Drawerspace In a Cluttered Mind

Rest in peace, Screechyboo

2008-07-23T23:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight our bird Screech passed away. We had her about 10 years after spotting her flying overhead being chased down by crows. Cockatiels are exceedingly fast in flight, but if they've been caged they tire, and so did she -- on a nearby lawn, where we scooped her up and she joined the other cockatiel I'd spotted a few years earlier (in side-by-side cages as they merely put up with each other).

Screech was unfriendly and literally screeched like a siren nearly all day long. We figured someone threw her out. She finally limited her car-alarm sounds to when she heard crows and when our cars pulled up (you could hear her outside), testing everyone's patience. She also laid eggs nearly continuously for almost a year. For the past 3 years she settled for chirping, but still no touching unless it was to rescue her from one of her many disastrous housebound flights when she landed in houseplant dirt or clung to the levelors. Left to wander on shoulders and goof around, she became very pleasant. And a keen lover of apples and popcorn.

A few weeks ago, for the first time ever, she bowed her head -- the universal cockatiel way of saying, "pet me." We tried this early on and she drew blood so I was hesitant. This time she let me pet and pet. Steven too. I told him something was wrong, half joking. She was quiet but fine until a few days ago when it became apparent that she had a tumor. Today she looked uncomfortable and I nursed her, talking to her, eventually helping her to the bottom of the cage, helping her die.

I don't mind the dying because it's unavoidable; it's the suffering that kills me each time. And so our last pet has gone, the most unruly of the bunch in the beginning, having made her peace and hopefully having had a decent life after all.

The mighty return of Froyo

2008-07-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

In the '80s, the frozen yogurt game belonged to a bunch of little establishments (like the local and still-thriving Yogurt Delight at Coldwater and Magnolia, and Humphrey Yogart, ha ha, yeah, it took me years to get the pun and my only comfort was that Steven didn't get it either) and the big game in town: Penguin's.

I lived on the stuff before and after college (while settling for the rare place in Manhattan: Dojo's -- vanilla only with granola -- and some place in mid-town where I felt completely out of place -- Waldorf salad? -- but desperate enough to succumb. Everyone in NYC liked ice cream, full fat milk, and actual white, cane sugar; all of which was alien to my nonetheless full-fat self).

And then all the Penguin's in the Valley closed as low-fat high sugar everything was villainized and the Atkins diet took over.

And now it's back, and how.

Of course, Pinkberry started all this nonsense, making tart-as-hell, it's-good-for-you-if-you-forget-the-propylene-glycol frozen yogurt and serving it in an anime setting (in West Hollywood, with no parking). As a result of their resounding success (and expansion), all the newcomers serve yogurt in spaces that resemble the set of THX 1138 and blare ambient music. And they all feature lime paint; as regrettable as the salmon-and-mint combos of the '80s). All of these places (and a few more where we stopped, we looked, we tasted and we ran) have opened recently:

Purenaked yogurt, actual frozen yogurt (Alta Dena dairy) and fruit. Refreshing, touts lots of crap about how good yogurt is for you but really, they should be touting the fact that they let you pile on a couple of portions of fresh fruit because you're more likely to get health benefits from that.

Yogurtland: Something like 12-15 flavors, self serve, 30 cents an ounce. The yogurt is good, they have odd stuff like green tea and taro flavors but their vanilla is smokin'; they have a topping bar (cereal, caramel, chocolate, brownies, etc), and cups that start at the size of a small bucket. As a result your first yogurt there usually weighs in at just under the fighting weight of a small cat. And I watched, it wasn't just me. Although, goddamn it, I always thought the peanut butter cups used for toppings looked dry and unappetizing and uh, they're pretty much like crumbled crack. Big downside: the place reeks of cleaning fluid (white floors, yet mysteriously, not that clean!).

Menchies: Everyone doing online reviews loves it. So we went there today. The place is laid out brilliantly, as though someone actually thought about the utility of the place. It's round with the cashier in the middle, and you follow and arc from the cups (hey, they have a small sized cup! Wonder how much will fit in here?!) to the yogurt to the toppings to the finish line very nicely. Clean and no cleaning-crap smell! Employees with brain cells! It's 39 cents an ounce, 10-12 flavors and every one of them good (we took tasting cups and availed ourselves before weighing out the mandatory first-visit 10 oz (?!) yogurt mountain (Small cup, tall froyo. Leave it to me). The kid liked the strawberry tart flavor. With tiny peanut butter cup candy. Very good stuff. But Yogurt Delight has the same stuff and though not very fancy, it's a little cheaper and they give us a little punchy card where the 11th one is free. Remember those?! You have to ask for them. It's like a secret froyo-society thing.

Yozen Frogurt: Ridiculous name, out in yenenzvelt (okay, West Hills), but it has among the very best froyo in all of L.A. and the name has caused my Dad (who has visited 2 times in a day more than once) no end of trouble (he finally, after a succession of HILARIOUS names, settled on Yogurt Frogurt). Decorated like a cute little place instead of a space ship. They should open one near us. And they have punch cards too.

Frozen Yogurt. It's what's for dinner (at least until the weather cools, and then we'll see what y'all are really made of!).

Into the Driver's seat

2008-07-16T22:26:00.000-07:00

After much calling, driving school, practicing in the Prius that was only 2 weeks old last September, a special written and 25 minute driving test, my Dad is cleared to drive...by himself. He is elated. His navigation skills are completely intact -- the brain is a mysterious thing.

As some of you may know, my father loves cars. He has a Corvette he bought on ebay (!) with the license plate Grb Life. He was already calling the automobile club and pricing a new battery for it.

Look out L.A. (especially if you own a pet store!)

The party circuit

2008-07-12T21:37:00.001-07:00

Our kid is in a class where everyone was born within the same 3 month period. We get a free pass for most of the year, but the summer months are party time. And how. We've (yes, Steven gets to suffer too) been to:

Miniature golf, with an arcade where the small child played skee ball by overhanding the wooden cannonballs, often into someone else's lane (and just as frequently near our heads, causing us to duck and bob like a boxer), the ever-present pizza, fruit and cake, and finally the eighteen holes of miniature golf played by newly minted 5 year olds whose grasp of the game ranged from nearly professional to...well, the kid alternately herded the ball and barked at us not to interfere. It should also be mentioned that while all the kids were really sweet, a golf club is still read by a small child waiting to putt as a weapon of mass destruction. It was hot. Steven called it the Bataan Death March and by hole #10, I offered her $3 in arcade games and we beat it out of there.

Last week there was a "gym" party hosted by a couple of women, one of whom projected and dramatized with such glee that the children were delighted and I'm certain she got across that this is just her day job, she's really ready for that part in favorite stage production here. Pizza, cake, fruit and a zip line into a ball pit that the kid loved.

And today, a new-agey touchy feely crafty dress-up smelly-tent place requiring bare feet and making assurances about their bacterially resistant floor (and yes, Karen, I was thinking of you roughly every 15 minutes because of this and because you would have doubled over laughing at some of it. You click that link immediately, ma'am).

Upon arrival, the first "station" in this giant place featured a sort of kiddie lounge, if you will, with pink furry pillows and a couple of bins marked "emotion." Above it was a sign talking about how we get in touch with our positive and negative emotions that Steven immediately called "The Time Out Pit." And then he got one of the pads of paper with a face and made an angry one (see above).

The kid's teacher came to the party and found our behavior (she caught us hula-hooping and no alcohol was involved) as amusing as the kids'. Her teacher is sweet and cute and about 20. So I could be her mom. And we bonded sitting together once the kids had run off somewhere else making necklaces and bracelets ("talismans") in the Beads of Empowerment Station (I shit you not).

Luckily the kids were neither aware nor would have bought into this madness, and without the madness, the place was pretty cool. And, the parents laid out a large spread of food (including the mandatory pizza, fruit and cake of course!).

Our kid found the costumes and proceeded to change as many times as humanly possible (that's her over there), dancing and hula hooping and getting in touch with her emotions as a free-wheelin' child without too many damned worries would. I suppose if she were unfortunate enough to have worries, she probably wouldn't be seeking help at an expensive suburban play area featuring tents with soothing aromas, percussion, beads, paint and again, an actor putting out his level best in case one of us might be a casting director. He projected, he sang, he pretended, he banged drums (and he probably went face down when it was over). God, I love L.A.

Next week: A gymnastics party, where leotards are required.

And ours? Chuck E. Cheese's. Where a kid can be a kid. And the rest of us still have to eat pizza, fruit and cake.

Ah, to be American

2008-07-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

Every kind of food on a stick.

Happy Fourth of July!!

Cinderelly, Cinderelly

2008-07-02T22:39:00.000-07:00

Suddenly everything with the kid is Cinderella (especially the scene where the ugly stepsisters rip her dress, and then the magic begins, second only to anything involving Lucifer the cat).

Then the kid walks around saying "you can go to the ball if you finish your chores and if you find something suitable to wear." Then she feeds me the line, having worked out that it would be funnier if I was the stepmom and she was Cinderella.

And then, and it's over 100 degrees out every day now, she comes up with the idea that since Cinderella wears a couple of layers of clothing (before the ball gown) so will she (until around 11 am, when her sanity returns). And this song dances in our heads nightly (sung to the tune of "Be Our Guest," because my mind has become an unwilling Disney connoisseur):

JACK (or Jaq, a small, cheeky mouse):
Cinderelly, Cinderelly
Night and day it's Cinderelly
Make the fire, fix the breakfast
Wash the dishes, do the mopping

GIRL MICE:
And the sweeping and the dusting
They always keep her hopping

JACK:
She goes around in circles
Till she's very, very dizzy
Still they holler

And that was when I realized that aside from the blond hair, blue eyes, and setting feminism back another 100 years, Cinderella and I have a bit in common.

I did try walking around the house with the kid's wand singing "Bippity Boppity Boo," but aside from the kid's amusement it didn't do a thing. Nothing got clean, no happy mice danced around with dusters, and the spiders didn't put any of their six legs to use for anything but making more webs for me to scrape from the ceiling. Forget the gown and white coach; I'd be asking the fairy godmother for a second bathroom*.

Oh well, I got myself a prince, anyway.

* Later, while nursing an ice pack, the kid asked me why I needed a fairy godmother and I told her about the second bathroom. She added that a new kitchen floor, painting the rest of the house, weekly cleaning and organization (especially her room) and deodorizing the bathroom after The Prince sat on the throne would be good also. I swear. I love that kid.

How to scare the living crap out of your mother without really trying

2008-07-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight the kid fell on her noggin. Hard. She was goofing around with her grandmother and fell off the couch. After holding her, looking up the symptoms for a concussion, estimating the amount of time it would take for an x-ray, putting ice on her head and keeping her up long enough to determine that she didn't have any of those symptoms, I'm ready to collapse in a heap.

She's no ballerina, this kid, and I'm afraid that's from my side of the gene pool. Thank goodness she appears to be hard-headed in more ways than one. That's from my side of the family too.

Needle rising on the crazymeter

2008-06-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

A few updates:

Despite many protestations against being labeled a vegetarian, the tiny wannabe omnivore has stopped lovingly discussing her love of meat so much. She will only eat the occasional bite of chicken ("I tasted it") and will not even allow beef near her plate (a platter of incoming meatloaf was met with waving hands at school). She needs to taste a fish, she says. But otherwise she mainly picks around the meat of dishes they serve at school, and I think that's what she wanted to do all along. She eats the salad but eschews the chicken, eats the noodles but pushes aside the chicken, takes the turkey off the sandwich and eats cheese and mustard on bread.

Last night's bike ride at dusk (my first in nearly 2 weeks because of the diabolical heat) could be described less romantically than in my previous post, as roughly 30 seconds of it involved me skirting down the street screaming at the top of my lungs while a giant dog chased me down snarling until I was finally riding with one leg in the air (I'm trying out for the circus if this teaching thing doesn't work out). The owners insisted that he'd just gotten out and that "he'd never hurt anyone," a fact lost both on the dog and me as I stood there shaking it off for a moment (after he found another dog behind a fence to amuse him). I offered to show the owners the scar on my leg that reaches all the way from one side to the other of my calf from when I was previously attacked and that quieted them down a bit. The dog is a dog: I gave him a couple of dog cookies but would have rolled up a newspaper and whacked his knucklehead owners on the nose if I'd had one available.

The kid had me up all of last week (no posting to this blog; too busy drooling face down for up to 3 hours!) with a horrendous cold that left her with dark circles under her eyes and Steven and I weak with worry (when she approaches me and 1) admits she's tired and 2) says she loves me I worry she might be on death's door). She hasn't been sick in a year but ran a fever just in time for Steven to get to stay home while I went to a family event. It was 103 degrees when I left at 4 pm. What a week.

My father finally saw a movie for the first time since his accident. "You must see this movie, it's absolutely wonderful, it's funny, it's just great, really (Steven, who he was addressing), you should see this movie." Sex and the City. I will leave you with your thoughts.

Descending into pure madness:
Last week during our visit with my father it was 108 degrees, so I suggested an abbreviated outing that would only include Taco Bell and frozen yogurt (the usual stops: I know, I know). Usually we have to visit a pet store as well, and because we were loaded to the gills with air conditioning and frozen yogurt (which is rising like a Phoenix from the flames here in L.A. a decade and a half after it virtually disappeared) we went anyway. Big mistake.

We were there for the usual half hour (*yawwwwn*) where the child climbed on the carpeted kitty towers pretending to be a cat, my father lusted after dwarf hamsters, a snake, a few new birds, you get the picture. Real fun. Finally we exited into the convection oven and we didn't make it 4 steps before my father spotted a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. Given my history of finding birds and his history of...acquiring them, this was probably inevitable. Back to the pet store to get baby bird food and a syringe. To my father's credit, he's kept the little guy alive against all odds (at least if he passes it won't be from dehydration out in 100+ degree heat).

And then he went to a bird show last weekend, which is akin to taking an alcoholic to the Beer and Distilled Spirits Show. He came back with a new cockatiel, ostensibly for the remaining one, who I warned might not like it. She made good on that offer and by the next day ANOTHER cage entered the house. Can't keep up? Allow me. Thirteen birds: 2 cockatiels, 1 wild bird, 2 parakeets, 2 finches, 6 canaries. Seven cages. And a dog that still won't walk on a leash and pees on a diaper when not peeing on the couch.

Haircut 100

2008-06-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

I got a new haircut about a week ago -- very short. You would think, however, that I had sprouted horns the way the people I know have been looking at me. People who love it say so right away, others just don't know what to make of it and I'll tell you, some people are really wedded to the stuff that grows out of their heads. People have asked me questions like, "Are you going to grow it back?""Do you like it?" in a way that indicates both curiosity and horror, but all in all a projection of how they feel about hair in general. It's odd.

A few months ago we saw a tall, thin, pretty woman with a very very very short haircut and she looked completely intimidating because she looked so confident. I've seen older women pull it off and thought the same thing. So even though I cower when people pay me that sort of attention, I like looking like I don't need to cover myself up (however, makeup is not an option when you have short hair if you still want to look like a girl).

My only worry: I aim for Halle Berry (who wouldn't) but end up like Bea Arthur and don't know the difference.

Luckily, no one really close to me is that good a liar.

Yeah, that's a small picture of me. The Jew with the Halle Berry haircut. Don't fuck with me or I'll cut all your hair off.

Happy Father's Day

2008-06-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Steven was in the kid's room telling her a bedtime story last night based on Cinderella. The wicked stepmother sees a mouse and screams, and he’s screaming – loudly – his best girly scream, which gets the kid screaming with him in delight. There’s enough intermittent, delirious primal screaming in the story to make me spit up toothpaste laughing in the bathroom (also known as the "den of tranquility"). And then, and I'm not kidding, they discussed vomit, and the consequences of vomit ("Did we have to wash everything?").

The kid loves those @#%&% princesses, and one day recently she asked me if I was a princess. “No, I’m a Queen, and you are a Princess,” I wittily replied.

“Oh,” she said matter-of-factly, “And Daddy is my Prince.”

Happy Father’s Day to all of you guys who knock yourselves out making your kids (or someone else's) feel happy and secure, (even if it requires epaulets and a cape).

That summer feeling

2008-06-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

Now that it's getting dark a bit later, I've been slogging down dinner like a dog and running out the door for a bike ride as the sun goes down (while Steven gives me that greatest of gifts, time to move my ass and be alone). No need for sunblock, white gloves to protect my hands, sunglasses, or a special UV shirt. In other words, I can breathe.

I love dusk, especially at this time of year, when the sky is pink and pale, pale blue; large and cool, with a white-hot 3/4 moon hanging above and to the south. Some people are calling it a day, and others are just getting started. The ground still radiates heat, but on the bike it's breezy and cool. Lights are going on inside houses (and curtains are forgotten as the light fades, so I can glance inside), fish is grilling, people are lining up in front of the big screen TV (why? The Lakers don't play until tomorrow...).

I pass down a street off a major thoroughfare, one that backs up onto the last of the motels that still get stung by police raids for prostitution. It was still too hot to go back into the unairconditioned apartments, so everyone was hanging out talking. Two ladies shout after me in a melodic chorus, "We love your bike!"

Shortly thereafter I drift by a group of 20 hispanic men in white baggy shirts. They look menacing, but when I pass by, one waves hello (and I wave back, relieved). There are baby carriages with tired couples strolling the street, ladies walking their little yappers or giant, hairy dogs who have waited all day for the cool air and a stroll. Old men come out to walk and kids glide by on their scooters.

It's one of the only times when the neighborhood seems quiet yet completely alive. After a number of years missing sundown in favor of bathing and bedtime routines, it's thrill to be out in the electric transition from day to night.

The bluebirds of happiness

2008-06-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

I just spoke to my father, who is devoting some serious study time toward passing the driving exam -- after a Father's Day picnic he wants to be dropped right back home so he can study some more. Obviously, quite a bit of his freedom depends on his passing.

Nonetheless, he's managed to find enough time to...buy more birds (these are not them but they might as well be). Two parakeets this time, blue with white heads, and this time he named them: Lulu and Lala. He's madly in love with them. This week.

The remaining canary egg did not hatch (as sometimes happens) so he's going to take the nest out and give the newlyweds a little break. Current bird count: 6 canaries, 1 cockatiel, 2 finches, 2 parakeets.

One fish died after getting into the filtration system when it broke down, so he's down a fish (on the upside, I may now have a good Father's Day gift besides one from the kid!).

Maggie the dog is still taking lessons to learn how to ~~behave like a dog~~
walk on a lead/pee on something other than a hospital pad. She's a sweetie. He was at a pet store today and said he saw "the cutest little dogs ever. I would never do this, but I would like 11 of them." Dadspeak for "wait another week and let's see if I don't get another dog."
Ilenespeak for <slap!><sigh>
p.s. - gasoline is now at $4.51 (or more, now that it's night!). See above for my response.

Garage Sale (it)

2008-06-10T10:52:00.001-07:00

We've been using the term "garage sale" as a verb for months now ("We're going to 'garage sale' that"), but putting out all your old useless crap for the world to see is just unseemly. And yet, when the notion of putting any proceeds toward a small flat screen to replace the Stripper TV entered our collective noggin (oh, we are a collective, Star Trek fans) we decided it was still unseemly but we didn't care. Besides, the amount of kid stuff was about to come bursting through the front door any minute anyway.

We thought we were shameless. Oh, no. We've now met shameless, and we'd like to say: Some of you were completely mad, and thanks for your good money. I'm not talking about the completely sane lady with twins who came and bought our nice kid clothing until the bags sagged with their weight. Or the nice couple who bought baby blankets, bibs and stuffed Elmos. (The kid took $12 from that sale and made off with a smile, visions of mall shopping dancing in her eyes).

No, I'm talking about Napoleon Dynamite's lost cousin, who showed up at 7:50 am despite my warning on Craigslist not to come early (I hadn't even had tea) and that the sale was mostly about kid's stuff. He shot off his wish list, followed by a rapid succession of "no"s by me. Antiques? Movie memorabilia? DVDs? Then, letting the freak out of the bag: Hot Wheels? Barbies? GI Joes? Big Jim?? ("I have all mine, and they're in pristine condition," he said, before telling me every concert he'd been to since birth with the date and venue. The kid asked him if he had any kids and he spat, "NO! My sister has three of them!" clearly missing the kid's reason for asking.) Anyway, after I'd had enough of him I taunted him by telling him I have a small collection of Hot Wheels but they aren't for sale. Then we sold him an old radio, and old camera, my old Entertainment Company jacket, and some other crap that almost made it worth it.

Then a man showed up to buy all of the kid's old shoes, old (Big Daddy) jeans, and other stuff that was just old crap that I thought would never sell (and brought his wife back later to buy more crap I nearly gave them just to be rid of it). At this point the true junk was selling and the good, new-looking kid's stuff wasn't selling. Thankfully along came the few people who took away a lot of it, and since we were pricing to sell we made off with $175 in three hours (no all day event for us). And I have people coming back for more kid stuff (repeat customers!). We may get a TV yet. The rest went off to a local charity.

And I'd still like to tilt the house on its side into a trashcan! Too much stuff!! Our neighbor came by after to explain how much she hates garage sales so next time we should do one together. There's going to be a next time? (sigh)

There's a evangelical Harry Potter lovin' fellow (actually, I think it's Christianity he's evangelical about but it might be both) who got written up in Time Magazine about how he wants to whittle down what he has to just 100 usable items (The Hundred Thing Challenge). Here's his blog, which is interesting beyond his project, though I can't wait to see if he can do it.

Bad karma, Bad, BAD!!

2008-06-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday started like this: Steven arrives home at 1:30 am after a lengthy evening spent waiting for various servers to stop bombing left and right. We both lapse into a coma and I spring from the bed at around 7 when I hear the beeping of street machinery, and by that I don’t mean The Low Riders Club of Van Nuys, I mean the guys fixing our street. I knew the second layer would be poured yesterday or today. What I didn’t know was: it was the final layer, the one we were supposed to avoid breathing on for 6 hours.

And there, before we could dive into our cars and race out of our driveway, was the steamroller on one side and the asphalt pouring monster on the other. The steamroller died an untimely death on one side of the driveway, giving pause to the guy riding the other machine a few feet away.

That’s when we made a mistake.

Not that we weren’t misled. But.

Should we move the car before the steamroller went over the newly poured hot, steaming asphalt, presumably making any tire tracks smooth (oh hindsight, duh!)? Should we stay put and forget about everything for the day (resounding yes!)? We asked the guys doing the work, seeing as they’ve seen more life on the street than we have.

Drive straight over it and you’ll be fine, but no turning, he said. You sure? Yes.

So Steven backs out straight as a pin, and I go front-out the same way (I can’t park front in – for 10 years! – because of the street), turning only when we arrived at the still-unpaved side of the street.

And though I drove exactly through Steven's tracks, we both leave ruts about 5 inches deep and nearly heave and keel over. Have we ruined the street? No, they said, and in the end, they were right – you can see tiny indentations in the street, but they’re only detectable with the sunrise or sunset (and only because it took a while to revive the steamroller).

Within moments all eyes were on our neighbor down the street, who angrily shot out of her driveway, did a three-pointer (rucking up the still steaming asphalt) and then drove away on the side they just poured instead of the unpaved side. The neighbors came out screaming, threatening, cursing, and then, of course, with no one left to scream at, they started on us. We used the Child as Buffer and got out of there, returning after the street was finished and everyone’s piehole was presumably shut for the day.

I drove out of there all the way to my Dad’s house with my emergency brake on. I have only done that once, when the car was brand new, for about a mile. Officially, I have lost my fragile mind. And possibly much of my back brake shoes.

Not to be outdone, Steven got a speeding ticket on the way to work.

Today was better (not that it would be difficult.)

Sharp gas pain

2008-06-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

A week of L.A. pump prices:

Last Wednesday: $4.05
Last Saturday: $4.17
This Monday: $4.25 (a bargain, it was $4.29 everywhere else)
Today: $4.35

This is for the cheap stuff.

The Alchemist

2008-06-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

Normally, viewing the innards of one's computer is as rare and well-anticipated as seeing one's own innards. It usually means something has gone terribly wrong (or, one is at the airport, apparently).

Well, it turned out Steven's hunch was correct: the hard drive was dying. I am grateful the nearly 5-year-old iBook G4 (ancient by computer standards) for having the decency to wait until the end of the semester. I love this computer, a gift from my mother-in-law when I was cooped up with a new baby and no contact with the outside world. And let's not forget that without it, boring the pants off 60 kids a semester would be a lot harder.

When the hard drive dies, the most you can usually hope for is that you were smart enough to have backed up the whole magilla to your external hard drive, for which you shelled out $100-150 when you bought your computer because you aren't a cheap-ass tightwad like us. And which you, of course, back up weekly in case something happens. Luckily there was a sale on the Acomdata at Fry's and the computer, elevated in the front for the entire time, gave up its information only a bit reluctantly.

Most people, faced with a $500 repair, chuck the whole thing and start over. But not us (see above re: tightwad). Steven downloaded instructions for how to crack the Mac (it's not like PCs, which have a readily accessible, more cheaply replaced hard drive, it should be mentioned), got out his Torx screwdrivers and went to work. Three hours and literally more than 30 screws later ("that's what she said") he had restored the Mac to fully working order. Total cost: $60 (and a lot of brow sweat).

Computers. Best mid-life crisis hobby EVER. You go, Esteban!

Canarywatch Newsletter for Late May

2008-05-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

Dad has been very busy (he'd arm wrestle someone for the opportunity to take the driver's test: He's tried bribing the guy at the DMV, he's ranted that they're ruining his life over there when that failed...) so we've seen him off-site several times, but we finally squeezed in some time to burn off $10 worth of gasoline to see how things were doing at his house.

Let's digress for a brief rant: Gasoline is now $4.15 in Los Angeles (it jumped $.10 overnight). Steven takes the bus, and my every movement is now directed by its cost and worthiness of such. I've also been doing the lion's share of our grocery shopping by bike with a large thermos cooler packed with refreezable ice packs. It's like schlepping home a body in the front basket it weighs so much, but you know, I've got the ass fat to burn, and my ass fat comes a lot cheaper (4 See's candies, appx. cost: $1/20 miles) than L.A. gasoline. On the upside, obesity rates might come down if we have to start walkin' like it's 1890!

Okay, lookie: these are the canary babes: yellow = male, brown = female. Look how grown up! Are they in the same cage? Yes. Do canaries believe in incest? I'll let you know.

The four offspring got new digs (current cage total: 4) after the parents laid another round of 4 eggs and their murderous response was to mysteriously dump 3 eggs over the side of the nest where they crashed to the bottom, proving that it isn't just grown human children who are selfish, ungrateful bastards. However, being my dad the new cage is big enough for them to fly around in (read: unecessarily large with the implication that it can fit another 15 canaries).

Meanwhile, the small plastic pond my father bought to equal his girlfriend's seemed less exciting once she officially moved in and they agreed to build a real one, apparently. Real ponds don't cost $80 on sale at Lowe's. Real ones cost. Look at that beautiful thing. They got a bottle of wine today from the company that built it. Between you and me, keep it to yourselves: 4 G's for the pond. Steven paid less for his first THREE cars. But: the fish really do have a hiding place now in the rocks. And they go there. More fish will be arriving once it becomes apparent that the $9 koi won't be eaten by a raccoon or other marauding passerby.

Now Dad wants turtles and frogs. How about locusts and blood next?

Oprah goes VEEEEEEEEGAAAAAAN! (cue the screaming, overenthusiastic, crying, jumping, whimpering women)

2008-05-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

Oh Oprah, okay. Give the vegan spin a whirl, but really, for most of us (and I'm guessing your viewers) it's probably not an option to have a vegan chef at our disposal. Also, word up: everyday vegans can consume gluten, caffeine, sugar and alcohol as part of the vegan prime directive (and I needed geek assistance for that clever snipe).

As for "cleansing", I'll say what I say to my students: Cleansing one's innards is more of a religious idea than a scientific one. Sure, day to day you'll feel better without all the stimulants and meat, but you won't be "cleansing" anything or doing a "detox." The toxins come and go and sometimes they leave behind damage, but if you eat "clean" for 21 days (in which case it's what you're not eating that counts) and then head back to the ribs, coffee, and cheesecake, what difference does it make? Not much.

Perhaps in Oprah's case, it will make a difference because it will get people talking about food and about what small changes they'd be willing to do long term. Not likely, but it could happen.

Here's the Oprah blog. No screaming out loud. Keep it on the inside.

WooHOOOO!

2008-05-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

We are so STOKED. In addition to a morning fueled by caffeine and good eating (but no hoodies, alas), we came home from an early breakfast after dropping the kid to find: They are working on our street. Not that we weren't informed by memo (which we plan to frame), but we just weren't going to believe it til we saw it. And in two hours, they transformed the street to something better than what it was: one of the very worst streets in all of Los Angeles.

Really.

We have ruts big enough to slam a car down to the wheel base (the one in the picture is almost a foot deep, and you can see the beginning of repair behind it), and the ruts are usually filled with water because of the lady across the street who constantly waters with reckless abandon. Only the locals know, and the passersby who frequent the Starbucks that replaced our local serial-killer bar who don't know find out the hard way. When I was pregnant, we had to drive down our street going 5 mph because more made me sick. We've waited over 10 years for this, complained to everyone from our city councilperson to the bureau of street repair to the mayor.

Then they started repaving every street in the neighborhood for 2 miles but ours. We were all nearly hysterical about it. I thought I'd be calling the vector control people about the inevitable oncoming of West Nile virus from the stupid ruts but then they showed up here with giant vehicles that are vibrating our house.

We'll be having a "Kiss my Asphalt" party when it's done. Y'all can come. It'll be the street you can skate down!

Another Disney scandal

2008-05-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

Found this in the kid's room. It's supposed to be some Disney fairy, but they're not fooling anyone: this is an Amy Winehouse doll.

She was in the armoire threatening Barbie with a broken beer bottle.

Welcome to the jungle

2008-05-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

I generally have pretty good luck with plants (they key: do not overwater. Leave them a little hungry. We used to live in the same building as a horticulturist who gave us a tree and instructed us to neglect the thing as much as possible -- it's been about 13 years and we still have it. Proof that he was right, and that we're damned good at neglect!).

But the orchids I have, all gifts still vaguely among the living, seem less happy. We have one that's 8 years old -- a gift from my mother called a Phalaenopsis (they look like this when in bloom -- and stay like this for at least an astonishing month or more), but it hasn't bloomed in over a year, and it's down to a couple of fairly pathetic-looking leaves. I literally put about a teaspoon of water on the thing, because its been living in a pot with no hole in the bottom -- if plants are not fond of watering, orchids are the Buddhist monks of watering. They want the water equivalent of one change of clothing, a towel and a razor. A couple of weeks ago I found myself at a swell nursery standing between Steven, a beautiful pot meant for an orchid and an eager gentleman from the nursery offering help, so I finally admitted my ignorance and got schooled.

It's a miracle, the gentleman began, that I haven't yet killed my orchids. Well there's a promising start. You mean that fertilizer I've been using (Schultz 10-15-10 with urea nitrogen - like magic on houseplants) could kill the little guys? Oh. Er. Blue 20-10-20 urea-free is a good overall orchid fertilizer, he explains. But what about the cool orchid pot? What do I put in there? Bark, he tells me. Oh. Those are air roots? Oh. By now I look like a bobbing dog on a car dashboard. Whatever you say, buddy, I'm buying buddy. Yeah, hand me that. And that. And that. I will repent and become an orchid grower, not an orchid killer! Then he popped me on the forehead with his palm and I fell into Steven's loving arms as he whipped out his credit card and I was cured! Cured of this orchid scourge despite the fact that we'd come for plants for the front yard!

When we get home with two new orchid pots, bark and the fertilizer (and Steven wisely acting game as usual), I got right to work. If you've never seen a naked orchid, it ain't pretty. They're pretty much leaves and....a couple of long roots. They're little freaks. So I replanted them, and then felt sorry for my best orchid. What was I thinking? I went back and got yet another pot for that one. The roots were firmly wrapped around some foam peanuts I'd used to keep the thing dry. How very green of me.

So I stuck them all in special fabulous orchid bark, flooded them with water, then flooded them with some of the parmesan-cheesy wacky blue crap, and they seem...happy. Once a week flood them and then leave them alone living on moist bark and air. If they get flowers, I'll jump up and down and take pictures and put them up here. In...October or so!

Here Chick-chick-chicken

2008-05-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

The Pierce College farm walk was a little lower key this year, probably because they're paving and doing construction in the area where they normally have a lot of food vendors and such. They always, every year, seem to get good weather even the though the surrounding Spring days are always red hot, so they still get a lot of people, and a lot of kids. Here's ours, with her cute braids thoroughly jammed under one of my hats as a preventive measure against "hair night" -- because I had thoughtlessly shampooed the night before and she was damned if she was doing that again on a consecutive night.

Pierce has one of the only remaining Agriculture programs in the area (if not the only one, actually) and has loads of studying vet techs in attendance. There are also plenty of cowgirls (long, thin, could be Tom Petty's twin sister about half the time and could move to Texas undetected any time). The land is slowly being sold off for townhomes, but I hope they'll keep the farmland they have because it's so beautiful and unspoiled, despite it's location next to a suburban metropolis.

They still had a country band (they started a Neil Diamond cover and we fled), and cowchip bingo (we're always in for the five buck ticket because it helps the place and because it's hilarious and insane -- they let the cows out onto the field, lay it out in squares somehow, and if the cow poops in your square, you win -- something like that). This baby goat was as soft and sweet as a puppy.

Mainly we came to see the cows (they're always bigger than I remember at 1500 lbs. -- which begs the question of how we ever domesticated them without getting our asses rightly crushed), the goats, and the chickens.

How could I, with such obvious fowl-lovin' ancestry not love the chickens? I do. I would like to have some (and not just so I could outpace the paternal unit). When I told my mother this she very seriously said we weren't zoned for it; more proof that she clearly spent too many years with my father. Here's a couple of fun facts: they live to be about TWENTY when not knocked out for food. They lay eggs daily for about 2 years (and if you aren't a sucker for punishment, you just don't have a rooster on board), after which their future is usually bleak.

I also learned that cows give about 5-7 gallons of milk daily. Jersey (how now brown) cows give creamier milk than Holsteins (the black and white model), but less of it. Whoo. Or is it, Mooooo?

I finally figured out how to load pictures (kind of) in Debian. Still waiting (for Steven) to crack open the Mac after (thoroughly backing it up with the external drive he couldn't wait to buy and after) school is done tomorrow.

More breaking news at Canarywatch HQ

2008-05-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

Okay. One bird from the eggs didn't make it, leaving 4 babies, 2 adult canaries, 2 finches, 1 cockatiel (one dog, and in 3 weeks when the water has developed the beneficial bacteria, 30 fish and 2 turtles, I'm told).

The 4 canaryettes have flown the nest (but remain in the cage, where incest may take hold?), and...2 new eggs have magically appeared. Canary nunnery, anyone?

Hold onto your hat, Beatrice, we could be in for a rough ride.

Vagina Monologue, the Michelle Duggar edition

2008-05-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

The Duggar kids planned a big Mother's Day surprise for their mom this year. But the surprise was on them when Michelle Duggar announced on the TODAY Show that they were soon to welcome an 18th sibling.
“We’re expecting!” the happy mother told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira and the entire Arkansas clan. “Number 18!
“I wasn’t expecting that,” the 20-year-old (son) said. “But it’s been nine months [since the birth of the last baby], so yeah.”
The vagina was heard to yelp: Please, Jim Bob, please go away! I am not a clown car! Perimenopause, where art thou?
And they're all named with J names. For the next, we recommend: Jackal, Jinky, Jaguar, Jeronimo, Jermaine, Jellybean, JuJubee, Juicyfruit, Jello and Jabba (Jabba Duggar -- cool!).
The vagina is not amused.
Happy Mother's Day!

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by (and clap, why don't you, because I enjoy applause).

2008-05-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

I'm having a few issues with my computer. Mainly that it doesn't want to work anymore.

We think it needs a new hard drive, or that the fan isn't working well. Or both.

Today was my last lecture of the term and despite being perched upon a "fan thingy that fits under a laptop," the computer froze right before my "shop like you're Spock" slide depicting smart grocery shopping for the otherwise Hot Cheeto-/Spam (yes, Spam)-/Tampico "juice"-/ramen-/whatever-I-just-found-on-the-ground-eatin' college student. I was undeterred by the computer's panting and displayed my vast technical expertise by tilting the bastard back until it decided to give way and let me finish. As a just reward, the white Apple is currently resting, and perhaps later I'll get to load some pictures onto Steven's MacGyver laptop (soldered together and brought back from death -- one of his many talents) so I can post some other nonsense.

I have a great chicken portrait from the Farm Walk at Pierce College. The kid liked the chickens, but none of that has dissuaded the small child from eating the dead variety. I'm still keeping my fat mouth shut, but just barely.