I've become a more ardent fan of Chuck. I liked it last year, but now? I think it's even better. So don't call me between 8 and 9. (That means you, dad. You always call when I'm in the middle of doing something else.) I'll put the kids to bed before then, and feed the dogs in advance too. I'll be watching television.

New post over at Blissfully Domestic

My latest post at Blissfully Domestic is Spies I Love: Television's "Chuck" is both classic spy and spoof - check it out!

Nicely done!

Ben Affleck did a great Keith Olbermann on SNL...



SNL is getting better. I thought it was dead, but the presidential election seems to have given it a breath of fresh air.

My tv-watching secret

With my crazy schedule and the two demanding people who need to be fed, dressed, undressed, bathed, and otherwise loved, I rarely get time to watch most of my favorite shows when they're broadcast. So I love the DVR, but then, I get into fights over the limited storage space with Hubs, who also loves the DVR for its ability to allow him to watch his shows that I can't stand. And so, for those shows that are also available in full online, I have found a fabulous secret. I watch them on my laptop with headphones, when the kids are busy doing other things and sometimes even when Hubs is watching some lame show on the tv in the very same room.

This allows me to watch Bones without fear of my children being scarred by seeing body parts or seeing other images that might give them nightmares (not that Bones is always like that). I also use it to watch other comedies and dramas toward which Hubs has an annoyingly dismissive attitude: Chuck, Eli Stone, Boston Legal, and Dirty Sexy Money. If only Law and Order: Criminal Intent were online in full, I'd be set. Well, no, not really set. Because there are still lots of other shows I love to watch. Yes, I love television.

The Documentary Channel

In one of our regular afternoons of nerdy indulgence, Hubs and I watched a documentary on (ha, ha) The Documentary Channel this afternoon: Sweet Misery - "The artificial sweetener, aspartame, is the bedrock of the diet industry. Found in everything from fizzy drinks to vitamin pills and marketed under a variety of different names, it is difficult to detect and even harder to avoid. But how safe is it' Does it really cause brain tumours, blindness and other serious illnesses' This shocking documentary investigates how the FDA came to approve such a potentially dangerous product."

Hubs has been cautioning me about artificial sweeteners since we started dating. I've gone through periods where I've listened to him, and other periods where I've tuned him out. But this film was quite compelling, and I dumped out the last of my 2-liter of Diet Coke by the end. Diet Coke isn't as good as classic Coke, anyway - and I know my dentist thinks I need to cut back on soda, given the little cavities I've been getting right at the top of my teeth along the gums. I'm very interested to see how I feel after a few days or weeks without Diet Coke and with as little possible of products containing artificial sweeteners. I try not to use too many products with aspartame anyway, but I think the film raised some serious questions about the long-term (and short-term) health implications of aspartame ingestion.

So, this is just another in a long line of developments and revelations regarding food that lead me to think we'd be better off cooking everything from scratch using natural ingredients. I need to investigate options for organic groceries in this area. Finding variety in organics will be tough, but I think I need to try. If we had the room/time/money/land, I'd definitely be more adventurous about growing my own food...

You know you've watched too much Diego when...

any mention of the economic bailout package as a measure to "rescue" the economy brings this to mind:

And now for something completely different...

Hubs has certain movies that he just loves to watch, again and again and again and again. Last night it was late, and we were tired, but he saw that The Right Stuff was on. So he fell asleep watching it. Tonight, he came out to the den and turned on the television - I'm on the laptop and wasn't watching tv - so that I could see Die Hard. And then he promptly left the den and went back to the bedroom, where he is watching Die Hard too. Die Hard, The Right Stuff, Patton. He has certain movies that inspire this strange reaction, this weird obsession. I don't get it. At all. And he's in denial, I think, about my failure to adopt his obsessions. Hmph. Time to turn off the den tv and go to bed, where I'll still be able to fall asleep to Die Hard. Is this normal man behavior, or is he just special? ;)

p.s. Die Hard does have many redeeming features - I don't dislike it. After all, Alan Rickman's in it, and it's a fun movie and all. I just find Hubs' quirks rather, well, quirky.

New show looks promising

I watched the first episode of Raising the Bar this evening, and I think it looks promising, if it can avoid being too formulaic. I was a little surprised at the ease with which I accepted Mark-Paul Gosselaar in a serious role, but, indeed, he did a good job at selling his character. His hair is somewhat distracting. I'm also interested to see what Jane Kaczmarek, who plays a strong-willed, somewhat biased judge, and Gloria Reuben, who plays the boss of Gosselaar's public defender character Jerry Kellerman, do with their characters. I think both have potential, and I hope that the writing and plot will allow Gloria Reuben to do some really good acting. Kaczmarek's judge seems a little flat so far, but hopefully subsequent shows will give her greater depth and dimension. If you're interested, you can read more about the show at CNN.

This looks promising

Name Musings...

Hubs and I were discussing my cousin, whose wife is pregnant, and as so often happens, the topic wandered toward names. Hubs is mildly obsessed with naming a child after Phil Ken Sebben. Yes, I'm serious. He used to discuss name a child Thurston, after Thurston Howell, III. He's an interesting fellow, my husband. No matter how frequently I've told him that I'm not sold on these unusually-inspired names, he persists. For a man who loses his keys so often, he has a particularly dogged memory about some things.

Hubs is infatuated

with the Documentary Channel. Last night we watched a documentary on ABBA, which included this gem (reminder: I'm recovering from surgery and taking some *nice* pain killers, which made this even sweeter):

Watch for the part where they do tiger motions - straight outta high school chorus!