Sunday, February 26, 2012

Cable News

So, about that TeeVee.

Holy Crap.

We don't watch much TV. I did finally buy a TV last year, mainly because I wanted a second monitor for working from home (which I rarely use in that capacity because as it turns out, televisions make lousy monitors due to some weird difference in the format of pixels, blah blah blah)

We do have television hardware, but we do not have cable or the digital antennae necessary to watch broadcast TV. Which? Is fine. I don't want to watch it and I don't have time. I have just barely enough time to watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report and the internet the day after they air.


But in Kansas!
We watched. So. Much. TeeVee.
And so much "news"

And
so
many
republicans.


So interested in lady parts.
I'm honestly shocked that prenatal testing is the next frontier of "controversy" for them to take away.

Anyway, the only way to recover from sitting through hours of cable news about republican primaries in Kansas, is to give some money to Planned Parenthood.

Thank you, rick santorum, for reminding me to support all the good work Planned Parenthood does. I hope I was able to provide some women some abortions or something. Or, shudder, some PRENATAL TESTING. ZOMG.

I hope that every time we have to watch some of this crap, we remember to respond by pitching in to the frontlines to counteract this garbage. So please, if you've just sat through some horrendously offensive republican "debate" or accidentally forgotten to mute the TV before being exposed to a soundbite about how muslims are ruining America, or atheists are waging war on Christians (puhlease!), or how torture is just fine...
The best way you can wash your ears, eyes, and soul out after such a trauma is surely to visit the donation pages for ACLU, Planned Parenthood, or Rootstrikers!

Kansas! We're not in it anymore!

Oh lookie, I'm a week behind in my blog!

You see, last Sunday was not really a Sunday, because it was a three-day weekend, but even more importantly, because I was on the far away island of "Kansas" where time is slowed down.

It started in the wee wee hours of Friday morning, February 17. We woke up at 3:30. Which was made even more sad by the fact that Molly thought it would be a good idea to wake up screaming at 2:30 and 12:30 before that. Fine. Up at 3:30. Flight was off the ground around 6:35. Stopped in Phoenix before going to the bustle and hubbub of Kansas City. Molly flew like a champ. People actually stopped to tell us how impressed they were with her behavior on the flights. Hooray.

We picked up an awesome little shitbox from the airport, Paul wrestled the carseat into it, and we were off to Overland Park to visit Paul's dad and stepmom. Molly was pretty fed up with being strapped into a chair by the time we got there, and refused to nap for a while before spending the next several days being absolutely spoiled and exhausted by nonstop play with Linda.

Sunday morning we went to the park! In Overland Park! Which apparently is a bizarre thing to do. All the houses, even those that were within 30 yards of the playground, have their own playground in their backyards. So I guess there's no need to go to the public park. So we had it to ourselves. Molly saw ducks and geese! Later on at her grandparents' house, she got to play with bubbles for the first time.

Meanwhile, the rest of us just worked on keeping all the breweries and wineries in business. And kept the television company. I've watched enough TeeVee to keep me sated for the next 6 months at least. More on that later. (can't get clean!)

The flights back were not nearly as nice. Molly was fussy and tired but barely slept, and woke up halfway through the second flight in a very very angry mood. BABY VERY ANGRY. We tried everything to keep her shut up to get off the flight. It was not fun but we all lived. As bad as it seemed, I know a lot of toddlers are way way worse on flights.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Hmm, the weeks just fly by, don't they?

Rather the focusing on the things I didn't accomplish (and there were A LOT of them!) Let's try to stay positive, shall we?

Molly loves pasta!


A few days after this, I decided it was time to focus on spoons for a while.














Saturday, we went to Berkeley with Jennifer to see some of her friends from high school. We had lunch at Udupi Palace, which was, as they say, totally boomin'. Molly and Paul and I took a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood, played on swings and slides, and watched the drama at the dog park. Despite missing a nap, she was in pretty good spirits. Which was good because our next stop was Grandma Kathie's house for a quickish visit.

Sunday was Craft Day! And I had no idea what I was going to do, so first I felted another little thing:




and then, I took this cute dress that Molly's grandmother sent from Kansas, and I added some ribbon and embroidery and a little button to it. It was already a cute dress, but now it's just Molly's. And I'm sure she'll ruin it with some stainy pasta at her earliest convenience. Oh well. I did something.




In between, I got some use out of our treadmill and then remembered why I shouldn't wear my heart rate monitor for the first few weeks of jogging again (my heart rate is freakishly high and it just upsets the monitor)
Also, it's damn hard to get up early enough to squeeze in running in the morning, and it creeps Paul out when I listen to podcasts which seep through the walls into his dreams. Apparently, he thought someone was in the sideyard. It's worth noting that he decided this did not warrant getting out of bed.

Sunday, February 05, 2012

After an incredibly painful, drawn-out purchase (and handbuild) process, we finally have our treadmill!

I have been wanting a treadmill since about October. See, before about the fifth month of pregnancy, I was running 4 times/week, using the gym at work. I know "real" runners prefer running outside. I am not a "real" runner. I have tried running around the neighborhood-- too much to look out for. I want to tune everything out, maybe catch up on some crappy TeeVee or something.

So we found something we wanted, as a great deal from Sports Authority. And they delivered it about two weeks later. Well... they delivered some of it. Actually, it was missing the "console," which, if you've ever seen a treadmill, is pretty much all the important stuff you'd use to, like, make it go and stuff. Paul worked back and forth with Sports Authority and then the manufacturer to get the parts. The store would say "oh no, we'll order the rest for you right away, can't believe that happened, so sorry, blah blah blah" and then a week later we'd get some parts, but never all of them. Repeat. Finally, we got all the parts, and then the technician who was supposed to build it goes AWOL. So, FUCK IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE. And now I have a lovingly handbuilt treadmill.

Does the drama end there? Oh NO, because I want to watch video and listen to music. I have a bunch of hardware. I have legally acquired a bunch of media. What's the problem? Well, the phone works great, but the screen is too tiny. What I really want is for my tablet to be out there. Oh, but one problem: it's an iPad. So, none of the Amazon Prime videos are available to me, and none of my Google Music is available to me. Because... umm... iOS is basically a crippled operating system where Apple gets to decide what is good for you. I swore off syncing my iDevices to iTunes a few years back, the last time a sync overwrote all of my contacts and I had the disconcerting experience of my phone showing my father-in-law whenever my incredibly hott husband called. Besides? Plugging in to sync? What is this, 2007?

Soooooooo, no, I am not buying a new tablet just so I can access my stuff the way I want. I have to much hardware already. I hate the iPad because it won't do practically anything I want it to do. I'm looking for anyone who has successfully made an iPad into an Android or Chrome or ANYTHING BUT IOS. Hell, even a Windows tablet would probably let me use my media.