Aug 18, 2008 | Whinging
The little boy was chattering like a chipmunk who’d just discovered an unattended stash of ripe hazelnuts and I could hear him from across the McDonald’s “dining room.” Not too loud, but loud enough to be heard. Usually I’m not a fan of parents letting their children act like, well, children no matter where they may be. If I’m at a nice restaurant and your two year old starts screaming and can’t stop, remove her until she calms down. She’s just doing what two year olds do, but that’s not my fault, so let her do it where she doesn’t disturb others because that’s part of your responsibility as a parent. Little kids jabbering quietly, though, are no different than adults talking, so if that bothers you while in a nice restaurant, you might want to think about getting over yourself unless you’ve paid extra for a child-free dining experience. If you’re at the grocery store and your son throws himself screaming to the floor in protest of the fact that you won’t let him have the giant box of Sour Patch Kids that the bastards put next to the check-out line, that’s also part of the job of being a toddler. I don’t go to the grocery store expecting peace and quiet, though, so the only looks you’ll get from me are of sympathy (after I wipe the smug “thank god I’m so done with that” look off my face). If you don’t want to hear little kids chattering and shrieking, don’t go to McDonalds (by the way, if you go to McDonalds, don’t complain about the food; it’s not like the menu is a surprise).
This little boy was in a corner booth with what looked like Mom, Grandma and Grandpa, Great Grandma, and Aunty. His slightly older siblings and cousins were climbing on the bacteria incubator in the play area, so he was the lone child walking on the bench and climbing over the adoring adults sitting at the table. I watched (no, stared at) this scene, listening to him chattering happily, seemingly unaware of all the adoration he was generating just by being him. All of his family’s attention was focused on him and his toddlerness. They laughed when he’d tumble while trying to crawl over Grandpa, help him get from Mom to Aunty, grab onto his diaper-filled shorts when he tried to climb on the table, try to coax a few more bites of chicken nugget into the general direction of his stomach. Every so often he’d spot a relative in the play area and squeal with delight.
While I tire of parents who assume that the world must stop while their children’s needs are attended to, as if their children are more important than everyone else’s children, I watched this scene and couldn’t help but think how wonderful it is for someone to be the center of someone else’s universe and the focus of so much loving attention. Every child should at some point feel like the most important person in the world.
When our son, our first child, was a baby I’d watch his movements and mannerisms, the way he’d stretch his arms up and open his hands while sleeping. The way he’d scrunch his face and shake his head when hungry. The way he’d purse his lips or open his eyes wide while smiling. I loved the baby noises that he, matchless among all babies, made. I so enjoyed all of these mannerisms, unique to our new perfect son. I’ve never been enamored with other people’s babies simply because they’re babies and had never been around new babies for more than a few minutes. My sister-in-law, while describing herself, perfectly captured my attitude: “I can not touch a baby, but I can’t not touch a puppy.” Even after we’d both had children.
When you have a baby you tend to become more aware of other babies so it’s a bit of a shock to notice that the baby girl in the shopping cart makes exactly the same face as your son does when he’s sleeping. Before too long you can’t help but realize that your unique miracle of a child is, in many respects, just another kid. And that you are just another parent, one of billions. While we should all continue to think of our children as unique and special, we do our children a disservice if we expect everyone else to do the same. Although, our kids? They actually were the cutest and most special you’ve ever seen:
Two in a long series of “Daddy asleep with babies/kids/puppies/kitties . . .”
First day of school. C2 starting kindergarten, which would make C1, um, older. Just the other day C1 was asking me where he might find a pair of shorts that color. Why, yes, that is a Jeep hardtop in the background.
Not the first day of school. Knowing the time period, my guess is some sort of party at C1’s house, perhaps where a group of young people gathered to knit mittens for a homeless shelter, while doing their homework, while playing ping pong. Or some sort of pong. This, mommy and daddy bloggers, is where you’re headed. And it’s good.
Jul 27, 2008 | Whinging
Because of various circumstances, two of them my fault, we have three cats. I do not like cats because they have hair and I do not like hair on my furniture and on my floor and on my clothes and especially in my bed and in my eyes. Or in a semi-digested form anywhere in my house, several times a week, no matter what hairball remedies we try (the most likely remedy, brushing them, is out of the question because I’ve grown attached to the skin and muscle on my hands and arms). If they didn’t shed and didn’t puke, they’d be more than welcome, but they do, so they aren’t. I’ve tried various ways to keep them off of the furniture, but swearing loudly works just for the short term. They don’t commit to a favorite spot, so every time I think I have it figured out and put something down to contain the hair when they lie there, within a few days they’ll realize that I’ve discovered their little secret and so, of course, that spot has been forever destroyed as a favorite spot.
Instead, I resort to barriers. An old baby gate keeps them out of the room I’m sitting in so they don’t get hair and other cat detritus inside all of the machines humming and whirring in here (they can’t be bothered to jump over it, although they could) and, while everyone else curses the barrier, it forces me to high-step about 200 times a day to get in and out of the room, so I intend to always leave it up as another simple way to incorporate exercise into my everyday routine. I put the two barriers in the photo above on the chair this cat has decided to occupy, instead of the one next to it, the one with the nice soft fake lambswool throw designed to collect cat hair, the newest abandoned favorite spot. This is the most popular chair in the house, so anyone who sits there will be covered in cat hair if I allow this cat to stay. Because the cats jump on the chairs from the front, and because they are fat and apathetic, they won’t bother to jump up when something, like a box of Kleenex, is in the way. Until now, when it appears that this one has finally figured out that a Kleenex box is not a barrier, but one side of a cozy little fort.
Jul 25, 2008 | Whinging
Has anyone, anywhere, ever had anything positive to say about their cell phone service provider? I called Verizon to see about suspending service on C2’s line while she’s in Chile. Why, of course: they can certainly do that, and they even have two options for my convenience:
1. Suspend the line, but continue to pay the $9.95 a month for that line, and no time will be added to the contract.
2. Suspend the line, suspend the billing, but the time suspended will be added to the end of the contract and there will be a $15 reconnection fee.
I suggested that the first option rather violates the spirit of what one might consider the conventional definition of suspension. Oh, no, ma’am, because no calls or texts can be made from that line. That unlimited calls and texts are included in our service plan doesn’t count. So, I can pay the same bill I pay now and the only benefit is that no one can use the phone. I don’t really care about the contract time because there’s no getting around that indentured servitude, especially on a family plan with contracts that end at various times. Verizon has the best coverage for us, so I’ve made an uneasy peace with long-term contracts. And a little-known secret we discovered when one of us needed a new phone before the end-of-the-contract discount applied: A $20 fee and the discount was ours. I don’t know the details and I’ve never heard that offer before or since (although the sales person acted as if it were common knowledge). I just know that an extra $20 changed hands and the phone was purchased at the new-contract discount.
One thing cell phone service providers are really good at is making people like me so angry that we’re likely to end up paying more money just so we don’t give them the satisfaction of falling into their little traps: pay about $50 to not suspend the service on a phone that won’t be used. Which, of course, puts us deep into the jaws of their alternate trap: pay $15 and five months to reactivate the service. I once had to help arrange a funeral for someone who died with less than no money. Not one to buy into the whole funeral-industry machine that prospers by making grievers feel guilty for not burning Mama in the finest of pleated silk and solid oak, I perused the à la carte list of burial services, and I mean perused in the conventional prescriptive dictionary definition, to read with great care, not that hippy-descriptive casual definition of to glance at. The funeral industry is much smarter than I am: there is no combination of à la carte services that is cheaper than any of their outrageously priced package deals. I don’t want to think of my cell phone service as akin to planning a funeral, but they use the same tactics.
I bought an unlocked cell phone on Ebay, and a local Chile SIM from Telestial. For use in Atlanta during the layover, I bought an AT&T Go prepaid SIM so she wouldn’t have to bring her US cell phone with her and keep track of it and its charger while she’s gone. That wasn’t necessary because she’s a big girl and can navigate flight delays and specious TSA rules by herself, but I consider the fifteen bucks I paid for my peace of mind worth it because we are not seasoned world travelers and I like to keep in touch. I over-research everything, so if there is a problem it’s likely that I’ll have a clue about how to handle it quickly. C2 used the phone from the US with one SIM, then used another SIM upon arrival in Chile. No contracts. No penalties for cheating on the original service provider. She likes the phone and would like to use it here when she gets back home. But, no, we’re tied to phones whose operating systems are crippled by Verizon to prevent customers from taking advantage of all the hardware and its resident software has to offer, all superior to the overpriced Verizon offerings, all free out of the manufacturer’s box before Verizon gets their hands on it.
I talked to C2 a couple of times yesterday about some housekeeping details like her safe arrival and trying to figure out how to make the long distance card play nice with the Chilean SIM and now I’m wondering: Do people younger than me involuntarily say, “It sounds like you’re in the next room” when speaking to someone far away? Or do they take it for granted that talking from the US to a cell phone in Santiago is going to sound clear? If I say “It sounds like you’re in the next room” do others hear an old lady in a wee-stained skirt saying, “I remember when this was all trees”?
Jun 11, 2008 | Whinging
It looks like the office staff at the endoscopy clinic got a new plastic-sign engraving machine. Sprinkled throughout the office are variously-colored plates of plastic with white letters gouged out in all-caps Helvetica Narrow, all with an admonishment of some sort:
AUDIBLE PRIVACY CANNOT BE GUARANTEED IN THIS AREA
HELP STOP SPREAD OF DISEASE BY WASHING HANDS
LEAVE DOOR OPEN WHEN DONE
And this one, which I noticed as I was swallowing the last drop of the tea I’d been drinking for the past half hour:
PLEASE
NO FOOD
OR DRINK
OUR
PATIENTS
ARE
FASTING
Good thing I’d rethought the cheeseburger and fries.
Apparently no punctuation came with the engraving machine and so they are forced to rely on line endings to get their points across. I envision the office manager – who mentioned at least 10 times in 5 minutes that one patient was very early and did she realize that she was very early? She’s very early, you know. No, not yet, because she’s very early – dreaming of new signs she can make between patients the next morning. Too many people are taking magazines back into the recovery area:
PLEASE RETURN MAGAZINES TO LOBBY
Too many people ignoring the no food and drink sign:
WE WERE NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE NO EATING AND THE NO DRINKING
Too many people asking if they have a bathroom:
BATHROOM IF YOU MUST BEHIND THIS DOOR AND RIGHT
The first sign one notices, though, is right there on the front door, clear to everyone before they’re even out of their cars:
DRIVERS
MUST
STAY
ON SITE
I’ve been a driver to here before, which is how I know these signs are new. I can’t think of what sort of tomfoolery might have occurred so regularly that it required a blanket rule prohibiting you from leaving the premises during Dad’s colonoscopy. In the past, they’d ask for your cell phone number in case you, the driver, wanted to escape the horrible local radio station playing from the tinny-sounding clock-radio on the front counter of the tiny waiting room/lobby. Really, has anyone in history ever enjoyed songs containing the lyrics Hot diggity, oh what you do to me? The announcer was reeling off birthdays of big-band-type musicians I’ve never heard of: The one that caught my attention was the guy born on this date in, “Oh, lets see here, yes, yes, hoo, boy, born in, heh, heh, 1820.” I’m pretty sure I heard him say he’d been a close personal friend. The only time one hears this radio station is in local businesses that must be practicing a kind of Chamber-of-Commerce solidarity.
Because this is a place where the business-end of a camera transmits images of various body cavities by way of insertion through any of a number of orifices, the patients are given sedatives, hence the need for someone to drive them. My first thought upon seeing the sign through my windshield was, “Unless you have a badge and a copy of the RCW in your back pocket, don’t tell me I have to “must” do anything.” I’d intended to stay there, but that sign all but forced me to leave, and I would have if the procedure were going to take more than a half hour. Next, two women, obviously sisters, wider than they were tall and clearly victims of their lifestyle choices, wheezing on the ends of their canes, walked through the door in mid-conversation:
“See, ‘drivers must stay on site.’ Oh yes, they’re very strict about that, so you’ll have to stay here. Well, I guess you could sit in the car. Or you could stay in here and just call Tammy waiting out in the car [10 feet from where we are sitting] on your cell phone if you need anything. But you have to stay here. See, it says so right there.”
“Oh, I see. You’re right. Well, I guess we’ll have to stay here, then.”
Ten minutes later another couple of women walk through the door:
“Look, ‘drivers must stay on site.'”
“Oh, is that okay? Do you mind staying?”
“No, no. That’s fine.”
Then, a couple of minutes later,
“You can leave your purse with me when you go back, since I have to stay here anyway.”
I’ve figured out how to achieve world peace: Just make a plastic sign that says:
BE NICE
TO
EACH
OTHER
Jun 10, 2008 | Whinging
This is the power cord for 12 feet of rope light. Which was on sale for $3.23, and I’m sure there’s more than $3.23 worth of adhesive on the back of this very sticky warning label. Made even stickier because they stuck it to itself. So sticky that you can’t pull it apart, it’s plastic so you can’t tear it without breaking your teeth, and to cut it means gumming up your scissors, and still you’re left with adhesive residue on the 10 inches of cord where the label was, which requires a couple of sessions with Di-Solv-it (I’d be fired first day on the job of coming up with kicky yet embarrassingly spelled product names that defy the conventions of acceptable usage).
May 31, 2008 | Whinging
A few months ago I bought Captain OCD a new clock radio because the old one emitted enough blue light to knit a sweater by. The new one is compact and not too bright. And extremely difficult to use. First, the volume dial is on top, at the back, so every time you move the clock you bump up the volume, but don’t realize it until you peel yourself off the ceiling the next time the alarm goes off. Turning off the alarm while the music is playing is no problem, but he usually wakes up before the alarm goes off, and turning off the alarm before it goes off at its regularly scheduled time requires a different set of skills. A combination of buttons half the size of a gnat, and with explanatory labels in 1.7 point type, must be depressed in a specified sequence while at the same time making the sign of the cross. Consequently, it usually went off after he’d gotten up and was already in the other room watching Mr. Rogers for Old People (The Weather Channel, or Northwest Cable News) and I have better things to do at 4:30 AM than be awoken. As much as I wanted to blame his difficulties with the alarm function on his reluctance to embrace anything new that I decide he needs, he was right – its design was obviously never tried on human beings who might be asleep in a dark room when it was time to interact with the device.
Yesterday I bought a new clock radio with a much better human/machine interface. I got it all set up and showed him how to use it. Compared to this, it’s apparent that the old one was going for some sort of form over function design award. Since it was Friday night, I turned the alarm function off, and we’ll see if he was listening and can turn it back on on Sunday night.
This Saturday morning at 4:30 we are awoken to music, loud music. Oh, please, let’s not start that again. We’re trying to figure out how to turn the new new clock radio off, which I swear I turned off last night (which also means that I have no one else to blame for this rude awakening), and which is proving difficult because we were startled out of our sleep and the clock and its buttons are new to us: “Yes, I am hitting the Off button!” was the answer to my less-than-helpful question.
The old new clock is sitting nearby, unplugged. When it is unplugged, the face is black and the radio doesn’t work, which one would expect from an electrical device not plugged into an electrical source. Damn battery back-up, however, keeps the alarm function alive and well, although it can’t be bothered to let you know that it’s doing you such a big favor.
