Some Saturday afternoon rants and raves.
01: Why oh why did the WB do this to me? They’ve moved our favorite Saturday morning cartoon, The Jackie Chan Adventures, from 8am to 7am. Sure, the little man and I get up around that time of day, but if there’s any chance of the lad letting me lie in a bit longer, I’m taking it…Jackie Chan be damned. But it still bums me out. It was a new episode today and everything, but I just couldn’t get my butt in gear…to get downstairs and plant it in front of the teevee in time.
02: Thanks to Kottke I have another new addiction…I’ve been getting my word freak on with a decent online version of Scrabble. But you have to make sure to play the long version. The first version I came across didn’t use the official Scrabble dictionary…and didn’t even allow for plural words. Very frustrating. But the better version. Ah, bliss. Just cleared the board with a score of 559.
03: Freaks and Geeks is finally coming out on DVD. I am so stoked. But I just cannot fathom shelling out the $120 for the special edition, as much as I may want it. Right now I can’t even afford the “Deep Discount” edition. Sigh. Guess it’s time to sell more of my stuff on ebay.
04: Later this afternoon the husband and I are taking the little man to that beloved one-screen wonder, The Riverview Theater. It’s truly gorgeous, with the original late 40s interior largely intact and lovingly maintained. We’re meeting up with friends to see Elf, which should be fun. Last time I took the boy there he demanded his very own popcorn…and I kinda sorta caved. But today I’ve got backup, with the husband and friends coming along and all.

The husband was mocking me, as he does. This time about my photography hobby/habit. Guess I can’t blame him. We’ll be out and about when I feel compelled to stop and whip out my camera…every few feet or so. It’s worse if we’re in the car. If I’m driving I’ll pull over to capture something that’s caught my eye. If he’s driving, he won’t. But he’ll get to hear me complain endlessly about the missed opportunity. Even around the house every time he turns around I’m contorting my body to take a photo from an odd angle, down on the floor to shoot in macro mode, or trying to capture the little man, who is perpetually in motion. So the other night the husband started out mimicking me, by setting up random pieces of crap to photograph on the computer room floor. But then I could see his interest was actually piqued. He enjoys playing with and figuring out techie toys. So naturally he dug out the manual. The one that was still in the box…that I never bothered to open. The one informing me how underutilized my poor camera really is. The remote control was still shrink-wrapped. And the camera had never taken a panoramic shot. But the husband is changing all that, and putting me to shame. Sort of. While he’s got the technical aptitude, I don’t think he’s quite got the eye for it. Yet. That can be developed, with practice (I don’t want to discourage the man from enjoying one of my favorite pastimes). He even took the first panoramic shot, but it turned out sort of Escher-sque. See for yourself (click on the image below to launch a larger version). Expect further experimentation from one or both us in the near future.

So here I am. Home, and sort of alone, on a Friday night. The little man’s gone to bed and the husband has gone to urgent care. Don’t worry, he’ll be all right. But I’m not leaving the house any time soon. I’ve actually been quite preoccupied, blazing my way through The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. But I need to pace myself. I don’t have another book lined up in the queue yet. So rather than posting another half dozen comments at poor James’ site, I thought I’d belatedly tell the tale of our last girls’ night out, the first official one we’d had in some time. Never mind that it happened over two weeks ago. I remember the day quite well. It was winter. Uh, like it is now. It seems like those in our little group had all had good mornings, and then crap afternoons. For instance, the little man and I started out the day with our last ECFE class for the semester. The parents participate in something sorta neat. Each parent has a sheet taped to the wall with their name on it. The other parents walk around, anonymously writing on these sheets something they appreciated about one another. When mine was returned to me I was pleasantly surprised to see no one had written “you are a big freak” or “if you ate meat, you’d be taller” or anything of that nature. There weren’t even any passive agressive Minnesota niceties, just straight up goodness. Nearly made me blush. But my bubble burst a bit after returning home. The husband and I are far too disorganized. Mail comes into the house and ends up not in one central location, but somehow in nooks and crannies all over the place. It took an email from a friend to let us know our telephone line had been temporarily disconnected. Doh. Why the DSL was still working is beyond me, but I’m glad it was. Thankfully that was taken care of before I left for the evening. I ran a few errands before heading to the restaurant, but was still the first one to arrive. Leaving me time to sit in my car a little longer and listen to NPR…to one story about virtual physical education in Florida, and another about recent scandals related to the sweet science. The former had me thinking that I’d been born too early. Like Ernie, I was always the last one picked to play kickball, or any other sport involving teams. I was almost always a foot shorter than the other kids…and still am, really, at five foot nothing. So I was in a strange mood when I entered Evergreen. Still feeling a bit stressed, and more than a little wistful. When the ladies arrived I found I wasn’t alone…in more than one sense. One had been on the phone with her sister earlier in the day and had an exchange that was quite out of character.

Her sister: What are you doing tonight?
My friend: I don’t know, but I feel like getting really drunk…or chewing on glass.

Thankfully we did neither. What we did do, well we ate a lot of really good food, caught up with our satellite member (who was in town for a few days from San Fran), and, this was the best part, made each other laugh. A lot. It was a wonderful release, getting goofy and giddy with the girlfriends. I’d say it’s not too soon to schedule the next night out.

Ah, this old house…of HORROR! Obviously I know it’s cold, but the thought hadn’t crossed my mind that it’s cold enough to…freeze the kitchen pipes. Our kitchen is the only room in the house without a radiator. Its only heat source is the oven, when it’s on. But we’ve been too busy hiding out in the cozy computer room to cook…only entering the kitchen long enough to reheat quick meals in the microwave (my ramen addiction shows no signs of waning, and the sodium levels in my favored cup of curried mock chicken noodles will one day kill me). It was the husband who discovered the frozen pipe problem last night. And to my relief he dove right in, with our little space heater in tow. After some serious recon he located one small segment of piping that seemed to be causing the problem. It is in too awkward an area, in the floorboards, to be wrapped in insulation. He focused his efforts there and got the water going again in under an hour. What a handy man. But for now we have to leave the tap on. It’s -22 today (the coldest in seven years), and that’s without the windchill. This means it is also far too frigid for sledding, or anything else outdoors (including a visit to the Ice Palace). Yet the backyard calls to me, with its virgin snow. The only tracks visible are those made by non-human animals. Hopefully we’ll be altering that soon. Allegedly it will warm up a bit on Saturday. And, hey, that’s tomorrow already. I swear, time passed differently when I was working forty plus hours/week. The weeks seemed so much longer when I was forced to leave the house on a regular basis, and to drag my poor child out into the elements with me. For now I have the choice, which I relish, to stay inside. But I can’t keep my thoughts from springing ahead…to a time of playground visits with light jackets, or even short sleeves. Soon it will be February, the longest shortest month in Minnesota…followed by the long march of March. There have been many a blizzard in Aprils past, but I am hoping for some sweet relief this year in the form of an early Spring.
Update: It would seem our house is turning into an Ice Palace of sorts. Not only did the pipes freeze, but the water that Jasmine has splashed out of the cat dish has frozen to the floor. Sigh.

So. I’m totally bummed about this, but we’re skipping class this morning. I’d be tempted to anyhow as it’s so freaking cold, but it’s more out of concern for the little man. The poor boy is losing his voice. It started failing him last night. It’s the saddest thing (but sort of cute), listening as he tries to squeak out commands. It’s much harder to do his bidding when I can’t quite hear him. Going to have to call the triage nurse, though, to see if this, combined with his lingering cold, merits a trek to the clinic. Last night I was concerned he had a fever because his cheeks were blazing red…but they weren’t hot to the touch. Took me a while to figure out it was just windburn, from our earlier adventure outdoors. The brief but agonizing moments heading from the house to the car (and the car to a couple of establishments, and back) were enough to make us both semi-permanently rosy-cheeked.

Admittedly I’m a bit weather obsessed…but anyone else notice something amiss in the below infographic? That’s right, the good folks at Star Tribune Weather have seen fit to eliminate Thursday. Perhaps they’ve decided this week’s weather has been brutal enough, so we ought to skip straight to Friday. That’s good news for all you cubicle farm workers. In other news, tonight’s Angel episode was frickin’ awesome. For one thing, Andrew crosses over and “now appears to be a junior watcher, looking and dressing a lot like Dr. Who.” Sheer brilliance. Can’t wait until next week, for the oft-discussed (well, in nerd circles anyway) 100th episode. Maybe the kind folks at the Strib could eliminate a couple more days, to get me that much closer to viewing it. Sigh.

The little man just tried to hand me a dead box elder bug that had, inexplicably, made its way into his pants pocket. I’d like to report that I took the parental high road, turning the moment into an educational experience for us both, but I can’t. No, I screamed like a girl and ran. I got a good case of the heebie jeebies while the husband was left behind to calm the poor lad down…by telling him “mommy doesn’t like bugs”. No, no she doesn’t. Especially not in my son’s trousers. In mixed bag news, I did hear back yesterday from the school district. The little man will soon be starting a halfday special ed pre-school program. It actually sounds like a good fit, and the teacher to student ratio is amazing. Nine children, three adults. Not too shabby. If all goes well with the speech therapy and whatnot, as I’ve been told it will, he’ll be able to attend a regular kindergarten. That’s a relief. The stressful part is that he’ll be riding a school bus to and from his class. I’ve been assured that he’ll be riding the bus only with other pre-schoolers (ugh, my boy will be riding the short bus), and an adult aide who will assist. But I hadn’t thought we’d be dealing with this just yet. I’m sure he’ll love it. He’s always pointing out school and city buses, and talking about wanting to ride them. So for him it will be a great new adventure. For me it’s an overprotective mother’s worst nightmare, being forced to relinquish too much control over my child’s safety. Normally I’d chide myself for being paranoid, but today I came across a local news headline “Kindergartner hit by school bus, driver arrested” that only adds fuel to the fire.

Despite today’s “Dangerously Cold” designation, I decided it was time for a return visit to Lookout Ridge, our favorite pay-to-play indoor playground (we just visited the free one on Saturday). Unfortunately the little man and I got out to the car to discover the gas light on (big thanks to the husband, sheesh). So we had to make a quick stop to fill up the tank. Although I was heavily bundled up, the -10 degree (-35 windchill) air got to me in mere moments, causing an instantaneous case of brain freeze. Some primal self-preservation claxons started screaming at me to get my butt back in the car. Instead I slid my debit card through the card reader…then stood staring, in a daze, completely unable to operate the pump. With glacial slowness the necessary knowledge crept into my conscious mind, trying to drown out the warning bells. After what felt like an eternity in the biting wind I was at last able to complete the procedure…and return to the relative safety of the car’s interior. But not before having turned into a Sharyn-sicle.

When the going gets tough, the tough go to the movies. It’s hard to believe we’re so behind the times, though. I saw the first two films on their opening days, but the husband and I waited for The Matrix Revolutions to hit the second run theaters. I’m glad I remained unspoiled beforehand, and entered the theater with lowered expectations. I was in for a few surprises. The biggest…I’d hoped the Wachowski Brothers would do more crossing of their t’s and dotting of their i’s in this “final” installment. Instead they left me confused, and themselves open for a sequel. I guess closure costs more than a dollar. So now I’m half-expecting two more rounds of trilogies, Star Wars-style…out of sequence and progressively more disappointing.

I’ll be blue in the face any day now. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for too long, and there’s no end in sight. We’ve kicked off the new year with everything up in the air. The little man will potentially be enrolling in a special ed program mid-year…but we have no idea where or when this will be. The husband and I are in a race to see who can pick up part-time employment first, while he simultaneously takes the next step with his present employer. Our current and future fiscal solvency depends upon both contingencies. It’s no wonder that panic attacks are hitting me with their best shots. Or that I’m frustrated by the quality of the job postings I’ve been coming across. Just this morning I found this gem: “…must have six mounts to a one year of working with…” Doesn’t anyone know how to proofread anymore? The folks responsible for these atrocious errors are the ones who still have jobs. But maybe not for much longer, according to Wired. Just as my Salon Premium membership was expiring, it somehow scored me a free one year subscription to Wired. The first issue arrived yesterday…declaring that “Tech jobs are fleeing to India faster than ever.” Perhaps it’s because their workers are more adept at proofreading.