ZOMG.

It is 1:30 in the morning, and I am dead tired. Just finished watching Day Five of Children of Earth. The ETA for day six to finish downloading is still about 2.5 hours. This just might kill me.

Such a bad place to stop.

I really should just leave it and watch tomorrow. But how in the world am I supposed to sleep after that?

I'm normally not even that fond of Torchwood - I mostly just watch it because I love Doctor Who, so I feel I must for loyalty sake. But COF, wow. I think the mini-series format works for them.

So. I just sent a post meant for here to a rather large community because I forgot, yet again, to change the destination dropdown box in Deepest Sender. Go me!

I've been using Deepest Sender for years without a problem. But this having to remember to actually tell it where I want my post to go seems to complicated to me. I want something that defaults to here instead of to whatever community I last posted to.

What do you guys use to post?

OMG! someone actually wrote this?  Wait, that isn't actually surprising, since if it can be written, someone out there will write it whether or not it should be written... but seriously, someone actually published it?

I want it to be wonderful.  It should be wonderful.  But I'm avoiding it now because I'm afraid that while the concept is hilarious, the actuality will just be stupid, and I don't feel like facing that disappointment right now.  But some day I most likely will pick it up.

Also, I secretly wish that I'd written it.  Think Wuthering Heights* would be improved by the addition of werewolves? 

Subject line borrowed from one of the many reviews that absolutely hated the book. 

* I'm leaving that uncorrected because "Wuthering Heights with Werewolves" just sounds so much better than "Jane Eyre With Vampires,' but in hindsight I've never actually read Wuthering Heights and was in fact thinking of Jane Eyre.  I think werewolves would fit wonderfully in Jane Eyre (vampires would too, for that matter), but the name just isn't as good without the alliteration. 

I think that few would disagree that the perfect ending to the day is going to a late afternoon dentist appointment in which a cavity will be filled and a wisdom tooth, which happens to be right next to the tooth with the cavity so why not take care if it with the same freezing, pulled.  I also think that it is pretty obvious that just as once a few decades ago I whited out the definition of "idiot" in my dictionary in order to replace it with my little brother's name, I have no re-defined "perfect" to mean "extremely crappy." 

Thankfully I freeze easily, and the wisdom tooth came out quite easily, so not a big deal. 

And it lead to to the fun discovery that cold root bear tastes hot and salty during the period in which the freezing has almost, but not quite completely, worn off the tongue.  What made the experience especially strange was that only half my tongue had been frozen, so on the unaffected half it tasted normally cold and sweet while at the same time on the other half, as I mentioned, it was hot and salty. 

And so went my evening, in the form of a recursive function,

int root_bear_experience(int sips_left)
{
   
   sips_left = sips_left - 1;

   thought_1 = "strange";

   thought_2 = "and also, kind of yuck";

   thought_3 = "this is just really wrong.  Not drinking any more until it tastes right.";

  time_passes = 1;

   thought_4 = "was it really as strange as I remember?;

  if(sips_left > 0)
        root_bear_experience(sips_left);
  else
     return 0;
}


And I wish I could blame this entry on the pain meds making me loopy, except I haven't actually taken any since, like I said, it really wasn't that bad and where I had the wisdom tooth doesn't hurt at all.

On the other hand, my fun salty hot root bear sensation has now been replaced by "ow ow ow" searing pain through the tooth that had the filling put in whenever I take a sip of my soda.   It's a little concerning as I don't think this is supposed to happen, is it?  It's been well over a decade since I last had a filling put in, so I my memory isn't clear, but I don't recall anything of this sort before.  Perhaps it is just because the filling is so new and it will clear up on it's own by tomorrow?  Is my dentist even open tomorrow if it hasn't?  Is it a really bad idea to get stuff like dental work done late in the day immediately preceding a four day weekend?  I can, at least, answer the last question: why yes, it probably is. 

At least this only happens when I take a drink of root bear so far, not that I have tried to eat or drink anything else since the numbness went away.  Hey, that's right - I haven't had anything else.  Maybe it is just the soda, and my dentist did it on purpose in order to make me quit the sticky sweet cause of the cavity that needed filling. 

Because, you know, while the hot-salty thing just made me say I wasn't going to drink any more in the same way I used to say I wasn't going to touch my tongue to 9-volt batteries any more, but yet I always would again because I just couldn't believe that it could feel or taste that strange without experiencing it again, the searing pain thing really did make me stop. 

So, um, oh wise Dr. Eljay, in yoru vast experience, is this normal? 

In a the most recent post on amazing_ink , there is a picture  tattoo of a topless woman that has had little black ovals photoshopped over where her nipples would be.  The owner of this tattoo is a male who is also topless in the picture.  His nipple is clearly visible.

So, the lesson we learn is,

real male nipple = a-okay

drawing of female nipple = OMG WON"T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN! 

Oh, and the topless woman is really only the top of a woman, as she appears to have been torn in half.  Her guts are hanging out, but thankfully just a bit of intestine and nothing too insanely graphic as no attempts have been made to cover them with photoshop's helpful black ovals. 

Our society = all sorts of messed up.

(and won't someone please think of the children?)

(and also, why is Deepest Sender suddenly not inserting user/community links when I tell it to?  I can't be expected to actually type the tags myself, can I?  Oh, the humanity)

Okay, okay, so breaking a long silence just to whine about the weather also really sucks. 

But seriously, this is just plain wrong.  And I'm dreading going out in it tomorrow morning.

I mean, seriously?

Um..

I'm sort of watching "A Very Duggar Wedding."  You know, family with a million children, Josh and Anna get married, all that.  I say sort of because really I'm messing around on the Internet while it's on, but this bit caught my attention:

"Sponsored by Plan B, because sometimes the unexpected happens."

Say what?

Hmm.. seems I missed a month.  And now I'm just posting for help because my browser is doing something screwy.

So in Firefox, Yahoo now looks like this:




WTF?  At first I thought I'd blocked images by accident, but further exploration shows that is not the case.  It's been doing this for a few days now.  Any clue what is going on and how to fix it?

Seriously need to stay off petfinder.  I don't even know why I started looking.  We absolutely can not get a dog right now.

But I think I'm in love.

I am brilliant.  In the sense that I R DUMB. 

Just a few hours ago, I went downstairs to get the laundry.  I took the sheets from the dryer, folded them neatly, and set them on top.  Next I moved the clothes from the washer to the dryer, then turned the washing machine on again and added detergent for the next load.  I then proceeded to start pushing freshly clean sheets from the top of the dryer into the washing machine.  I got four in before realizing what I should be doing and that I hadn't set the next dirty load on top of the dryer, as I often do, and that I should be putting in clothes from the basket by my feet.  DUR.

If anyone has seen my brain tumbling about, please post it back to me.  I'll pay for the shipping.  It's been missing quite a while, and I'm just not doing well without it.

Baby Bear's sheets were among those now wet and soapy, and I hadn't washed his other set yet.  Of course this was well past when I should have put the kids in bed. I was a bit desperate when I remembered an extra set of Munchkin's sheets I just keep around for emergencies since she bled all over them once from a scrape on her leg and the stains didn't wash out. 

So my sweet little boy is now sleeping in lavender sheets clutching his baby doll.  I think his purple My Little Pony might also be in there with him.  Take that, gender stereotypes.  I do find this a bit amusing, other than the gross bloodstains and the laundry mess that caused the situation.

But seriously, my brain.  I think it would help if I got more sleep.  Alas, I won't get it tonight.  My sweet little boy woke around midnight (perhaps he objects to the purple sheets?), and since a little light doesn't keep him from going back to sleep, I took Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone in with me when I went to lie down with him.  I've been reading it a little bit at a time between other books, but it was a bit boring at first, so despite having it checked out for a month so far, I hadn't made it very far.  Tonight it drew me in, so I read from page 70 to 217.  And now here I am at three in the morning.  Foolishness.  I think I've been swearing to quit reading in the evening since I was twelve or so, but somehow I just never seem to learn.

I thought the weather report must be a mistake when I checked it this morning to see if I should take Munchkin's snow pants to school (they play outside when it's warmer than -15 C with wind chill, which it hasn't been on a school day in quite a while).  Tuesday and Wednesday were still pretty cold, and I didn't go outside yesterday until quite late, so it just didn't seem possible that that temperature could be back above zero with possibility of rain. 

But it is!  There is standing water on the roads.  It's going to be great fun driving home tonight after it re-freezes...

It's so beautiful out.  It's sunny and warm with rain no longer a possibility since there isn't a cloud in the sky.  I can't believe that just two weeks ago it was nearly -50. 

How much has living here changed my perspective?  A few years ago, this sort of weather would have me bundling up and still shivering.  Now I don't even see the need to bother with a sweater (well, so long as I'm only out for a couple minutes before getting in the car) much less a coat. 

Um... yikes. 

A prequel to Anne of Green Gables?

I just don't know what to think.

Latest excuse: "I can't clean up my toys because I am very, very small."

Also, when it was time to go to the front of the video store and pay for rentals, she ended  up back in the kids' videos because: "woah, wooooaaaaah, the wind blew me down here."  Relayed by M, since I wasn't there.

I'm gaining a new appreciation for the old standard being assigned a school by map location, and that is where your kid goes, unless you are rich enough to afford private.  This open boundary thing is confusing.

On the other hand, I'm concerned about the school closest to us, so I'm glad we're not stuck there.  Though it would be nice to be able to walk to school in less than five minutes.  I haven't entirely ruled it out.  There is also a Catholic school just a little farther but still within walking distance that I briefly considered, but religion is a big part of Catholic school of course, and I worry that might be confusing when she's so young.  There is a third school I've heard good things about also in walking distance (on nice days, at least, too far for bad weather), but it involves crossing a major road which makes me nervous. 

I'm also attracted by elements of the Cogito program and the Caraway program which are polar opposites.  The Cogito is super structured and has the advantage of teaching strong basics such as proper grammar which seems to get passed over in most schools.  They also wear uniforms, so less angst over labels and clothes.  On the downside, they seem just a little too strict, and they have homework right from the start of kindergarten, and then too much.  The Caraway program is more like homsechooling but in school.  Very Alfie Kohn.  They have a mixed age classroom which is very open to parents and family, lots of parental involvement, and are project based and student lead rather than teacher directed.  I read the Cogito stuff, and the teacher lead thing seems to make a lot of sense to me.  Then I read Kohn and the Caraway stuff, and that all sounds wonderful.   My conclusion is that I'm easily swayed and bad at choices.

There is also French Immersion where she would be taught completely in French. 

Other languages too. though not as common.  There are Christian schools too, though we aren't considering any of them.  On the other side of town, there is a school that focuses on the performing arts, or another school which provides professional dance training along with the normal academics.  There is also a specific hockey training school which provides flexible scheduling to kids playing hockey, and another with flexible scheduling for sports in general.  And returning more to the academic focus, an elementary school which focuses specifically on science.

It's all a bit mind boggling. 

And the most mind boggling bit of all is that in just about seven months my baby will be starting kindergarten. 

For my next car, I definitely need a remote starter. 

My poor baby doesn't like it when I go out to start the car without him.  I came back (a minute and a half later) to find him with his boots on standing by the door crying for me.  Boots and pajamas since I hadn't gotten them dressed yet. 

Off to run and do that now while the car warms up.  I hate wasting the gas, but it takes a while when it's still -27 C (-17 F).  Or -36/-32 when you add in windchill...

Only a few more days of this, then it's supposed to warm up a bit for the weekend.  Please, no more.  I hate the feeling of the inside of my nose freezing every time I step out the front door.

On the front page of Parade Magazine this morning: "Is Benazir Bhutto America's best hope against al-Qaeda?"

I'm pretty sure they prepare these things weeks in advance, so perhaps it was even printed already before the 27th and there was really nothing they could do.  But still.  Ouch.