Some silliness this morning, because I didn’t get enough sleep (stayed up too late watching Starsky & Hutch with the husband…when I’d intended to stay up late doing something more productive). So here’s the deal. Use bands (ones you love, hate or are indifferent to) to spell out your name. It’s simple and fun.

Somewhere back there my life took a strange turn, sending me on a detour from lalaland to the land of adulthood. I clearly remember the days of ogling items in every aisle at the (now defunct) Children’s Palace toy store. And the palpable disappointment at leaving feeling unfulfilled, with my parents having tried to mollify me with some trinket when my head was filled with thoughts of the big ticket items. Prefab playhouses. Supersized dollhouses. Child-sized motor vehicles. The Ewok Village Playset. Pedigreed Cabbage Patch Kids (rather than their creepy crappy homemade counterparts). Foosball and/or air hockey tables. Those days are back. Sort of. This morning I went in for the Black & Decker Edge Hog…but after touring the store I desperately wanted to come out with so much more. A new kitchen faucet. A new medicine cabinet for the bathroom. A ceiling fan for the master bedroom. A screen door for the front porch (which would then require us to obtain a shiny new mailbox). Some sort of storage shed. But I snapped myself out of my reverie and left Menard’s with just what I went there for.
Update: When the husband saw what I brought back from Menard’s he kindly informed me that what we need is a trimmer, not an edger. Like I know the freaking difference. So back we went to the store, to return the item in question. On our journey we passed dozens of perfectly manicured lawns, each silently mocking me.

You’d think we’d learn, but you’d be wrong. Two weekends in a row we’ve had incidents with over-priced and short-lived balloons…each at parades. At May Day it was Zophia who purchased said item for the little man. He was so over-excited he couldn’t stop beating people with it. That is, until it popped on a friend’s belt buckle about fifteen minutes after he got his grubby mitts on it. Yesterday one of our favorite neighbors bought him another balloon, at the Cinco de Mayo parade. I thought “hmmm, foil…should be more durable” but the little man’s strength is not to be underestimated. Instead of popping the balloon he yanked its chain, so to speak…so roughly and quickly that he busted it loose from its mooring (tied to the radio flyer wagon). There was a collective “awwwww” from the crowd as his Finding Nemo balloon floated up up and away. The rest of the weekend was busy but pleasant. Too much unexpected sunshine has fried my brain (and other more exterior areas) so I’ll let my eclectic collection of photos do the talking. That is, except for this tidbit…one look at my unpedicured hobbit feet and you’ll know I have no future as a foot model. If that didn’t scare you away, I don’t know what will. Forge ahead, if you dare, by clicking here, or on the bouncing girl below to launch the gallery.

I generally have nothing against our feathered friends, but this morning I’m holding a grudge. The weather’s been warming up so I slept with the window open last night. Round about 4am I was rudely awoken by the incessant chirping and twittering of some chicks on speed (one bird has mistaken our house for a tree…and built its nest in our gutters). As if that weren’t bad enough, the neighbor’s rooster (that’s right, we live in the city yet the neighbors have a freaking rooster, for chrissakes) added to the cacophony with some constant crowing. I was so exhausted that I tried hiding under my pillow, and various other ineffective noise-blocking techniques, before dragging my sorry ass over to the window to slam it shut. Amazing how much a little glass and wood can muffle that pesky Mother Nature.

Yesterday’s weather was erratic, as it often is here. When it was time to leave for work it was raining, so I took the bus there. When it was time to leave work it was gorgeous out, all sunshine and in the seventies. But, having donned inappropriate footwear for a walk home, I found myself waiting at the bus stop…when a man approached me. He looked familiar, but only in the sense that I’d seen him at the bus stop before, always wearing his headphones. So I was surprised when he crossed that invisibile line we commuters have…you know, the one where we ignore each other entirely, pretending we’re in our own isolated little pods, jettisoned from the mothership at regular intervals. But I digress. He approached me and uttered an unexpected phrase. It wasn’t a question like “do you have the time?” or “can you spare a quarter?” Nope. It was a statement. He simply said “I found your blog”. This could have been cause for alarm. But the line wasn’t delivered in a creepy way. Just then the bus arrived and we boarded, while continuing to talk. At some point he told me his name and something clicked. This town is just too small, in general, and our side of it in particular. He’d found my blog, which mentions my name…but never mentions the husband’s, so he had no way of knowing who I am married to. But I realized, from stories the husband has told me, who this guy was. An old friend of his who had been in local band February. Now how’s that for a coinkidink?

I do want to live more and consume less, but there are certain categories of consumer goods I can’t help but covet. The latest: accessories for my digital SLR. As I’ve gotten more serious about my favorite hobby (not parenting…that isn’t a hobby, per se, it’s more of a lifestyle choice) I’ve grown more frustrated by my camera’s limitations. The human over at Making Happy has an entire arsenal of cameras to choose from, as do other fave photographers…like Heather Champ, Rachel and Tracey. Sadly I can’t afford to acquire additional cameras at this time, but I’m hoping to pick up a few lens filters (and possibly lenses) that could make it look like I have. Unfortunately lensbaby only offers a Canon or Nikon body mount (I’ve got an Olympus). But there are others. First I have to pick up a lens adapter, then narrow it down…to the accessories I’d get the most use out of. But there are so many to choose from. The standard skylight filter, various polarizers, high definition filters, super macro, wide angle and telephoto lenses. It’s all a bit overwhelming. But it’s funny that it was the husband, of all people, who started me down the path of camera accessorizing…when he picked up this adorable mini tripod for me. And my birthday isn’t even until next month.

Some things never change. The little man’s paternal grandmother decided to take him Friday night, giving the husband and I the night off. So what did we do with our impromptu date night? Dinner and a movie (though my first choice would have been this movie). Saturday morning the house was eerily quiet in my boy’s absence. You’d think it would have helped me to focus on my freelance project, but you would be wrong. I am the queen of procrastinators and easily distracted. The silence distracted me. I had to don headphones, cycling through half a dozen CDs (the Monsoon Wedding soundtrack, Judge, Bikini Kill, Elliott Smith, et al.) before diving in. And then I had to fight upstream against my lazier urges. I’d like to say I’m riding the wave of the future…and that table-based layouts are dead to me, but I can’t…not entirely. Table tags are like my first language. Using CSS is sometimes like speaking French (eight years of French classes = toddler level French). I can speak in both (so to speak) but it requires more effort. But I’m getting the hang of it. The site I’m redesigning will be entirely table-less (though not in French).

Today found me reunited with the little man, and quite busy. I planned it that way, to keep myself distracted from the day’s significance (it would have been the baby’s due date) and it mostly worked. Zophia invited us to brunch at the home of one of her co-workers, who I’d never met. But if it’s a friend of hers, hey, they couldn’t be all bad, right? In fact, they were awesome. The co-worker friend was great (he even whipped us up a special batch of vegan pancakes). And Zophia didn’t tell me there would be geeks there. Three cool librarians and some techies. It was awesome. Talking with adults. And adults with common interests, no less. After thoroughly gorging ourselves we headed to the May Day Festival. Unfortunately the day was a bit chilly, the little man and I a bit logey, and the parade was slow as molasses. Not that we munchkins could see much of it. I mostly stayed for the conversation. Met more new folks…including yet another librarian, who is also a big comic book geek. Most excellent. And now it’s time for some more distraction before bed…in the form of book nine of the Vlad Taltos series.

My brain works in mysterious ways. I frequently get phrases stuck in my head, but often fail to remember where they originated. It could be a song lyric or an album title, a line read in a book, the news or weather headlines, or blurbs from other bloggers’ about pages. When my synapses spark the right sort of connection I’ll recycle said phrases, using them as headlines for my posts. I’m not trying to steal anyone’s thunder or anything, so please forgive me…in advance, or for past transgressions. Other ways in which my brain misfires…I realized early on that I was associating numbers with colors (and letters as well, but to a lesser degree). 1 is black, 2 is white, 3 is lime green, 4 is orange, 5 is blue, 6 is fuschia, 7 is yellow, 8 is indigo, and 9 is red. When I would try to explain this to friends they’d look at me like I was nuts. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I found out the name for this, dare I say, disorder. It’s called synesthesia. But it’s nothing new, and I’m not the only one afflicted. In fact, my good friend Cathy has a far more serious case of synethesia. So serious, that we recently used it when revamping her web site. Check it out here.