Monthly Archives: June 2010

Just yesterday I heard on the news that it had rained on 16 out of the past 27 days. And even with all that rain, I lost a grape plant. And when I returned the plant to Home Depot, the woman remarked, “boy, it looks dry.” As if I purposely killed the plant, just so I could return it and the go outside and buy a new plant, exactly the same type.

I should have sent my representatives.

What a bunch of clowns:

No really, circus people:

My parents took the older kids to the circus in West Bend. They were prepared and amazed.

We took Bella along with us to Miller Park to sit in the good seats. Well couches, in the back of the suite. She was underwhelmed. If she had had to sit in park seats, she would have known she had it very very good. Running. And carpeting. And a 5 year old girl to chase. And at the end, balloons!

Samurai Bella

KISS Bella

Beautiful Sisters (Bella Sorelle)

Graduation Day

One of the last pictures of the front teeth, I’ll guess. They are getting pretty loose.

I could say that my thoughts on the perfect (the enemy of the good) were keeping me from writing. I may have to file this under good enough, the enemy of the perfect, but really life has just been sort of busy and boring. We’re on the lazy river, y’all.

But it was the Pig that has drawn me back to the computer. I’ve utterly failed at my assignment to take a photo of Rob with each of the children for Father’s Day. Sorry sweetie!

Today at the grocery store the bagger didn’t come over and bag my groceries. And the cashier kept jamming stuff down the lane, smooshing my produce and even the boxes.  This annoys me to no end. When I was younger, PnS offered full service or self-bagging lanes. And I always choose self-bagging. I like bagging my groceries. When I am paying adequate attention, I would group things as I put them on the conveyor belt to be rung up, just so they’d be grouped for me to bag. Living in Chicago and specifically Dominick’s broke me. They insisted on bagging. And then never took advantage of my carefully selected boxes that fit just so in the paper bag. They would put 4 things in a bag and then declare it too heavy to add more. So I gave up. Pick N Save usually insists on bagging too. And when I am with small small children and the bagger is reasonably quick, I have gotten used to it – the random assortment of cleaning supplies and fruit. The frozen meat and bread.  After our move to the northern burbs, I accepted that all of the grocery stores bags, even when I don’t really want them to. The Pig and Sendiks are both reasonably good at it. I’ve even gone so far as to used parcel pickup!

Which brings me to today. I had a half full cart. I noticed my food being pushed into each other. I leaned around the cart and started bagging. Just the frozen stuff. When I have dared start bagging in the past, I have always been interrupted and then return to my place at credit card processing stand. And I was, for 1 bag load. Then he disappeared and never came back.  The cashier didn’t start bagging. I finished up. I signed my name. I almost complained to the manager as I left. But I remembered that I actually like bagging, so I didn’t.

But I do wonder what I did wrong. Was I just supposed to wait for him to take his own darn time to walk over, ask me what sort o bags I want, then start filling 22 bags?  The me from 10 years ago would have felt like I got away with something today. The me now feels like I’ve upset some weird social construct. Darn soft living!

Since I am already mulling my own  insanity… I am stuck on electric consumption. I don’t want to suck my children’s future world away with vampire appliances wasting electricity. But I think the change has to come from the appliance makers. These are my two biggies:

Laptop power versus backup. OK, I love the earth. I spend too much time on my laptop. I should put my laptop to sleep when I am not using it. Yes? But I love my data or I wouldn’t be using a computer at all. I have had a catastrophic hard drive failure, at least once. I have a backup hard drive. (I know, still not enough if the house burns down). The backup is set to run every night at 11:30. I’d set it earlier, but I am a still working at 11 often enough to make that annoying. And while the backup is running, my computer is dog slow. I want it to run updates from Microsoft and backup when I don’t want to use it. And I’d like it to sleep all of the other times I am not using it. And there is no such setting in the power management center. I reduced the time at which it puts the laptop to sleep when not in use (screen shut) and every morning it would have to run the backup when  am trying to check my email quickly before the day begins. And not having a backup sucks too.  And worse. And whether an internet backup service will slow me down while I am working is my fear for that well. And I don’t see how that could work while it is asleep, if a local connection can’t work.

The DVR on the television is the same issue again. We’re supposed to unplug our television to prevent it from using power when no one is watching TV. Except that the few hours I do watch TV, I’d like to watch a show I actually like, one not on at that time. A DVR is a fabulous thing. I don’t think anyone should watch TV without one. The DVR should be able to spread its goodness and happiness with low electricity appetites.

I hate these choices. They pit the immediate responsible choice against a nebulous and potential global gain. A hard sell even on a liberal like me.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and this tale is in pictures.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Or as Henry put it, after kindergarten graduation, he was happy and sad, sort of like when a war ends. He sang the songs, the did the hand motions, and he burst into tears when his teacher called his name for his diploma. His teacher later said to me that Henry has been showing the emotions that he (the teacher) has been feeling all week. It was an emotional day. I cried, quietly, during the ceremony/celebration. I was pleased there were no mortar boards involved.

Henry is excited about his new teacher. And pleased that several of his friends will be in his class next year. Miranda was very worried about being separated from her friends, to the point of a meltdown last night. But with appropriate promised bribery, she sailed through the day and was still quite perky after school. A side note, after Henry’s celebration wound down, we had 30 minutes until Miranda got out of school. And a warning that we could not claim the older children early. It was quite boring to be at school without a purpose. And then it rained when we tried to play on the playground.

Going through Henry’s journals:

“If I would be a fish I would be friends with an angelfish. Cause he wouldn’t eat me. We would swim together.”

[From the Mexico unit] “I have cero pets. I have dos sisters. I have been on uno rollercoaster. I have tres TVs. I have sieta people in my family.”

“A boy was dressed up as a gorilla. A girl was funny. A boy a secret agent.”

“I was good at computers. Cause I play computers a lot.”

Let’s let summer ring!

It rained all day today. A steady wet rain. It was miserable. I have been reading Mary Daheim mystery novels and they are all set in the Pacific Northwest, specifically Seattle, I think. Just after I read the Miss Zukas’s librarian novels also set in Washington state. And I tried the new Death by Sudoku with Liza K in Oregon. My questions:

1. What’s up Pacific Northwest? a hotbed of genre crime?

2. If the characters really like the rain so much, why do they talk about it so much? The wet weather has started to feel like a character.

3. Do all new mystery novels have to have a gimmick? The home design tips, the recipes, the scrapbooking, the sudoku? Miss Marple’s knitting never really intruded. Or did the 1950s editions come with patterns?

I digress. The weather was rainy. But no more, I say. I think. I hope. To tide me over, let me remember just a few short weeks ago. We got a dog. A floppy blow up sprinkler dog.

I just love the faint rainbow in the shot below.

And again. I think his tail, tongue and ears were all supposed to wave around. Alas.

Ah summer

The only plus to this day of rain is that when it gets warm and summery again, everything will be green and lush.

We built a grape arbor for the yard.

The end product

Watch it be built.

Once there was a little girl who liked spaghetti sooo much, she had to eat it with a shovel.

Raking it in