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A Stumper
nobility
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Well, it WAS All In My Head...
And Then
Someday, These Words Will Not Be Cause for Alarm
Cheap Thrills While I Tap My Foot
That Dark Brown Taste
If You Squint...
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A Stumper
I realize that there are many many many more pressing issues being floated these days and, indeed, I have lost sleep over them, but I also know that my opinions on these matters are not particularly helpful, so forgive my commenting on something light.
My mind snagged on something at the toy store yesterday. We went to purchase some "original" size Lego blocks for Felix, because he seemed to be ready and interested in more delicate Lego work than the Duplo sets offer (though I now realize that I will be spending considerably more time on all fours-- and, no, not doing anything that even vaguely smacks of sin and intrigue: picking up tiny pieces from under the couch). We succeeded in finding a pretty good set and now there are about 500 pieces of Lego that pave the floor if I'm not on top of things, but the choices were very odd.
Not only are there hundreds of branded sets (Star Wars, Batman, Thomas the Tank Engine), even the regular boxes of bricks that aren't affiliated with a movie or television show offer a lot of options. Where I got stuck was on the difference between the normal Brick Box, which offers a nice starter set of Lego bricks and the made-for-girls Pink Brick Box. Now I don't really object to the pink girly set, even though it seems a little dopey to me that even these generic little bricks have to be "genderized" and stuck in a pink box for some parents to buy them. (Or maybe I'm the foolish one. Surely Lego did do some research and discovered that girls are more likely to play with their random blocks if a few of them were pink. I'd love to hear about such a thing if it exists.) What really bothers me is that both sets, which cost the same amount-- $14.99-- have different numbers of bricks in the boxes. The blue brick box has 5 more blocks (221) than the pink one (216). Why is this? I can tell you that it isn't because the pink blocks take up more room than the others because those boxes are far from filled to the brim with little bricks. I can't imagine it is because pink blocks are so much more expensive to fabricate. So why are there fewer blocks in the pink bucket?
Perhaps I'm just missing the point. Perhaps it is just one of those things girls, or people who prefer pink generally, should unfortunately expect. After all, women do tend to make less money than men do for the same jobs, and I could make a relevant but clumsy point about the Republican nominee for president, but it is obvious and I'll just stop here.
posted by Elise at 11:48 AM
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nobility
Paul Newman died, and for people like me who are ridiculously nostalgic, this is incredibly sad. Especially with movies, some part of my brain isn't practical and I just imagine everyone is still trundling along, not interested in making pictures, but alive and vital. So while I always watch the annual Academy Awards Montage of Dead People, I am often taken aback with the news that some people are no longer With Us.
So it was somewhat heartbreaking, in spite of knowing the score with Newman, to hear of his death, and in a moment when I am feeling particularly hamstrung and particularly ineffectual, I was especially moved by Dahlia Lithwick's obituary of the actor that discusses just how much he contributed (and continues to contribute) to so many people, over so long in so many ways.
posted by Elise at 12:24 PM
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Junk
I thought the beginning of school would bring peace and reason in the wake of Entropic August but mostly I feel as if my head is spinning and I'm much much too caught up in election worry not to feel distracted.
At the moment I'm feeling loopy, angry and guilty: loopy for not-enough-sleep reasons, angry for not being productive enough, and guilty for being angry at someone whose family life is interrupting an area of my professional existence. This last one is so uncomfortable for me, I can barely mention it because I should understand better than any one what it is like to have to put work obligations aside (or squash them into late nights and naptime scrambles) because child requirements are louder, more demanding, more important, more... more. (And I am the person who was so worried that being knocked up would result in my not being taken seriously, that I signed a contract and wrote a book without telling my editor I was pregnant until the moment I turned in the manuscript, which was the afternoon before I had the baby. I realize this was somewhat eccentric.) At any rate, I realize that the peevish part of me really ought to be more sympathetic to someone who is in a position remarkably similar to my own.
Anyway, I don't know what to do about this angry/guilty state except to try to reach for more work elsewhere which is, of course, tricky, given my own kiddie obligations. Hypocritical? Well, I never said my position wasn't intractable, did I?
In other developments, Felix has discovered rhyming, which is charming until one feels that one is trapped inside the pages of Fox in Socks at 6:30 in the morning.
And the jury is still in on not hitting children.
And, apparently PETA has asked that Ben & Jerry's consider swapping out the cow's milk in their ice cream for (human) breast milk, as one Swiss restaurant did for approximately 75% of its milk needs.
posted by Elise at 4:50 PM
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Well, it WAS All In My Head...
Until it showed up all over my face.
I'm no stranger to stress-related syndromes. When I was in college, I slunk off to the doctor and begged him to break the news about my incipient brain disorder gently to my mother because I was having double vision and smelling things that weren't there. As it turns out, I was just another high-strung middle-of-the-road migraine person. I just wasn't paying attention to my symptoms. (This as it turns out is a common issue for me. I frequently miss out on things that my body is doing because I don't pay close attention. I often thought I might not realize early stages of labor because of my tendency to be oblivious but that turned out not to be a problem for other reasons.)
Anyway, about a month ago, I started to turn into something sort of grim with weird redness, strange prickly patches (on my skin-- I'm used to those parts of my personality with those qualities) and general irritability. So I did what I usually do for skin issues: I ignored them and sulked, feeling increasingly ugly and unpleasant until finally it became clear that I should probably take action and go to the doctor.
Here's a PSA: go to the doctor if you have a symptom that lingers for a month. As it turns out I gave myself stress-induced rosacea and now only feel 88% like a leper. After a little laser blast for the worst of it (leaving unpleasant and distracting spot that I was PROMISED would go away-- here's hoping) and some cream, I am looking a bit more like myself. And I subjected myself (after being scolded for missing a year) to the full-body spot-scan as well. That bit of business really causes the heart to sink and makes one wish one had been more diligent about one's diet and exercise regime.
But I'll tell you this: there's nothing like a trip to the dermatologist when one is fully blotched-out to highlight one's decline. There, one will be surrounded by smooth-faced assistants and tecnhicians, patients too, living reminders, again, not to let things fester.
And believe me, it did take a little bit of strength on my part, on day 3 of school, when another parent waved a hand my way saying: "you've got something on your nose" not to say "oh yes, just a touch of leprosy."
posted by Elise at 12:31 PM
1 Comments
And Then
They go and make good on their promise to do the laundry and it is just at frightening as predicted.
On the plus side, I suppose, they have started to learn how to sort colors from whites. Problems arise somewhat after that.
Oh, I'll right, I'll tell you, it seems one of the children, I suspect Sebastian because his laundry interests are more consistent and methodical, mixed a couple of (clean but still) diapers in with the whites and I didn't notice he had done this (tired) before I started things running. All is fine, of course, but it made for a less-than-glamorous episode after midnight on a Saturday evening.
posted by Elise at 4:01 AM
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Someday, These Words Will Not Be Cause for Alarm
"Don't worry, Mommy. We're doing the laundry."
posted by Elise at 6:56 AM
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Cheap Thrills While I Tap My Foot
It became clear the I didn't plan the summer particularly well and my lack of foresight turned into this lousy tug-of-war where I have been fighting constantly for time to work and forgetting deadlines and scrambling in a way that feels much too much like finals week before Winter Break (but with 85 degree weather). This of course combines with Horrible Mother feeling because of course my work angst has been mixed with churlishness. (As an aside, I have to mention that Dahlia Lithwick and Emily Bazelon have an interesting piece about these sort of questions, writ large, and the Republican vice-presidential nominee.)
So it was with some relief that over the long weekend my mother urged me to take the children on a excursion to the recently-opened IKEA in Red Hook. This was a revelation. Not only was I able to replace the hugely embarrassingly tattered pillowcases I had been living with and get a new comforter cover in anticipation of the dog deciding to throw up on it at 4:00 AM. (He's not sick but the summer months mean people discard plum and peach pits on the street and if I'm not super spry and sharp-eyed-- and since I just described how distracted I am, you know how THAT goes-- the terrier will snarf them up and only realize he can't digest them at some quiet moment when everyone is sleeping.)
But the real allure of the new Brooklyn IKEA is not the linen department or the curious children's section (though we also found fabulous kiddie scissors), it is the means by which one gets there. One takes a free water taxi across the East River, leaving from Pier 11 downtown, to the banks of Red Hook. I can't recommend it highly enough for children. They get to see the Statue of Liberty, one of the public art waterfalls pouring away, the odd cruise ship... and the trip is a mere 15 minutes long so you're off before boredom and crank sets in.
But in spite of the pleasures of that excursion, and already I am scheming a return visit, I am wildly ready for school to start again and to be rid of the annoying sense that doing things I need to do (work, for instance) is highly inconvenient for all the people around me.
posted by Elise at 6:37 AM
1 Comments
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