I usually ignore stuffed toys when picking through free stuff, but today Vogon spotted a plush orangutan. While transferring it from the washer to the dryer, I noticed a Ty tag on its bottom. Turns out he picked an Extra Large Schweetheart™ Beanie Buddy (#9044) out of the pile. *snerk* It figures he'd spot a giant Beanie Baby at several paces.

Vogon felt a pull to stop in at Radio Shack today. The pull was being issued by a floor model Roboraptor marked down to $32. (Figures.) We had to buy batteries and download a PDF copy of the manual, but it was pretty funny to make it roar at Bubby. Bubby's reaction: "I'm not messing with that sh*t." Laurel loves it.

We saw Biko again today, but the firbolg turned tail and ran into the shrubbery when she saw us. One of the local cat rescue groups lends out humane traps for a refundable deposit, so we're doing that this weekend.

Saw the doc today for a regular meds checkup (I get a new scrip every 3-4 months) and discussed ( a lump in my breast. It's probably benign. Feel free to skip this part. )

I'll be returning to Dallas on Saturday. My frozen toes are glad since the snow line briefly came down to 8000 feet a few nights ago, but I still haven't cracked the stored stuff I meant to get a dent in paring back on during this trip. iconoplast, let me know when you'd like to pick up toddler stuff; I'll call you if I don't hear from you by Tuesday or so.

My nephew is unbelievably cute and observant, though it's not like we'd expect any less (re observant, not the cuteness) in my family. I wanted to buy him a set of toy tools after I replaced tens of sockets as he systematically removed them from a tool case the other day, but he already has a great toy tool set. Maybe I'll buy him a drum to go with the copy of Go Baby Go! I'm getting him for his upcoming birthday. He loved the track "Ten Little Monkeys" when I played it for him from my laptop. I just like the point about two and a half minutes into the song when the lyrics go "Mama called the doctor and the doctor said / 'What are y'all doing in that bedroom?'".

Laurel has whipped through the math workbooks we bought last week at Beyond the Blackboard and is a few cards from finishing all 40 that come with the junior version of Rush Hour, so it's time to get her the regular game and the expansion decks. I also should order the workbooks recommended by the school district to reinforce what we're already doing to get her squared away to be at the level for the program she'll be in when school starts.

In my typical obliviousness to scheduling flights, my DEN-DFW flight on Saturday will be boarding at the same time the Evergreen Rodeo parade starts. I still have my fingers crossed for my brother's girlfriend to be named rodeo queen; last year she came close, so we hope this year is her year.

On my list of to-do items for this week:
- hitting the farmer's market for a bottle of blackberry balsamic vinegar since I missed it (the vinegar, not the farmer's market) last week,
- staining the ginormous wooden swingset* that will replace the wooden swingset that held court in my parents' backyard through Laurel's early years; it was great for a "free - you haul" find but reached the end of its useful life,
- munging together a short video-collage of photos and video clips from the helicopter discovery flight my brother took last week, complete with obnoxious audio samples and the M*A*S*H theme song, and
- not admitting that after staging a laptop bag intervention with my older sister, she has a new sleek bag that only holds work-related items, my younger sister has her treasured lime green-accented bag back, and I still haven't gotten off my duff to get even a protective sleeve for my laptop. -1 to my geek cred.


* I'm not kidding when I use the modifier "ginormous". This is one of the product photos:
( 64kb.jpg image )

Earlier this month, eilonwy made me a penguin. I retrieved its parcel from the mail today and thought all afternoon about its name.

I pondered and shook my head to make my brain cells rub together faster and sniffed glue ate dinner before I saw multiple exclamation points and it came to me: POKEY!

Happy repeal day!

December 5th is the anniversary of the day the United States repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and gave us all the constitutional right to consume alcohol. [trivia source] [image source]

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I had to turn off the NPR live coverage of the Gates confirmation hearing because I kept typing phrases I found funny into the PTA newsletter I'm preparing for print.

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I saw trshtwns01 late this morning so I have been dancing around singing "panang" to the tune of that M.I.A. song again, but no-one's around to hear it so you're all safe. T., I'll send you a list of menu options either later tonight or tomorrow.

I looked up my favorite toy store in Denver to find pictures of the menagerie of non-monkey sock animals I mentioned to her. They don't have the rhinoceros I like so much online, but they do have a sock gorilla, a sock turtle, a sock moose, a sock bear and a sock frog. Cute! Last time I was there I bought the "beep-beep car" that's my Travel user icon and Laurel charmed her way into a whole bunch of things, including a pair of castanets that look like a ladybug. I think I like toy stores a little more than the average adult.

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I dared myself to sit down and type up meeting minutes as soon as I got home from the meeting last night. Around noon, I got an e-mail from one of the recipients of said minutes (which I'd mailed as an attachment with a summary of the actionable items as the main body of the e-mail) that read "Thank you! You rock!" and I am feeling absurdly proud of that.

I'm going to let Laurel get some free time in on the computer before dinner. I'll be around later after tonight's meeting since House is a repeat tonight ("Three Stories", the Carmen Electra cameo episode). It's a rather embarrassing reflection on our cultural literacy that 54% of poll respondents on the House website didn't understand the "thirty pieces of silver" reference at the end of the new episode that aired 28 November 2006. Hint: the episode's title is "Finding Judas". *palm to forehead*

I mentioned a blog post to iconoplast the other day about the LeapFrog Alphabet Pal and its dirty, dirty mouth but couldn't rememeber where I'd read it. A quick Google search turned up that "Hooked on Dirty Phonetics" was written by Susie Bright and you can also make it say pinko. (:

While I'm on the subject of toys, do any of you with older kids have a Klutz Kwiz Gizmo? I found Kwiz Decks for kindergarten and first grade at my local dollar store, but a quick search for the Kwiz Gizmo alone turns up a product unavailable hit on Amazon and $12 plus shipping from Zooscape, an online retailer in Canada. If you've got one to trade or want to barter, let's talk.

edit 20 NOV: I scored a Kwiz Gizmo packaged with the first grade Math deck plus the second grade Launch, Challenge and Math decks for $20 on eBay. w00t.

Taste Addison is this weekend. I thought Vogon wanted to go, but it doesn't look like it. Maybe next year. I really want to try the dessert fondue from the Melting Pot's booth.

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I've been quiet here because I'm having a wiki-writing spurt elsewhere -- a little at Wikipedia, a lot at MuppetWiki. I hope to invest in a paid hosting service in the not-too-distant future and wikify TODCRA with my freshly-honed skillz. Wiki wiki wiki.

I was going to make some screencaps this week for MuppetWiki, but it turns out this computer doesn't have a DVD decoder installed on it. Everything the Windows Media Player plugin site recommends is out of my budget. I'm willing to use a standalone program if it's free and found VLC media player, which I'll be trying out later today. Is there another free program you'd recommend?

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It looks like the same kind of caterpillars that stripped a 12" pot of thyme bare in two days last year are back. I knocked two off the grapes and one off the oregano today, then dispatched them with fire (a long-handled lighter). I'm not sure how often I'm going to have to go out and check for these things, nor do I know how to refill the lighter. This could get interesting.

I'm concerned for the limes because the spider mite infestation has gotten really bad, but I'm not to use insecticide because of Vogon's mantids and I'm not feeling up to washing down two densely-leafed trees as tall as I am several times a week. Wiping it down leaf by leaf and paying attention to the branches to get every sign of the mites off will only keep them in check, not eliminate them, and I'm not sure that's a good trade-off for two trees that probably won't produce fruit this year.

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Today's installment of things I would buy if I had a million dollars: a wind-up tin toy of Neko Bus. This may not be interesting to those of you that aren't Totoro fans, but the combination of cute with something I'd like to collect (I have a couple of Schylling wind-up toys) made me smile.

Last weekend, I talked to Vogon about going to Target for a storage system for Laurel's toys. (A set of primary-colored storage bins and natural wood shelves we bought there a few years ago held up nicely through two moves. It's been at my parents' house since we moved here, so I'd like to either buy another one in the same colorway or with pastel-colored bins and white shelves.) We haven't gotten there yet, but this week we've bought a pair of portable sewing tables that were on sale at the fabric store (I've assembled one and will probably leave the other until the weekend), two camp Dutch ovens and reversible griddle lids for same, a bicycle for Laurel, and I won an eBay auction for Scout uniform pants.

I'm very pleased at how much I've been able to save with 'experienced' uniform parts. Thanks to my folks passing along three short-sleeve uniform shirts my brother had outgrown ($24 apiece new) and scoring a pair of gently worn shorts and an unhemmed pair of trousers in separate eBay auctions for $25 plus shipping (just under $70 new), all I've had to buy new are insignia (~$10 per shirt), a neckerchief and a Scout belt ($6 each).

I still need to buy a few small items -- a council shoulder patch for each shirt, shoulder tabs or 2" wide grosgrain ribbon to make them myself, and my position insignia -- and the appropriate colors of thread to sew on a few patches and hem my uniform pants, but I've gotten squared away with an entire uniform for less than I would have paid for one new shirt with insignia and a pair of pants.

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Today's moment of Zen: complete your Playmobil airport play set with a security check-in. Marvel at the working conveyor-belt action!

Vogon bought a set of clay poker chips, cards &c. awhile back with plans to teach me how to be a better poker player. (Any improvement would help.) We played rummy on Saturday night after refreshing ourselves on the rules; he did much better than me pointswise, but said I must have gotten some luck from my abuela the card shark. I'm trying to get into it although I'd rather be playing Fluxx or 1000 Blank White Cards.

He also made me an offer to do the Landmark Forum course this spring that would be silly of me to refuse -- he'd pay the tuition and watch Laurel if I promise to really listen and participate and decline future courses. I did a Forum Introduction in spring 2002 but didn't do the Forum that summer after a snafu with on-base tax preparation caused our return to not be filed and I'd budgeted for the tuition cost to come out of the expected refund, so this is a generous offer from Vogon and a good opportunity for me.

Laurel and I picked out a bungee toy for Biko during our foray to Petsmart over the weekend. I installed it on the closet door between my desk and the door to the study and frequently find myself reaching over and playing with it. At one point I let the mouse go and it shot up over the bracket and wound around it, so I had to get up and untangle it lest Biko find it missing and 'scold' me for making her toy inaccessible! The highlight of the trip for me was making another customer laugh when I told Laurel to put down a ball-and-track toy with the admonition "Put that down, you got stuck in one of those the last time you played with it!".

While I was sorting the junk mail out at the trashcan by the mailboxes this afternoon, Laurel was looking for shiny things around the package mailboxes and found a key! It wasn't a package mailbox key and it wasn't ours, so we took it over to the complex office where Laurel proudly handed it to a surprised-looking staffer. She offered the shiny rock she also found to the grounds maintenance worker we passed outside, but he said no thanks. We thanked him for his work before heading back up to open our mail (I gave her a Harry & David catalog) and return to tidying the patio. It's cloudy and dark so I don't think I'll photograph the plants today, but I washed her water table toys, repotted a lemon thyme we picked up yesterday in a hanging basket and smiled the whole time I used the new hose with my Sunny Patch sprayer. If you like David Kirk's Miss Spider books, the product line is as cute as a button. Laurel has the rain boots, garden apron and gloves, and the flashlight from the line, but the sprayer is mine! *cue evil laughter*

Interesting recent media:
- Penguins going through security at Denver International Airport (thanks to RQE for the heads-up).
- In the May 2005 Scientific American: His Brain, Her Brain, How to Listen to Birds, and When Medicine Meets Literature. And one I missed from the April issue, because I love Edward Tufte: The Feynman-Tufte Principle.
- "Time has stopped in Okinawa's jazz clubs", 20 April 2005 Christian Science Monitor.

I had a strange dream last night involving contact lenses. My sole experience with them was during my freshman year of high school; I decided to stick with glasses since poking myself in the eye several times a day (they swam out frequently) was unpleasant and since then, I've had trouble simply applying eye drops.

The trick I use to apply them now is to have my eye almost closed, squeeze a couple drops near the inside corner of my eye, then blink rapidly to spread the drops. It's been extremely helpful lately with all the wild tree sex (thanks to sage_and_sea for the phrase) that's been going on here. I was starting to wonder if I was allergic to myself after the side effect rash flared back up last weekend in near-conjunction with an itchy eye day, but now that I'm keeping the doors closed and using air conditioning as needed it's much better.

We went to Fry's Electronics today to look at PDAs; Vogon is thinking about replacing his current cell phone with a Siemens SX66 wanted to compare it to regular non-phone PDAs. I double-checked their website to make sure we get to the Plano store expediently. (We've only been there twice since it opened and got moderately lost finding it the second time.) Laurel was cranky that she didn't get a movie, but I did check out the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood DVD releases.

Neither looks worth the price for just two episodes per disc, although I like the circus episode. Both discs are available with special edition packaging where the DVD comes with a wooden-track car (Neighborhood Trolley or a Speedy Delivery truck) or the DVD case is encased in a sweater-style package with a Trolley zipper charm.

The wooden-track cars are cute, but I'd rather see DVDs of an entire 5-episode series, particularly the operettas (I love the musicals they put on) and Neighborhood of Make-Believe collectibles like reproductions of the miniature Neighborhood of Make-Believe buildings or art prints of the artwork in his kitchen. If those were available, I'd buy them in a heartbeat -- the only reason why I haven't bought the detailed Neighborhood Trolley replica is because I can't justify $60 for a single item right now. I'm thinking about buying the separately available track-size Trolley (not the same as the one with the DVDs) because we've got wooden train parts out the wazoo and I know she loves Trolley almost as much as I do.

Running with that tangent on trains... ( Read more... )

On our way back, we saw a sizable smoke plume and started heading toward it, but got stymied by the roads in Bent Tree North. While heading back toward the house and marveling at the luxurious house specs (one house for sale there is a 4/4/3 with a pool, library, four fireplaces and three wet bars) for these McMansions with barely ten feet between houses, I commented that it looked like Stepford without the acreage and imagined the neighborhood being created by a giant monster crapping brick houses every few feet.

While we were out, we stopped at the new Whataburger open on the NW corner of Frankford and Marsh. I love their onion rings even more than I remembered, but learning they serve breakfast from 2300-1100 was the real find of the day for me. Yum. (:

Vogon was stationed in Germany during part of his time in the service and fondly remembers an incredibly strong violet garlic there; two to three cloves have the same strength as a whole bulb of the white garlic commonly found in the States. My best friend (saarlander, referred to as Tea later in this entry) is currently stationed there and offered to send us some when it came into season; he e-mailed me last week to let me know it had and he'd sent a package.

I retrieved the box when I checked the mail this afternoon and waited to open the box until Vogon got home. (I developed that habit because Himself *loved* opening packages to the point that he'd open things addressed to me if I wasn't in when the mail arrived, which spoiled a few birthday surprises.) Under the note Tea included with the package, we found a Customs form. It turns out that garlic "must be peeled and free of skins" for entry into the US, so they destroyed the garlic after it'd gotten all the way to DFW airport!

Scan of the Customs notice with addresses obscured (about 200kb at full size)

I am rather cranky, but the packing paper still smells like garlic three days after they removed it. It's like the Holy Grail of garlic now and Tea's note that trying it may cause any future children to "come out smelling like garlic for at least the first two years of their life" only fans the flame.

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On the bright side, the feuersenf, kinder eggs and delicious-smelling sachets for making Glühwein arrived without incident.

I saw the dentist this morning and, as expected, my molar is abscessed. I'm on a week's course of clindamycin (penicillin is usually the first choice, but I'm allergic to it) and I have an appointment for next Thursday for either extraction or a root canal with a crown afterward. I'm open to your input either way.

In other health news, Laurel and I should have health insurance shortly. It includes no-cost immunizations to age 6, so she'll be squared away there for school.

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On a totally unrelated note, I've been seeing ads for Furryville toys lately. They remind me of princessbunny mentioning awhile back that she had a dollhouse populated with little stuffed mice. Laurel wants the Pigbys in the Kitchen, which makes me do a double-take every time I hear "the Pigbys are all bakin'" in the ad. *ahem*

We spent some time looking in the toy aisle at Walgreens after Laurel picked out her new sunglasses on Monday. She asked for more ViewMaster reels but she'd chewed on three of the reels we'd bought last October, so I replied she wasn't getting more until she shows me she won't put them in her mouth. I thought that was the end of it until earlier this morning, when she brought me her empty ViewMaster viewer and asked, "Can we get more now? I won't chew them!" We'll see how that goes.

As expected with the vast amounts of time her biological dad has spent playing video games, she loves the Atari paddle with TV games, although I'm not sure she's really playing per se, just having fun and periodically shouting "I sore!" (not a typo, she's not enunciating the 'c' in 'score') and "Go Laurel!"

I heated up some frozen mini bread bowls with spinach dip we picked up at Wal-Mart awhile back for lunch today. I was pleasantly surprised to find they were like crack in a cream puff -- I easily polished off six and would have had the other two if Laurel hadn't already eaten them. After that she wanted a PBJ and a hard-boiled egg with fruit juice, so I think she's getting the hang of healthy eating habits.

I flung the Christmas tree over the patio railing today.

(If the downstairs neighbors even noticed it, they were probably so baked they didn't think it was real.)

After I carried the tree over to the dumpster, we checked the mail (Laurel got a Valentine's package from Grandma Betty) before continuing our afternoon project of getting the patio ready for spring. She helped me clean the concrete with a wet broom and scrub down her water table, chairs and the grill, then I rehung the empty hanging flowerpots while she played at her table in the living room. (Note to self: take the drill out sometime to put up the third plant bracket and bike hooks.)

Vogon located the litterbox air freshener after he came in and disassembled the old refill for fun; apparently we *could* refill it ourselves. Learning about scented oils should be an adventure; any reading/website recommendations are welcome.

Later on we went back to Kroger in search of the $5 LEGO® tubs, but they were sold out. While we were there, Laurel got her Valentine's balloon (a mylar heart that reads "Feliz Dia de San Valentin", she picked it out), we picked out a few new colors of nail polish, and Vogon picked up an Atari paddle controller with 13 TV games from the remaining clearance toys. I'm itching to play with it, but haven't yet because Laurel discovered she loves Breakout! Cthulhu help us, 'cause I don't think any other religious figure will touch that game.

Vogon and I watched most of The Ladykillers tonight, but still have about 20 minutes to go since he nodded off during Medium. So far, it's amusing although I'm mostly into it because of J.K. Simmons.

Tomorrow is a lunch-in day, currently planned for a picnic at the playground, and if the hot tub's warm, Laurel and I will "swim" in the afternoon before the front comes through that should bring the temperature down to seasonal values later this week.

We had a very nice lunch at Tokyo One, where Laurel behaved well and I had seconds on dessert. It's a mystery that I didn't try creme brulee until our previous visit there several weeks ago. After lunch, he dropped us off so I could run errands and half the walk.

Laurel picked out new sunglasses at Walgreen's, where our cashier offered to cut the packaging off for us at checkout and handed the freshly-liberated sparkly purple glasses to a beaming Laurel. I was planning to get Laurel a balloon at Kroger since she'd specifically asked for one for Valentine's Day, but the floral department was swamped (no surprise) and while I was gauging the wait, we found something even better: tubs of LEGO® bricks for five dollars! I picked up a tub of 100 DUPLO® bricks and am debating whether to ask Vogon to pick up a regular LEGO® brick tub later today to store for when she's older.

( a brief digression for LEGO® geeks )

We splurged a little, buying Stretch Island fruit leathers, a Horizon Organic chocolate milk for her and an 11oz/330ml bottle of chocolate Silk soymilk for me in addition to getting the things we went in for, but she must have gotten more tired out than I thought on the walk home because she's been a real pill. I put her in her room for a nap about 20 minutes ago and I'm still waiting for her to quit fussing, although she was kind enough to stop screaming.

I'm off to clean the litterbox and see if I can find the air freshener we keep with it. I finally picked up a refill for it, but I didn't spot the holder when I glanced around the bathroom after refilling the regular bathroom air freshener.

Laurel goes to bed easier when I tuck her in with a few stuffed toys. Normally I think about which ones I choose to avoid particularly noisy ones like Tickle Me Elmo, but I didn't think about it tonight. Thos came back to bite me about an hour later, when I heard a line from Dora the Explorer... then another. I tiptoed over to her door and opened it to find the TV and DVD player were off and Laurel was sound asleep.

A few minutes later, I heard another Dora line again and opened the door a little wider this time, which led me to realize the obvious: one of the stuffed toys in her bed tonight is her talking Dora doll! Every time Laurel moved in her sleep, she was setting it off.

Ockham's Razor in action.

As I was coming out of the bathroom, Laurel said "Can I be a kitty cat?". She then put on a pair of horns (shiny red lame on a red fleece-covered headband) and started meowing. I had to stop her from going into the study, since she apparently thought she would be allowed in there as a cat.

In feline-related news, both of her Build-A-Bear cats smell much better after being sprayed with Febreze. This morning she noticed me picking up the remnant of the airline tag the peach tabby had worn on the return trip from Colorado and said "hey, Karma needs a new tag!". I forgot that her original Kitty had worn a tag (engraved with its name, oddharmonic.org and our phone number) and we'd gotten one for the white tiger, but she'd taken the collar off awhile back. If we get new tags for these cats, I think I'll tack them on with a couple stitches.

Remember the mention in yesterday's post about the package full of swimming stuff? Laurel immediately latched onto the mask and snorkel. She tried to wear it while eating dinner, wore it in the car (clever, if you've ever ridden in the back seat of a convertible with the top open at highway speeds), and asked for it first thing in the morning. This afternoon she discovered how much fun it is in conjunction with -- drum roll please -- the water table.

( Laurel putting her face in the water table with her mask and snorkel on, 58 kb. jpg )

After she naps, we're going to take her new swim toys over to the pool.

Friday: I forgot to ask the nerdsprout if she could babysit and she spent the night with a friend, so we took Laurel with us on date night to dinner at Genghis Grill. She was totally uninterested and refused to eat, including spitting out food *sigh*, but I got to try Mongolian barbecue for the first time and they had red bean ice cream so I had a very tasty dessert.

We hit Wal-Mart afterward in search of timepieces (a clip watch for the nerdsprout and a new alarm clock for the master bedroom) and checked out with them plus a bunch of cheap DVDs (including two more Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss collections, whee), then hit Walgreen's for oral hygiene (Gly-Oxide and generic Orajel) and found a lovely deal on cheap toys, so Laurel got a bubble gun and a generic MagnaDoodle. She was so excited she ran down the bubble gun batteries on Saturday and we have to find the charger so she can go again. (:

Saturday: my sinuses double-teamed me and I don't remember much except Vogon bringing me meds (clemastine, ketoprofen and something in the morning, pseudoephedrine after lunch, then another ketoprofen to dull the pain enough to sit up without puking) and being very patient with massage and stretching because I store tension like mad when I'm sick. It wasn't quite on the caliber of the time we went straight home from running errands because I would have had the mother of all migraines without TENS to relax my back, but it was pretty unpleasant and ended with a late-night run for potassium (bananas and Morton Lite Salt, which contains potassium chloride).

Laurel was apparently picky at eating during the day, then woke up in the middle of the night and puked. Combined with her behavior issues leading into the puking episode, we're fairly sure she might be hypoglycemic . That's the kicker I need to get her in for her annual checkup; I'd been putting it off until we got health insurance. Until then, I'm looking at adding a GTF chromium supplement to her diet and keeping a close eye on keeping her blood sugar level during the day.

Sunday: we all slept in and were quite snuggly with the combination of my blue birthday blanket and the purple blanket that lives in the study. We went out for a late lunch at Salsa Pollo and Vogon was in people-watching heaven -- he didn't realize that it would be packed on a Sunday afternoon and there were so many babies and kids in there Laurel was happy too. (:

Spike, our blue prawn, died sometime Saturday night or Sunday morning. It was probably of natural causes (he was an adult when we got him in April) but Laurel isn't really grasping that he's dead and every time she passes the freshwater tank in the bedroom, she says something to the effect of "the crabbies are picking on Spike! They're giving him owies!" Incidentally, he's no longer blue since he kicked the bucket, he's turned orangey like cooked lobster with dark blue around the edges (which were also dark blue in life; all the lighter blue bits turned orange). I never really liked lobster anyway.