Memories... light the corners of my mind...

The classic rock station is doing "30 years in 30 days." They started in 1966 and will wrap up Thursday with 1995. I've been listening intermittently, and I've been pleasantly surprised at some of the songs I've heard. When you're stuck playing songs from just one year on a given day, you pretty much have to delve deeper than the top 40 and play some obscure tracks. It's pretty cool to hear any obscure tracks on FM radio these days.

Today was 1992. I heard Screaming Trees' "Dollar Bill," which reminded me that I'd seen them in concert (with Spin Doctors and Soul Asylum) back in 1993. I haven't heard that song probably since then. I also heard two songs from Peter Gabriel's "Us" album. I saw that tour (also in 1993). I'd forgotten how great that album was--I don't think I've listened to it since college. I distinctly remember memorizing MacBeth's "tomorrow" soliloquy with the help of that CD. Specifically, reciting the soliloquy over and over again while playing "Fourteen Black Paintings" on repeat. I can still remember every word to this day, and I always hear that song in the background when I say it.

Think back to when you were in high school or college. What were your favorite albums that you never listen to anymore?

10-second movie review

I am bawling my eyes out watching "Murderball." I fucking love these guys. Go rent it now. If this doesn't win the Oscar for Best Documentary, I'm going apeshit on every last voter.

Food, glorious food

I ate enough to choke a horse tonight.

I stayed at work later than usual, and by the time I got home, I didn't feel like making anything for myself. I just wanted warm comfort food. AB had already eaten, so I ordered up a cheesesteak and some cheesy garlic bread from a new place that delivers. Food came pretty quickly, and I dug in. It was SO GOOD. I am definitely ordering from there again. The funny thing was, even though AB had already eaten, he wanted my food, too.

"I have bite your sann-wich?"

He had many, many bites of my sann-wich. And a piece of cheesy garlic bread.

And right as I typed this, I realized I forgot to brush his teeth before bed. Lovely. That's going to be a helluva good morning kiss tomorrow.

I am such a geek

This comes as no shock to most of you.

The example of the hour: I am grinning from ear to ear because X2: X-Men United is on TV right now.

Urgent help for Annika

I often make assumptions about what I'll now call my core readers, those of you who didn't just wind up here by Googling "Maura Tierney pregnant" or "licky boom boom down."

One of those assumptions is that you all read Phantom Scribbler. And, given her hit counts, you might all read her blog. But, on the off-chance that some of you have not yet heard of Annika and her blogging mom, Moreena at Falling Down is Also a Gift, please read about the family's struggles with insurance -- or, rather, the insurance company's refusal to pay any more medical bills -- here and more recently here.

I first heard about what was going on through Phantom's site. Phantom has a good synopsis of what people can do and are doing to help. My plea: please go to the website set up for Annika by the folks at the Children's Organ Transplant Association, here. The site provides a link to donate money, and I have donated. And I will likely do so again. Please read the links at Moreena's and Phantom's blogs, and think about what's going on.

Silly guy

Had a great if unproductive (work-wise) day with Angry Boy today. Saw a matinee of Curious George. I knew he would love it, but I didn't realize how much I would enjoy it. AB laughed aloud a few times, and even parroted back a few lines in their entirety. And, as is his usual movie m.o., he sat in my lap the whole time. Whenever there were sweet scenes between Ted (formerly known as the Man in the Yellow Hat) and George, he turned to face me and patted my cheek or stroked my hair. So lovey, my little guy.

Afterward, we grabbed a hot dog (for him), bacon cheeseburger (for me) and fries (to share) at one of the best burger places in town. We ate a ton, but that's OK because we didn't have much lunch (lunch was chicken noodle soup, and apparently he doesn't quite have the spoon technique mastered enough to take on soup yet). And on the ride home, he sang along to Harry Nilsson's "Coconut" and 3DN's "Joy to the World." He changes the chorus for that one:

Joy to da world.
All da boys 'n' girls.
Joy to da fishes in da deep boo sea.
Joy to [AB] and Mommy! (cackling ensues)

The boy, he is funny.

Big shock

And also my favorite Coldplay song.

(As seen first at Pilgrim/Heretic's.)

Your #1 Match: INTJ

The Scientist You have a head for ideas - and you are good at improving systems. Logical and strategic, you prefer for everything in your life to be organized. You tend to be a bit skeptical. You're both critical of yourself and of others. Independent and stubborn, you tend to only befriend those who are a lot like you. You would make an excellent scientist, engineer, or programmer.

What's Your Personality Type?

Definitely not ready for this

Less than a year ago, I was still "Mama."

A few days ago, he started calling me "Mom." I won't have it, I tell ya, I just won't have it.

Peapod whines

Before I get started, I need to thank you all for your sympathies in your comments. I should also tell you that last night, Angry Boy and I went out to a restaurant with my mom for dinner, and AB was very sweet and very well-behaved. Except when he said, "I'm an elephant!" and proceeded to trumpet(or whatever you call that loud brrrrrrrrrrr noise elephants make) once loudly in the restaurant. But then we told him to be a baby elephant, and he did it in a whisper, not bothering any other diners. He was good tonight, too. Tomorrow we're planning to meet my stepmom for dinner (at OTB, finally), so hopefully he'll be on his best behavior then, too.

My first-ever Peapod order came tonight. I like the service in theory (grocery shopping in bed, food delivered to your door), but not so much in practice, for two reasons. One, I signed up for delivery between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. tonight. The van didn't pull up till 10:20. Two, the bags that the food came in were all slightly muddy on the bottom (dirty and wet truck floor, I guess), which meant that my newly cleaned kitchen floor also got dirty. So, after I put the groceries away, I had to clean the kitchen floor. At 10:30 at night. Not fun. I will probably order from Peapod again, but I don't think it will replace my normal habit of going to the store.

Happily, I finished up my work at 10:10, so I am off for the rest of the evening. I promised myself I'd go to bed before midnight tonight, and I can definitely do that.

From the people who brought you "Holy crap, I agree with Bob Barr"...

it's:

Holy crap, I agree with George Will.

Oh holy crap

Anyone want to take an Angry Boy off my hands? Seriously. Y'all were just remarking how cute he is. Go ahead and borrow him for a bit. I won't mind. Phantom, you've made mention of marrying him off to your sweet baby girl. Why wait? You can welcome your new son-in-law right away.

So... not a remarkably good Valentine's Day. He screeched and howled as I left him at school this morning. And, though he wasn't in a horrible mood when I picked him up, he was quick to fuss. Traffic was horrible (to give you an idea, it took me 12 minutes just to get out of the parking lot at his school), which wasn't helping matters. On the abnormally long ride home, we must've listened to, as he calls it, "Jeremiah Was a Frog" (translation: "Joy to the World") at least 10 times. What can I say? The kid likes Three Dog Night.

Anyway, he fussed about everything tonight. Didn't want dinner. Then he didn't want milk. Then he didn't want to read. Then he didn't want to watch TV, he wanted to read. Then he didn't want to read (again), he wanted to watch TV. Then he wanted to climb on my head and yank on my hair. I finally said enough, and put him to bed about half an hour earlier than normal. He cried for about 2 minutes, but I haven't heard a peep out of him since then. My verdict: I'm guessing that he didn't nap much today and the grumpiness stemmed from fatigue. At least, I'm hoping that's what it is and that after a good, long sleep, he'll be his cute & sweet self in the morning.

Got Westminster on again. Tonight's the good night (sorry, Halloweenlover) 'cause all the bigger dogs are on: sporting group, hound group and herding group. If you want to see the prettiest dog ever, check out the Belgian sheepdog in the herding group. Best. Dogs. Ever. (No offense to Small Dog, who is sleeping nestled beside me on the bed.)

Johari Window

Saw the Johari Window thingy over at Phantom's and thought it was so cool. So I started my own. It was hard to pick only 6 words that I think describe me best. I think there are 28 out of 55 words that I could've picked.

Flashlight dance party

Angry Boy and I got funky with the flashlights tonight. I turned out the lights in my bedroom and we waved our flashlights around. I made the "ooo, ooo" dance party noise. On his own, Angry Boy started singing, "Brass monkey! Dat funky monkey! Brass monkey junky. Dat funky monkey!" I love this kid. Can't wait till he's old enough to stay up and watch Westminster with me.

I just took the What Breed Are You? test, and it turns out I am a Siberian Husky. I always wanted one of those. I think they're gorgeous. Here's more:

"Hey there, lost your marbles? You're a space cadet! You forget people's names easily, forget where you put things, and sitting through an opera - well, forget it. But you're no bonehead - your mind just wanders. Your nature assures you'll never hold grudges and you don't sweat the small stuff. You avoid making enemies by not being one to sniff around someone else's business."

Pretty accurate, I'd say.

And to think I wanted to eat at On the Border this weekend...

Would have loved to have been in the court for this case.

"What is that, Super Absorbency?"

Wound up at the Forbes magazine website today doing some research. At the top of the website was a type of inspirational quote that I guess was part of an ad. I was rubbing my temples and squinting as the page came up, and I swear I read the following:


"Remember, you can't drain the ocean with a tampon."
-Ignas Bernstein

Upon further scrutiny:

Teaspoon. The word was teaspoon.

I nearly peed, I started laughing so hard.

TGIF.

Hey, you guys!

NSAH mentioned that my last blog post seemed sad. I don't think it was sad. I'm just busy, and the post was a reflection of that.

My only substantial whine of yesterday didn't make the blog: my "Best of the Electric Company" DVDs arrived in the mail yesterday (one of the aforementioned packages), and I thought it would be days before I'd have time to watch any of them.

Well, not so. Today after Angry Boy and I got home from daycare, we watched an episode, and then he wanted to watch another episode before bed! I had such fun watching it with him. It was over his head for a little bit, but by the end, he was saying the words along with the cast. OK, to be honest, a split second AFTER the cast. I mean, he's not reading yet. (Well, except he can read the word "DADDY" off of the paper that reads "DADDY LOVES [ANGRY BOY]" which is posted on the fridge.)

How can it only be Wednesday?

Another busy day at work, which is good for two reasons. Billable hours are good. Not being bored is good. But I wound up staying fairly late, and only got about 15 good minutes with Angry Boy before he went to bed.

Tonight, I need to:

• watch last night's 2 episodes of "Scrubs"


• take out the recycling


• put away AB's clothes


• open all the random packages on my doorstep


• draft a quick memo


• figure out what time I need to leave the house tomorrow to get to court on time


• figure out when I'm going to do the other work I need to do by the end of the week

I joined Netflix (again) about a week ago, thinking I'd have plenty of time to watch some movies in the next couple of weeks. What the hell was I thinking?

Sweet evening

Last weekend, NSAH, Angry Boy and I went to On The Border for lunch. The kids' menu had drawings of all kinds of exotic animals on it and was therefore perfect for Angry Boy. We took the menu with us when we left, because Angry Boy was still looking for all the different animals in the picture. ("'at's a iguana. 'at's a turtle. 'at's a pawwot.")

He loved that menu. He took it with him in my car. He took it with him to school. Then NSAH got tired of "reading" it to Angry Boy, and surreptitiously threw it away.

Today, when I pick up AB at school and put him in his seat, he starts saying, "I want my book? I want my book?" I know immediately which "book" he wants. He wants the damn menu. I try to appease him with another book that is on the floormat, a Winnie the Pooh Easter egg book (no, I don't clean out my car very often, why do you ask?). He only gets angrier. "No want dat! Want my book, want my book!" Knowing I can't appease him, I shut his door and go around to my seat. I figure I'll cheer him up with a little "Who Let the Dogs Out" on the iPod. But I'm too slow, and the first few mellow words of "Never Been to Spain" start playing. I quickly turn it to "Who Let the Dogs Out," hoping the cheerful, bouncy song will make him smile. He starts wailing. I ask him what I can do, what will make him happy.

"We listen to 'Never Been to Spain'?" he whines. So apparently, he wanted to listen to Three Dog Night rather than a song about dogs. He was fine the rest of the ride home (he demanded Bruce Cockburn's "Wondering Where the Lions Are" twice).

I'm taking him to On the Border this weekend, gonna get another damn kids' menu.

He was very sweet the rest of the evening. He kept saying, "I love you," and hugging me. I read to him for a bit before dinner (turns out he loves vegetarian baked beans, yay), and we watched some of The Muppet Movie before I put him to bed.

Now I'm just doing a little laundry and watching the Carolina-Duke game (DVRing Scrubs, of course). After the game, I'll do a little work, but I'm going to try to go to bed before midnight.

Did you know...

... you can now buy diapers from Amazon? And tampons? And makeup? I tried to buy Valentine's Day cards (you know, little kid ones with Mickey or Pooh), but they wouldn't help me get free shipping.

The stockpiling has begun. Not for the apocalypse, mind you. Just another set of circumstances that will likely make trips to the store more of a pain in the ass than usual, at least for a little while.

Um, does anyone use Peapod?

This is how obsessed I am

Within the first few seconds of watching tonight's Very! Special! Episode! of ER, I said (to no one in particular), "Hey, they already used that music. In Season 7, the episode 'A Walk in the Woods.'"

Admit it, I've scared you all. (Except LisaV... but maybe even her, too.)

Queen of bad timing

How come I always feel like whining on Thursdays?

One of you hip people help me out

Is there a popular song right now that samples from Paul Simon's Kodachrome? Because I have gotten so many hits for people searching "when I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all."

Random: Why won't my dog stop scratching himself?! He's driving me crazy.