ernie_rtl

I figured out how to donate video games to our troops. Go here to read the details.

During T's drama class last week, another mom twisted the conversation around to justifying her decision to not work outside the home.  I need a nice way of short-circuiting the SAHM conversation.  (Or the decision to work conversation.  I've been cornered with both.)  I've had this conversation so many times it reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray relives the same day over and over.  I need a way to say:

"I do NOT care whether you are a SAHM mom or not.  Let's talk about something more interesting.  If you DO disapprove of my decision to work, could you please come right out and say it rather than implying it so I can stop wasting my time trying to get to know you?"

But all nice and polite.  Would saying it with a smile would be good enough? 

A corollary to the work/not work conversation.  The coddling on the little sweetlings conversations such as "I only give my child 100% fruit juice".  Amazingly enough, I already knew this because all of yuppiedom made the 100% fruit juice decision 10 years ago.  I'm tempted to reply "Really?  How do you feel about car seats?  I'm on the edge of my seat awaiting your response."

I have a really bad attitude about having young children "help" me with chores.  I know I should use the opportunity to teach them how to do things.  I know I should encourage them to help when they see others working.  But it is negative work and I'd rather get housework quickly by myself.  I hate, for example, having a four year old take glass glasses out of the dishwasher and hand them to me.  It takes longer AND I get to worry about her dropping a glass.

After dinner yesterday I told R to get his clothes out of the dryer and put them away.  L announces she is going to help.  I knew I should really intervene and prevent her from bugging him.  However, all I could think of was that maybe I could get the dishwasher loaded without "help" before he started complaining about her.

I hear them coming up the stairs.  R tells L that her job will be to cheer him on - not to help him carry the clean laundry.  He is teaching her to cheer lead?  Guess I totally deserve that.  But then when they reach the upstairs R tells her she is doing it wrong.  L had been telling him to "move it" in a little girly voice.  He models screwing up his face like a drill sergeant "you have to MOVE IT.  NOW!".  L tries her best to screw up her face in imitation "you have to MOVE IT!" she repeats.  OK her voice was way to high to sound really threatening but she just tried so hard to imitate him and took it so seriously I had trouble not laughing.  They go through the kitchen and dining room with R moving slower and slower until he is ordered to "MOVE IT" causing him to temporarily move slightly faster with his burden.  Being a drill sergeant counts in L's mind as helping?  I never would have thought of that.

He tried to tell her that he didn't need help putting the clothes in his drawers but she started crying.  The crying stopped a few seconds later.  So after I was done clearing the table, I went to watch them to see how he did it.  She was happily sitting on his captain's bed that had all three drawers completely open.  R took each item out of the hamper and right-sided it out.  Then he would dangle it in front of his sister and then snatch it away when she reached for it.  After two rounds of this he would accidentally-on-purpose allow her to capture the item.  She would promptly wad the item up in a ball and drop it in the correct open drawer.

Someone has the wrong attitude about accepting "help".  I think it might be me.

I suppose I should be concerned that his clothes will be even more wrinkled than they are with his normal boyish folding job but it was such a rare chance for them to work together on something I just don't care.

I love to be holier than thou about weddings.  Let's face it, the wedding industry is a really easy target.  Just today one of my favorite co-workers was telling me about his sister-in-law who, if she didn't think her wedding gift was expensive enough, wrote in the thank you note "is this all?".  For water cooler chatter weddings simply can't be beat.  But recently I've decided I really should stop pointing out various anti-wedding industry articles to people.  I've done it enough.  BUT, I stumbled across this article in the WSJ.  Apparently there are now wedding blogs on personal wedding web sites, called "wed sites".  One women was quoted with a long list of complaints about dress shopping and center piece making.  The quote ended with "I am usually not in the best mood, so I tell everybody to look at the Web site to see why".  I would drop over in a dead faint if one of my friends/co-workers said that to me.  After that I'd get really annoyed.  Maybe I shouldn't.  After all I don't have to listen to the whining and if I don't go to the web site, I don't even have to read the whining.

I have a friend who makes cracks about his wife's blog.  At least he isn't the star of a youtube video of his marriage proposal.  Please let him make a another remark in front of me soon.  When he finds out about wed blogs, he will be speechless.

So I had to take the quiz so I could find out how girly I am compared to solsticedawn.  I want a number.  The number is 3.  I am 3 TIMES as girly.

You Are 12% Girly

Um... you're a guy, right? If not, you're the most boyish girl in the world. And for you, that's probably the ultimate compliment.

George Takei filmed a great PSA responding to the homophobic remarks made recently by an NBA star here.

I have desired a book form of Netflix for quite a while now.  My local library is really slow acquiring new books for one thing.  And the selection isn't that great.  I often find that the library doesn't have a book I would like to read even if it wasn't published recently.  For another I have the boom or bust phenomenon of either having none of my requests come in or having so many come it that I have no chance of reading them any of them before they are due.  New books have a one week check out with no renewals.  What I want is to have the books sent to my door and get to keep them as long as it takes me to get around to reading them.

I have had some success with buying a books on half.com and then reselling them.  If I manage to sell for the same price I bought, I can read the book paying only the $3.25 shipping price.

I have now whittled the $3.25 unlimited reading time fee to $1.59!

I have discovered PaperbackSwap.  For every book I send to someone else, I earn a credit I can use to receive a book.  I have to pay $1.59 per book to send books to people who request books from me but I receive books for free.  This is easier than it sounds.  Because anything weighing less than a pound can be placed in the mailbox, I DO NOT have to go to the post office; I merely have to drop it in a mail box on the way to work.  Also I don't have to fill out address forms, the site prints up mailers for me that I tape around the book.  Check it out:

http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php

I hesitate to recommend this site because if one goes there one will see tons and tons of bodice rippers listed.  What was Ernie smoking when she recommended this to me?  But after one registers, one can search for books and if they aren’t currently available, one can request books.  PBS will send you an email after someone lists it.

The main drawback is that if a book is only out in hardback, it usually isn't on the site although there are exceptions.  Then I will try the the library.  The good news is that if the library doesn't have it, then I have an excuse to buy it at Borders.  I usually lose a few bucks when I resell it on half.com but not as much as if I had held on to a $35 hardback.  (Buying recent hardbacks on half.com doesn't make sense because half.com's prices aren't low enough on recent books to make up for the fact that one doesn't have to pay shipping either going to Borders or ordering from Amazon.)

 

R received $20 from my in-laws for his birthday so he bought Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. I had been dreading the acquisition of that game (he has been begging for it for quite a while) but it was actually pretty fun playing it.  DH hates SW movies and says he will never play it again. R couldn't wait to take on solsticedawn. He believed, wrongly IMO, that he had a shot at defeating her one on one.   When I talked to her to arrange this tournament she told me that she is capable of winning the game in one turn.  Really?  I asked.  Well, not every time she told me. I howled with laughter.  Dawn’s oldest, A is exactly 3 years younger than R. A is also a SW nut and if he teamed up with R to defeat their mothers that would just be the cat’s meow. So I got Dawn drunk, an idea I got from mark_everson.   Actually I got more drunk in the process but since Dawn knows more SW trivia drunk than I know sober, this had no effect on the outcome of the game.  I really wanted to see A win.  I knew it would make R happy to win but I thought it would make A really really happy.

And they actually won.  Solsticedawn was defeated by 2 children!!  They stole a wedge from us at one point.  In the DVD game version if you don't answer a wedge question within a certain time limit, then all-play starts and another team can get the wedge if they answer correctly.  This is actually a really good feature because it goes a long way towards preventing the game from lasting forever.  They were 3 wedges ahead of us so being drunk may have slowed her reaction time for the wedge questions but she was answering difficult questions correctly so I don't think she took a deliberate dive.  She did a good job of looking suitably crushed lying face down on the floor while the boys did their victory dance.

R bought the SW version of chess last Christmas.  I happen to know that Santa is going to give him the SW version of Risk.  I was in Toys R Us for the black Friday sale and there was one left.  I figured I had better buy it because if I didn't he would surely decide that was the one game he desired above all else and I'd never lay eyes on it again.  My parents gave him SW episodes 4, 5, 6 for his birthday.  He just bought himself an IPOD and he wants an ITUNES gift card for Christmas so he can buy the SW soundtracks.  The SW thing gets fed because two of his friends already have IPODS with the SW soundtracks loaded on them.  It is just all SW all the time.