breifly - a couple, maybe 3 weeks ago, we had the Week of Vomit.

Ian started Saturday night. (Babies, it seems, are weirdly non-plussed by throwing up, though it freaks their poor mothers the F out. He had never thrown up before! I was busily paging through The 3am Book, a resource that tells you, in effect, when to take your kid to the emergency room. 3am, I'm sitting in bed, hyperventilating, trying to read this book. Ian, having surrendered his stomach contents and now feeling utterly fabulous, is standing beside me, naked, trying to wrestle the book out of my hands because it has a picture of a dog - a boy hugging a dog - on the cover."DAAAAH!!! he yells, and slaps the book.)

(So, while I may remember the night as the start of the Week of Vomit, Ian will recall it as the night that Mama wouldn't let him read the Dog Book. She's so mean.)

Anyway, he felt better immediately. I took the Tues-Wed-Thurs shift, and then Eric came in to finish the week strong, narrrowly missing a trip to the ER for intravenous fluids.

That was also the week that Betsy Misplaced the $600 Drugs. (I found them eventually.) They're actually very effective - it's a special anti-nausea drug that dissolves in your mouth, so you don't have to be able to keep water down in order to take them. They're rather miraculous. Chemo patients take them. Chemo patients, and my husband.

It's a good thing we have some left over.

It's back.

Grammy update III

The Chili Peppers are incredibly boring. There's really no excuse - I don't think that 'low energy' is their normal setting.


So here's a picture of someone interesting. Though he's not on the Grammys this year, he's been on in the past, since every one of his albums has been nominated, plus he was the RIA Vice Chair for several years:

Kurt rules. This is Kurt Elling, composer, poet, music historian, great great great jazz vocal talent. Charming fellow. Just lovely.
his website.

Grammy Update II

One day, the people who love James Blunt will shrug with embarrassment, unable to imagine what they could possibly have been thinking of.

Like people my age think of Leo Sayer, or Tommy Two-Tone.

Grammy Update.

I do believe that Ornette Coleman is going to die of a stroke from having to give Carrie Underwood an award.

Also, didn't Andy look pissed?

Worst dress: Natalie Mains' performance costume.
Best jacket: Common's grey leather Nehru.

OH WAIT! We have a new contender for worst dress: Smoky Robinson's outfit.
New Rule: If you are a man, and you are planning to wear a beaded lace blouse and satin leggings to perform, do not accessorize with two diamond hoop earrings.

Um, unless you're David Johannsen.

In 1974.

dance like a monkey

Video lights are not a friend to David Johannsen.

Caught a little bit of the reconsitiuted New York Dolls on Soundstage this afternoon.

I was kind a Dolls fan in theory. Which is to say, they broke up in like 1977, so I sort of missed them. Plus they only made 2 albums, and they weren't exactly the sort of thing that you'd find in the Sam Goody's in Selinsgrove. So I had read about them, gasped in nervous delight over their scandalous press photos in the Village Voice... but I hadn't really heard them.

Of course I like them. Their songs are kind of like Ramones discards - rejected for lacking subtlety - but for my money, thats's still pretty good. Only two of the original members (David Johannsen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain) are still alive, but the replacement guys played great.

Johannsen not so much. His voice wasn't great in the 70s; on Soundstage, he was visibly winded a bunch of times. Also - seriously, dude, sleeveless was a bad idea. He's thin enough, but his 'Hi Helen' action could certainly have been managed better.

But hey look!


Check out the newsboy cap with the blue jean stitching. With the little pocket.

The first boy who I french-kissed was wearing that hat. At the time.

via Bob Carlton.

Had a lovely meandering phone conversation with a friend today - one who lives in upstate NY. I thought I would check on her, thinking that she was in the path of the snow. No snow to speak of, although it has been about -500 degrees there, so thst'a rather inconvenient. It's in the single digits here, which I thought was awful until talking to N.; I didn't even leave the house today. I of course am fearless in the face of icy blasts, being as I am from UP NORTH.

Confession: Of course, that's utterly bogus. In the first place, it's only central Pennsylvania that I'm from, not the Yukon; and, in truth, the weather where I grew up is milder on both sides, both warmer in winter and cooler in summer, than it is here.

Anyway, though I am fearless, I couldn't possibly expose my innocent baby to the skin-chapping, weenie-shrinking cold, even in his practically uncountable layers of adorable baby clothes.

Have you noticed my sarcastic new tags? It's my protest against the New and Allegedly Improved Blogger. You HAVE TO upgrade, and when you do, you HAVE TO get yourself Yahoo! account. THIS is why we will one day run out of bandwidth, people. Because I am REQUIRED to have 40 different identities in cyberspace.

Soon I will have another, since I will also be forced to upgrade my Flickr account, which will require me to add on a Google i.d.

Did you know my husband has 14 email addresses? I just chided him for not having a GMail address, and he hopped online, and now he has another.

The tags are also an homage toLaid-Off Dad.

How uncool am I?

...that I had to read about this in the freaking Sunday New York Times (EDIT: This was incorrect. It was the Washington Post. Which is probably worse, in the coolness area.) I had never seen it - or heard any mention of this video - until tonight.

I am old, old, old.

Did you catch David Byrne? It's quick, and a little obscure. I whooped so loudly when I saw him that Eric thought the cats were fighting.

okay, 5 things meme

I have given up trying to be profound or self-revelatory (if that's even a word.)
Here are 5 rather mundane things that you may not know about me.

1. I know the words to every song. This is my superpower - some people are polymaths, some people (like my brother) have an astonishing memory, some people have perfect pitch. I have the ability to recall the lyrics to literally several hundred songs. It's possible that I know more than a thousand. Everything. Camp songs, pop songs, long sections of chorales, all the verses of hymns, and entirely too many show tunes. Just to balance things out, I am completely unable to memorize telephone numbers, PIN codes, or the multiplication tables.

2. My parents met at the counter of a soda fountain in 1953. Sitting on those round chrome stools with red leather seats. I hasten to mention they were not teenagers - there were no bobbysocks or poodle skirts involved.

3. I grew up in a house where my father did all the housework, all the cooking (all the edible cooking, at least) and the lion's share of the child-tending.

4. My mother, father and brother were all professional photographers. I pretty much never took a picture in my life until I was in my 40s, when my husband gave me my first digital camera. I started to call that gift "the biggest change in my life.." and then I remembered that I had a baby 13 months ago, so I don't think I'm allowed to say that about taking pictures. Nonetheless, taking pictures (and sharing them on the web) has become kind of a big thing for me. (And I do have some awfully photogenic subjects sitting around my house.)
check out my brother's work.
and my Flickr stream.

5. My favorite dish is Tom Ka Gai. (PLEASE NOTE: I have not tested the linked recipe - I only include it to show what it is. Although it does have four-and-a-half stars, so I may in fact try it.) My favorite dessert is creme brulee, though I am also extremely fond of Tres Leche cake and Thai sticky rice.

Bonus:
The question I am most frequently asked is what kind of hair dye I use.
The answer is: Special Effects USA, available at Hot Topic ALTHOUGH it's totally worth the trip to freakin' NYC to buy it at the midtown Ricky's.
I use scary toxic powdered bleach, then Virgin Rose for the main color, and a little tasteful fingerful of Blue Velvet on the ends.

I never get tagged...

my friend Flip has tagged me to share what he called "five important details about myself that many of you may not know…or remember."
I blather on about myself so much that I cannot imagine that there are 5 things left to reveal.

....I'm thinking! I'm thinking!



Still thinking.





Nope. I got nothing. Maybe tomorrow.

wave your hands in the air like you just don't care

So I have learned, just in the nick of time, that it's De-Lurking Week. (I think I first saw this on the excellent Metrodad.)
Anyway, check in with a comment - I'm curious who's here.

And by the way, you know I have a mommyblog, right? You know that there's a place you can go to drink in the exceptional beauty and wonder of the World's Cutest Toddler? And hear about how he lays socks across the top of his head and then grins up at you with crazy expectancy until you ask the ritual question "Is that your HAT? Do you have a HAT?"

And he just laughs and laughs.

Oh, go ahead. You know you want to. It's right here. Comment there too.

about a purse

Okay, so as we all know, I've been feeling kind of pathetically dowdy since the birth of the World's Cutest Baby, just 55 weeks ago.

(Which is interesting, since, during my gigantic Volkswagen-van sized pregnancy, I felt absolutely fabulous - a little ungainly in the final weeks of December, maybe, but mostly 9 months of adorable, shiny, even kinda chic. Pregnant rocker girl.)

Well, my shape's not that different now from what it was last fall. That's the trouble - the pregnant rocker girl look doesn't work so much when you're not, you know, pregnant. I am utterly desparate for clothes - new clothes. I'd even settled for some of my 2-year-old clothes that don't button these days.

So I'm joining the cheap gym. I think this should help me get back into my old pants and put some roses back in my cheeks.

Since I'm planning to lose some inches, that helps diffuse some of my clothes desparation - no use buying trendy clothes that I'll be too small. I don't wear lots of jewelry, on account of the grabby baby.

So that leaves bags.

I am focusing all my desparate aquisitiveness on some ridiculously fashionable bag. Something huge and agressively trendy. Perhaps in a metallic finish. Something with buckles. Maybe a padlock.

I have practical bags. I have some cute small pre-baby bags (great for the rare trip out with no bottles, no diapers, no knitting...) I have bags that I've made, and they're artsy and creative, but they do not say "This Month's Interview Magazine!" or "Featured on Daily Candy.com!"

What I do not want is a 'real' bag. I don't want to go to Coach and spend $378 on a pink leather bag. Because I don't have $400, or even a quarter of that, to spend on...well, anything. That Betsey Johnson bag in the photo is great looking, and I'm sure its of fine quality. But if I spent $400 on a bag, I by God want to carry it for the next 10 years.

I don't want a 10 year bag. I want a right-this-minute, next-big-thing, where-on-earth-did-she-find-that-bag? bag.

For about $25.


In the midst of my attack of acquistiveness, I read this excellent paragraph in a book of personal essays by Nora Ephron. They're about being a woman of a certain age, as they say, given to me for Christmas by a fellow W of a C A.

About purses, Nora says:

I may not be good at purses, but I know that any purse that hangs stiffly on your arm...immobilizes half your body. In a modern world, your arms have to be free.

...If one of your hands is stuck carrying your purse, it means your not free for all sorts of exciting things that you could be using it for, like shoving your way through crowds, throwing your arms around loved ones, climbing the greasy pole of success, and waving madly for taxis.

- Nora Ephron, I Hate My Purse in I Feel Bad About My Neck, c. 2006, Knopf.

What made you cry today?

In your tears,
in your blood
in your fire
and in your flood
I heard you laugh
I heard you sing

....I wouldn't change a single thing.

For you I'd wait 'til kingdom come;
Until my days...my days are done.
Just say you'll come
and set me free.
Just say you'll wait for me.

Kingdom Come
Coldplay, on X&Y, 2002



My friend Sarah used this as a soundtrack on a video recently; our office's one mac is in my office, so usually, when there's multimedia stuff being created, I'm in the room. I cried the first time she played the song for me.

And the 60 or so times I've heard it since don't seem to be diminishing the effect.

I just previewed the finished video, and stood in the booth with tears streaming down my cheeks.

Is this a song about God? About somebody's girlfriend? It certainly made me think about my husband - the first 30 times or so. Then it somehow transmuted into a Jesus song - in my head, at least (it seems arguable, reading the lyrics.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Oh! So I have the radio on, and I'm just getting over my spiritual sniffling from the Coldplay revelation, and the crinimally trivial "Waiting on the World to Change" comes on my radio. This is a station-changer for me (Like "lips of an angel" or any Doors song except 'people are strange.') I recently argued that playing this song over the airwaves - it's a public trust, you know - is reason enough to withdraw a radio station's liscence. It's irresponsible. In every sense.

I am offended that anyone of voting age, selling records to people of voting age, could begin a song with "me and my friends, we're so misunderstood" and end it with "so we'll keep waiting for the world to change."

Barf.

I know you're young, John M., but seriously. You're more grown up than THAT.

Photo Friday: Best of 2006

...'one'?

Merry Christmas, dear people.

You People Scare Me

Did you know about this? I certainly didn't.

Greatness

Look at THIS!

The raging wonderfulness of Flickr never ceases to amaze me.

Dream Girl Indeed.

In my dream last night, I met Twisty Faster.

Twisty is the nom de blog the creator of I Blame the Patriarchy. She is the best writer on the internet, or at least currently active in the blogosphere.

(I do miss getupgrrl, especially now, around Hanukkah.)

In my dream, I was in Austin (which is indeed the home of IBTP), leaving some sort of a conference or summer camp or something, and needed to use a phone. I stopped at a smallish house, really a cottage, with the door standing mostly open. I knocked and stuck my head in, and there in a mudroomish sort of area were 3 women, laughing and talking, relaxed and happy, doing something like potting up seedlings. 2 had garden gloves and one was potting with her bare hands. She didn't speak while I was there, just smiled sort of shyly, distractedly. She had cropped brown hair, a face that was both long and broad, high cheekbones and a big bold handsome nose.

I don't know how I knew it was Twisty, since she and I didn't speak, and no one introduced anyone (and of course I've never seen her IRL) but in the dream, I felt abashed and a tiny bit starstruck - honored, even - to be standing in someone's mudroom with Twisty Faster.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In other news, Christmas shopping is practically accomplished. I kicked ass, I took names, and, to paraphrase Stephen C, then I kicked the ass' names. It's the most wonderful time of the year.

for all your candlelight family service needs:

It's the Questionable Christmas Children's Word Find!

IF you go looking for printable children's Christmas activity sheets on the internet, you'll find that 80% of them focus on Santa, elves, penguins (trendy, sure, but Christmassy? Hmmm...I guess they live at a pole.)

Another 18% are designed for 8-year-olds who have a year or two of seminary behind them. 'Naphtali'? Really? In a children's circle-the-word puzzle? I had never seen that before. Perhaps the brand name for myrrh? In fact, it's an OT guy, who had land and lakes named after him, which figure in the Isaiah prohesy. So there. It's probably in the Messiah and I just never heard it.

And then, finally, you find a nice simple nativity-oriented word search, with some cute clip art and some words you're pretty sure that little kids will recognize.

Including for that one in the second row.

The kids will be coloring on Sunday night. And that's all.

(honestly, I am ashamed at how long and hard I laughed at this. I carried it around to other staff offices. No one is quite as immature as I am, but they did all snicker.)

me again

I am still alive.

I do not have a novel for you. Perhaps next year.

Though I am usually the family's designated Christmas shopper (because I love it, and because I am one of the world's most effective and efficient bargain hunters)I have not purchased ONE SINGLE PRESENT for ANYONE.

We do have the most beautiful tree ever; it's a small one (we chose to do a 5-ish foot tree on a table, to keep most of it away from the kid) and it is fragrant, perfectly shaped, and somehow just uniquely precious. I guarantee you that I will cry in January when we have to haul it out to the curb.

Unbelieveably, I am watching an old episode of Extreme Makeover because I am too lazy to get up and find the remote...even though I know House is on.

I should be designing our Christmas card.

Almost as good as Beth's

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

via my bff, bww.