Ratatat

I am reading The Pillars of the Earth for a book club. So my skimming may be noticed. But I doubt it. The book is 900+ pages. The scope is huge. I can’t quite claim it is taking away my blogging time, but something is. And a book sounds better than my daily binging on NUMB3RS.

In news of the first order, my laptop’s hard drive died last Monday. I think I am nearly through the 5 stages of grief. I spent 2-3 days in absolute denial – I’ll just run upstairs and check my email. Oh, I’ll check the bills files.  Oh sure, you can play on my laptop, child. In 2005, I lost a computer to a massive hard drive failure, which I have come to think of like heart attacks. Some times, hard drives go bad. And data can be restored. Like a stent. Or a heart replacement. I seem to have really bad hard drive problems – the drive is unusable, the spindle doesn’t spin, there is no Hope.

The 2005 debacle did push me to make backing up my data a higher priority. After sporadic DVD backups, I bought an external hard drive in 2008 or 2009. And it saved me, mostly. I have all of the photos. I lost about  a week, as the hard drive was sending little hard drive signals that it was dying. But I didn’t know it. Despite its SMART system, it didn’t send me a message like “back up all your data, the barbarian horde is coming.” It did keep restarting and had a hard time coming back on.

In January, the family room computer, which was my old desktop computer, had a motherboard problem. (brain tumor?) The hard drives had been flaky and Rob doesn’t have time to build computers anymore. We did the unthinkable to ourselves circa 2000 – we went to Best Buy and bought a clearance desktop. It works. And as I am typing on it right now, it is a good thing in our lives.  But it isn’t my old desktop – it doesn’t have the programs, the bookmarks, the settings of my life. And that’s why I feel so a sea.

This hard drive failure has shown me that having pre-installed software, while convenient, is worthless in so many ways. My laptop is being reborn as Rob’s Ubuntu laptop, mostly because Ubuntu is free and we don’t have a free way to install the Windows Vista license we bought with the laptop. I am taking over Rob’s Windows laptop. I am pleased that Adobe is going to let me re-download my legal copy of Dreamweaver -I have a 3 year time-limit. Still not perfect, but better than the new copy of Office I had to buy for the family room computer. We had legal copies of Office, but not on a disc that I could just install.

This post-mortem excuse-apolooza is not as entertaining as it might be if I had more distance and less rawness. I also got a winter cold the weekend before my laptop died. So I was congested, gooey, feverish and cold, exhausted and drugged up…and having no laptop made me just sad. After a visit to Best Buy (how can this be?), I saw an adorable HP laptop. And the price was almost fair enough. But it turns out for a freelance job, I need to connect with a 32-bit version of Windows. So no new laptop would work. Thank goodness I can take over Rob’s laptop, I guess.

The only file I lost, I think, is my bills files in Excel. For some reason the most recent backup was from August 2009. The vagaries of backup are mysteries I don’t understand. My priorities going forward are definitely to keep up the automatic backups. They saved my bacon. But I have to figure out a way to not lose my software. Maybe I need to rent software? Would that help?  Probably not with an OS…

I have been thinking, so more posts soon. I hope.

Inspired by Melissa (Suburban Bliss), who was inspired by Maggie (Mighty Girl)…a list of 100 things to do before I die. I don’t remember why this isn’t a bucket list. Semantics? This is edition #1 – 25, I guess. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up with 101.

1. Take a road trip our west with the 3 kids. Have it be at least as fun as the Brady Bunch made it seem, minus the villain adventure.

2. Take my parents to San Francisco.

3. Spend a week in Disney World, stay in the park in moderate to deluxe accommodations. Not sweat or regret the cost.

4. Take a cruise.

5. Swim in clear blue waters, the kind in which you can see all the way to the sand bottom.

6. Take the Amtrak or the Canadian railway across the country.

7. Climb Half Dome. Stay in the park at Yosemite.

8. Take a credit card tour by bicycle. On flat-ish land.

9. Find a job outside of the house that is challenging, interesting, uses my skills, talents, pays well.

10. Save money just to save it. (Don’t spend every dime on travel or Target).

11. Take a sabbatical – live a life away from home for several weeks/months.

12. Volunteer for an organization that really needs my help.

13. Buy my way out of trouble.

14. Bicycle 10 miles every day for a summer.

15. Quickly walk a 5K.

16. Plant a garden, nurture said garden, reap the food and reduce my grocery bill all summer. Enjoy the process. Stick to it.

17. Spend the Christmas holidays at a resort in a warm clime.

18. Spend more than a week in NYC, in spring or autumn.

19. Make peace with my hair.

20. Be able to set up a tent, even if I don’t want to sleep in it more than night or two.

21. Try acupuncture…to relieve my allergies or headaches or unbalanced qi.

22. Write a short story.

23. Pick a sport/league/tournament and get a season ticket or visit all of the fields/stadiums/arenas. Care about the game because I’ll care about the players.

24. Perfect meatballs.

25. Make an entrance. Not sure if this something you learn to do or if I just want the serendipitous entrance with all the heads turning. Not for falling down in roller skates.

Eek, a meme. Thank goodness we’re all reading that so I don’t have to think about if I should pronounce that “mem” or “meem.”

The 10 point blog bio.

1. I got married at 22, 11 years ago, making me 33.
2. My older daughter, Miranda, was born in 2001. She is in 3rd grade.
3. My son, Henry, was born in 2004. He started kindergarten this year.
4. My younger daughter, Arabella, was born in 2008. She is walking, after teasing us for 2 months. She is called Bella most of the time.
5. I stopped working full-time when I was pregnant with Miranda. I am a SAHM. Yes, it is dull sometimes, but nice most of the time.
6. I have been freelancing part-part-time when I stopped working full-time. marketing, web stuff, editing…
7. We moved to the suburbs in 2007 after 5 years in Milwaukee, 3 years in Chicagoland, 4 years in Madison, and earlier growing up in Milwaukee.
8. My parents live with us. It is awesome. Communes may not work, but grandparents are an evolutionary advantage.
9. I am trying to go back to work, but only part-time. (Yay! grandparents to watch Bella. I would guess at no other point in my life would work take of 3 of these spots.)
10. I am allergic to all furry pets and most furry animals (I’m looking at you, horses), dust, birch trees, molds, ragweed. No, we can’t have a puppy or kitten or even a lizard for that matter.

And etc: I usually only blog when I am amused, thus radio silence often means moods are low. I only sew at Halloween. My desire to garden far exceeds my ability, aptitude or follow-through. I like throwing parties. I love reading, beer, travel, and shopping. I hate being around cigarette smoke. I don’t eat mayo. We are done having children. I have a serious crush on California.

You know the grammar duo who go around trying to right all of the wrong usage of commas, quotes and possessives? I’m sure they have a blog, but all I found was the Trib article. I don’t have the urge to take a sharpie and educate people, but I do have the urge to surreptitiously change signs with misspellings. Like the bank I passed today that promised to help me “SAOR to new heights…” with a savings account. I don’t want to tell them. I don’t want to talk to them. I just want to quietly switch the o and the a. I’d put o and a in quotes, but I am afraid of those other guys. And the quite funny Unnecessary Quotations blog. I would want to be an undercover language fixer, not a superhero.

A long time ago when the web was young(er), I took photos of every hotel I stayed at. With some idea that I would review the hotel for my own future use and to guide other travelers. But my information felt too random to be useful to anyone else but me. Ha! The web has proven over and over that random is OK and that useless is OK.

I always filled in the bubble for “plumber” as my career goal on standardized tests. If only the SAT listed pirate…that said, plumbing would have been at least as useful as the Latin I took in college.

I am feeling sad and angst-y and retrospective and thoughtful. I think weaning is here. Or will be here this week. And I am ready, I think. But the milestone still makes me fret a bit. It feels so final – no more nursing. And for added fodder, no more nursing ever again. Bella is the last child I will give birth to, the last child I will breastfeed, the last child I shall wean. As the title says, angst, now with pictures.

Look at those baby blues

If Rob were to write some angst about our children this week , those baby blues might star. Not that he as anything against blue eyes. It’s just that we ended up with 3 children and 3 eye colors. At 9 months, I don’t think they are going to change anymore. Maybe get a tad more gray. So we’ll have brown, hazel and blue eyes. My mom’s side of the family is all about the blue eyes.  So Bella’s genes had to work for those blue eyes…recessive traits do pop out sometimes, I guess.

Camera fun

There’s our brown-eyed girl. I don’t have a photo to document my angst on Miranda growing up. But it’s there. She is so tall, so grown-up, so smart, so mature. How did I get a kid this old?

I can stand up!

In addition to starting to prefer the Soothie bottle, Bella is highly mobile. She is standing up all the time. On the day she turned 9 months, she discovered she could touch the television. If she just swatted her hands, she might turn it off! Wow.

She’s growing up on me. As much as 9 months ago, I could see that the baby stage would fly by, I am still feeling sort of sad that I am right.

Better, I suppose, than Rob being right. I kid, I kid.

Wearing her sun hat

In other news, Rob’s banging on the drums is actually music. Who knew? We were slightly skeptical because the baseline from another floor of the house…yeah, it doesn’t sound like a song. But put it all together and the band can play. Rob and his band rocked out last weekend.

Not a disco

The party was fun. The music was good. The hotel bed felt wonderful. By the end of the evening, I felt about as tired as this dog. Who must have decided I was too close to standing on him and he was too tired to move away. As any fan of PD Eastman’s Go Dog Go can tell you, a dog party really is the best kind.

my foot as pillow

Time is slip sliding away. Bella is weaning. And contemplating cruising the furniture. She is cruising the play pen. I’m not ready. At least tonight, while I am maudlin. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to clapping for her. And delighting her peek-a-boo. To feeding her as much food as she’ll eat (a lot). And asking her if she wants a  ba-ba after lunch.

Speaking of cheering, we’ve been clapping at Henry’s T-ball games. The summer league has begun. He’s adorable. And as much as small children playing a game that seems almost like baseball, but with less action, it shocks me how big he is.

Batter

Third Base

Catcher

Left field (is actually behind him)

Sunday nights are a fine time to cry a little in my beer. Better that they grow. Better that they succeed. Better that they are happy and healthy and get bigger every day. Hmmm…beer…finally, a reason to be happy about weaning. :)

Henry slept all day yesterday. He woke up briefly to eat, he  took a  walk with me outside, he woke up to enjoy being put to bed. Today he is fine, I think. The antibiotics for his sinus infection are back in action. Phew.

Miranda with “the worst headache of her entire life.” When she added her teeth hurt, I was sure she had Sinus Infection, the sequel. And so we headed to the pediatrician’s office. And while he agreed that her symptoms sounded owl-y, she wasn’t quite infectious. And so she had a strep throat swab as a precaution. And we’re back to watchful waiting. Since she decided roughly 30 minutes before we went to the doctor’s office that she wasn’t really sick, that outcome seems fair. But she had a malaise that surpassed lazy summer day TV watching. And she was sleep walking the night before. So I will upgrade her to well, with caution.

I know the swine flu has provoked an abundance of caution, but it feels self-fulfilling. Miranda might be sick. I let her stay home. Multiplied over a school and it starts looking like there is an outbreak. When really, there is just caution. I hope. I am still nervous, in that “I know it is irrational” way.

The trees are spreading pollen everywhere I look. My allergies feel on the cusp of being bad. I am torn between wanting to nap during the day and not wanting to give in, because once I give in I might as well cancel my plans for the next week.

* * *

We had our scary phone call of the month…maybe we can shoot for year, if you are listening O Universe? My grandfather took my grandmother to the hospital for feeling weird. And slurring her words. And not feeling right. And at 83, you just go with these feelings. But the call was that she was admitted to the ICU. Her blood pressure was really really high. And they wanted to scan various parts of her to see if anything was amiss. 24 hours later, I can say, the tests seems normal, all systems go. I can let go of that breath I was holding. My mom visited today. She is supposed to go home tomorrow. She is on a new blood pressure pill. And we’re at hopeful, watchful waiting that she’ll stay fine.

Hospital have changed for better in recent years. My grandfather got to stay overnight in her ICU room. She had unlimited visitors without hourly restrictions. I still remember waiting in the statue-clad lobby of St Vincent’s when my grandfather went in for something. My mom and dad could see him, but we kids were forbidden. It was such an unfair feeling, to be denied access when someone is so near. I can only hope we don’t get to explore more of those policies, procedures and rules anytime soon.

We headed to the Brewers game tonight. Swine flu fears be damned, the place was sold out. 42,000+ people watched the Brewers lose lose lose. And it wasn’t the losing that made me think of the Cubs. The crowd was 20-somethings, drunk and overly dressed in Brewers gear. They were polite drunks for the most part. The wave was started by two enthusiastic guys, but by 3 sections over, the crowd was too cool to raise their arms. There were a lot of kids running around. Kids as in 22 year olds and kids as in 7 year olds. We only brought 2. The “5 County 5 game” promotion increased the number of families, I would assume. Half price seats means that it is easier to bring twice as many kids, right?  These are 5 days to make up for the 360 days in which every taxable good costs more to pay for Miller Park. Despite saving $56 over our 4 seats, I am not convinced I came out ahead. And I am not even opposed to taxes as a political, theoretical or rational position.

The game was a tough one. The sort of plays that make baseball hard for me to enjoy. Bernie Brewer did not slide to celebrate home runs. Henry and I missed the Diamondbacks spectacular half inning, and it frustrates me to have all of the action compressed into 10 minutes. And we lost.

I think I would have enjoyed the game more if the concessions were better marked or more evenly distributed. We had to walk forever far away to find nachos and cotton candy. And we couldn’t find soft pretzels, despite seeing people in the crowd eating them. I suppose the marketing and placement of food matters less when your crowd is drinking. It still irked me and I think I drove a nice woman at the closest concession stand crazy by approaching her stand 3 times to ask for food she didn’t sell.

After the game, as we sat in the parking lot and inched our way onto 94, Miranda thought we should rank the evening high, middle or low. On a scale of 3, Rob and I chose high. Miranda and Henry chose middle. The game felt long and all the cotton candy Mom can buy won’t fix that.

Hello from the tunnel inside my head. Where does the tunnel go? One would hope – I would hope -  the tunnel goes to the outside world. But maybe not. It may be more like the People Mover in Detroit, on a  little sad loop.

The antibiotics have batted back the illness in my sinuses, nose, throat. My ears don’t hurt. Instead, they feel like they need to be popped. Like when we flew to SF in May and my ears didn’t unpop the whole 5 day visit. I am on day 6 of the home game. I don’t like it.

The only plus I have found at all is that if I think the TV is too loud, I know without a doubt that I am right. And the kids can’t claim they can’t hear it. As the pain of the ear infection has left, I am thinking of crazy ways to clean out my Eustachian tube. I wonder if an airplane trip would help. Or diving. Or Scuba! What? I can hear most things, it is just the whisper or quiet aside that is lost. And I want to find it again. Maybe I could find it on a trip to somewhere warm…

There seems to be a practical joker in our midst. On Monday night, I felt horrible. My cold turned up the volume and filled my ears with fluids. I crawled into bed and slept for 9 hours. At 4am, I was warm. And uncomfortable. The blankets were all wrong. I went back to sleep. In the morning, Miranda asked Rob if he noticed anything about his bed last night? And he said that he barely slept in the bed between my sickly snoring and the cries of the children. Oh, she said, you did notice I short sheeted your bed?

So that was 1.

Yesterday, my mom reached for some Cheerios for Bella. This was after I went to the doctor and came home with an antibiotic for my double ear infection. My mom found the Cheerios bag in the Raisin Bran box and the Raisin Bran bag in the Cheerios Box. Laugh Out Loud!

Was that 2?

I went to sleep early again. As an aside – could that be my problem – “Going to bed before 11 ruins woman’s health, news at 11?”  And I woke up with my eyes stuck shut with oozy goo. Pink Eye. Lovely. As loyal readers know, Bella had pink eye last week. Urgent Care was doubtful I would have caught it from her now now. The doctor prescribed some lovely drops. And I can see again!

And I can only hope that there were no shenanigans planting germs for the worst practical joke ever. Or Miranda will never leave her room again.

In other news:

Urgent Care was hilarious as always. We were the first patients, I think. Rob was a sweetheart and drove me there and did the touching of all of the paper so I contaminated fewer surfaces. I had been keeping my eye closed and not wiping it so it had the full effect. The urgent care doctor started by saying that most conjunctivitis is viral. But this is not. This is classic bacterial. We then somehow discussed hand sanitizer. He told us about refusing to shake hands with patients who come in for STD examinations and then don’t wash their hands. And how he won’t eat at fairs because of the lack of hand washing and the high potential for food contamination. He went on and on. I guess we weren’t visually blanching enough at his fecal matter comment that he said, the young people working there don’t wipe and then they make food. So fecal matter, you know, poop gets on your food.

So true.

In retrospect, I only wish he had asked Rob, who was dressed for work, what he did. And then Rob could have said, “Oh, I’m a fair promoter.”

I’d have paid money for that one.

I may not have my health on my 33rd birthday, but I do have my sense of humor, my loving family and an active imagination.

On the bright side…

I wasn’t home when Henry threw up yesterday.

Miranda had a friend over, had a great time, and her friend left before the power went out.

We found my mom a pink Electra Townie bike for her birthday and we only had to drive to Sheboygan Falls to buy it.

My mom had a lovely birthday today. We had Costco chocolate chocolate cake.

The basement did not flood yesterday while the power was off for 4 hours through the heroic efforts of Rob and my parents.

Our neighbors were swell and hooked us up to their generator to run one of our sump pumps.

The Ace hardware stayed open an extra 5 minutes so I could rent a generator to run our second sump pump.

Despite not having heat for 4 hours and opening the door repeatedly, the hosue was only 69 degrees when the pwoer came back on. Score one for our general high temperature setting.

Henry slept through the majority of the power outage. (He was running a fever and that was concerning, but this is the bright side and having one less person complaining about all of the things she can’t do without electricity is a good thing.)

Miranda learned much more about electricity.

It didn’t rain today on my mom’s actual birthday. The horrible wintry snow-sleet mix that fell while I rushed to Ace melted.

Arabella is 6 months old today. She got 3 shots plus 1 oral vaccine to potentially save her life, someday.

Miranda had to write about her experience in a storm in school today. And she had one:

“Yesterday on 3/8/09, My family’s power went out. I had to take care of my baby sister 6 months for half an our because my mom was at the store. cause the electricity was out so our sum-pump didn’t work so our basement almost flooded. So while my grandma was filling buckets with water my dad was carying them up the stairs and outside. My grandpa was poring the buckets of water outside. When the power first went off I was a little afraid to youse the toylet cause grandpa would have to pour water into it.”