Hello Internets,
It's been a few weeks, so I thought I'd pop on and tell you what I've been up to here at the House of Quirk.
And the answer to that is not very much.
I spent most of the last two weeks watching the Olympics and most of this week watching Shark Week on Discovery. (I hear you out there. You're like, "Whoa, three straight weeks of nothing but watching tv? Is that even possible?" And normally I would say no, not for your average person. But it just so happens that I am a TV watching gold medalist, so I can marathon tv watch with less strain and tearing than your average recreational watcher).
But even I am tired of myself watching TV, because basically I spent the Olympics saying things like, "Wow, he's fast!" and "Look how high he can jump!" and "I'm tired of watching stupid swimming all the time!" to Shark Week, where I say things like "Wow, he's fast!" and "Look how high he can jump!" and "I'm tired of watching stupid swimming all the time!" Same tune, different channel.
So in the spirit of non-tv related news, here's a meager offering of what else is going on in my life. And in list format no less! (Betcha didn't see that one coming!)
1. I have recently decided that ZB needs to interact more with kids of her own age. She is great with adults. The life of the party when it comes to adults, but she has no idea how to interact with other kids. It's like she considers herself a short adult, and what the heck is she supposed to say to this kid over here? They have nothing in common. So I'm looking into Mother's Day Out programs so that she can have some supervised interaction with her fellow short ones. And since this is our first attempt at a daycare-related institution, I'm not sure how it's going to go for either of us. Anybody have any advice for us on making the transition smoother?
2. Speaking of new things, I'm trying something new with the cats that may prove interesting. Long time readers will know that due to Tony's crazy cat-lady tendencies and my inability to say no to a homeless kitten, we are the keepers of five Siamese cats. (Yes, five. Don't judge me). Anyway, with five cats in the house, you can imagine that there are some battles over who gets to be reining alpha cat. And while normally I don't mind a racing, hissing, madcap dash about the house at 2am, I draw the line at territorial marking, which Magellan has recently gotten into his tiny evil cat brain to try. Now, we've tried those cat pheromone diffusers before with some success, but they are basically limited to one room, and trying to outfit an entire house with them runs roughly the same out-of-pocket expense as trying to purchase a black-market kidney. So instead, I'm trying something new. Pheromone cat collars. Same great kitty pheromones, but now mobile! And at a cost of $8 a month as opposed to $20 for the diffuser refill. While it's only been a week and I don't want to jinx it, they seem to be working for us. No one is spraying or having passive-aggressive "accidents" outside of the litter box, and the number of all night cat fits has been reduced by about 95%. So yeah. If you have a nervous, stressed out or free-peeing kitty cat, I recommend the pheromone collar. It makes a difference. (PS-They also have them for dogs, but I can't speak to their effectiveness for the canine persuasion.)
3. There isn't really a three. I mean, I was going to tell you about how I'm trying to get rid of a tree stump in the front yard by drilling holes in it and pouring powdery stuff called STUMP OUT! on it, but STUMP OUT! takes 4 to 6 weeks to work and it's only been on my stump for a week, so I feel like telling you about it now would be a little premature. Although I did get my big drill bit stuck in the stump while I was drilling, so that was kinda exciting, if by exciting you mean annoying. (I don't know how it happened. The bit went in, but then when I put it in reverse to pull it back out, nothing happened. The motor goes "GRRRRRRR!" and smoke starts coming out of the back of my drill, but the bit doesn't move. Stuck, stuck, stuck. So now I have a lovely powder-covered stump riddled with holes and holding my 5/8" drill bit hostage. I'm hoping it becomes the latest rage in abstract lawn decor.) I'm guessing that my drill bit will come out when the STUMP OUT! starts breaking down the wood fibers around it, but until then I'm just using it as a conversation piece with the neighbors. I call it EXCALIBIT!
Okay, on that really bad joke, I'm outta here. Sister-in-law Mary recorded a totally awesome video of ZB petting some goats at the petting zoo, so I'll try to get that up later this week because ZB is adorable and you deserve it after reading this far. I just hope that her excitement over the goats in the video doesn't persuade Tony to try to bring one home. I don't think they make goat pheromone collars.
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Showing posts with label TV time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV time. Show all posts
8/1/12
Sympathetic Couch Twitching for the Gold
What? Oh hey, Internets! Glad you found me. It's been radio silence over here lately because last week we took ZB on vacation for her first trip to the beach. We had a blast and I'll tell you all about it but first I have to edit some video. (Yes, it will be a multi-media presentation since ZB LOVES sand and she LOVES the water and she's just too darn cute to be limited to still photos).
(But first I have to cut out the random shots of my feet and the sky and then quickly back to my feet).
(And the two minutes that I thought the camera was off so you get a close up shot of my right nostril while you hear me say riveting things like, "This sand gets everywhere!" and "Hold on. I think there's some sun screen on the lens".)
(Obviously this is Emmy winning material).
But all that is coming later. Right now I'm completely glued to my tv set as I bob and weave my way though the uneven bars routines from the comfort of my couch. Ya'll, I am a total Olympics junkie. Biking, swimming, synchronised diving, fencing, judo, beach volleyball, men and women's gymnastics...I've watched them all. And I feel like I've competed in them all since apparently I cannot sit still while the US is competing. I duck my head, I wave my arms, I tuck my legs up in time with the athletes. Tony actually left the living room and went upstairs last night because he said that my "help" with Gabbie's dismount from the beam almost knocked him off the couch.
And in case you are also tucking and rolling with me, I'd like to recap some of my couch Olympics favorite and/or interesting moments:
1. I'm bawling like a baby over the girls gymnastics. And not just over the All-American Jordyn Weiber fiasco. Not about them winning gold anyway. Not even just for the Americans. Just in general. Something about these tiny girls trying so hard just gets me every time. They train and they train and they train and they are so small and strong and young and...I could just scoop up every one of them and give them a big hug. Not that NBC is helping any with their constant back stories about how they had to move across country without their families to train with coaches that could get them to the Olympics. Swimming? I'm fine. Synchronized diving? Not so much as a sniffle. But these 16 year old girls flying through the air doing flips and leaps? I'm sobbing like I'm the one who just won or lost the gold. I don't know why they get me like they do. I'm a blubbery mess.
2. Did you see where Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins won gold in the road cycling time trials? I was feeding ZB breakfast at the time he was racing so I didn't get to watch/couch cycle with him, but I listened to it as I cleaned mashed banana up off the floor. I'm glad he won. I always root for the host nation if the US isn't in medal contention. That goes double for Great Britain, since they always seem to come in 4th for everything. Plus I just like saying the name Bradley Wiggins. It sounds so English, doesn't it? Wiggins. Like he's Paddington Bear's best friend or something.
3. I read an article the other day that said that the organizers provide 100,000 condoms to the athletes in the Olympic village. (Up from 70,000 at the Sydney games when they had to order another 20,000 when they ran out). Apparently when you put 10,000 young, attractive, fantastically in shape and mostly unsupervised athletes under a lot of pressure together, they erm, find a way to get rid of that excess energy. I guess some of that's to be expected, but 100,000? That's a lot of excess energy.
4. So what the heck is going on between the sets for men's beach volleyball? All these couples in swimsuits are waltzing around on the sand. Like, literally waltzing. I'm assuming it's some kind of weird halftime show? Instead of cheerleaders or bands they have beach waltzing? That cracks me up. Those crazy Brits!
5. This doesn't have anything to do with this Olympics, but if you get a chance, read this article in the Atlantic about a gold medalist in the 1896 Olympics in Athens. It's crazy how things have changed between then and now.
6. Did you know that they used to have an Olympic swimming obstacle course race? I'm not sure how they did it, (buoys? nets? underwater mines?) but I wish they still had it, because I think that would be awesome to watch. I like to watch swimming, but sometimes it gets boring watching them just splash back and forth in their straight little lanes. Let's put a ring of fire at the end that they have to jump through. I'm thinking a cross between the 200 meter freestyle and that show Wipeout. Get on that Olympic committee.
7. Oh my goodness. Did you see the Chinese synchronized diving? Blew my mind. How many hours and hours of training do you think that takes to be able to not only do a complex dive, but to do it exactly like someone else? And the other teams get ready and go, "Okay on three. One, two, three!" The Chinese just stand on the end of the board and say one word, which I'm assuming is just "go". And then they go. Together. Perfectly. I kept jumping up and down and going, "Did you see that?!? They even have identical water ripples!" I tell you, these athletes blow my mind.
I realize it's weird to stop on the number seven, but I can't think of any other Olympic moments right now. If you have some, feel free to add them to the comments. I'm sure there are some great ones that I've left out, but after staying up half the night to watch the Latvian underwater basket weaving team weave their reverse double-loop way to gold, my Olympic reflexes are a little fuzzy.
(But first I have to cut out the random shots of my feet and the sky and then quickly back to my feet).
(And the two minutes that I thought the camera was off so you get a close up shot of my right nostril while you hear me say riveting things like, "This sand gets everywhere!" and "Hold on. I think there's some sun screen on the lens".)
(Obviously this is Emmy winning material).
But all that is coming later. Right now I'm completely glued to my tv set as I bob and weave my way though the uneven bars routines from the comfort of my couch. Ya'll, I am a total Olympics junkie. Biking, swimming, synchronised diving, fencing, judo, beach volleyball, men and women's gymnastics...I've watched them all. And I feel like I've competed in them all since apparently I cannot sit still while the US is competing. I duck my head, I wave my arms, I tuck my legs up in time with the athletes. Tony actually left the living room and went upstairs last night because he said that my "help" with Gabbie's dismount from the beam almost knocked him off the couch.
And in case you are also tucking and rolling with me, I'd like to recap some of my couch Olympics favorite and/or interesting moments:
1. I'm bawling like a baby over the girls gymnastics. And not just over the All-American Jordyn Weiber fiasco. Not about them winning gold anyway. Not even just for the Americans. Just in general. Something about these tiny girls trying so hard just gets me every time. They train and they train and they train and they are so small and strong and young and...I could just scoop up every one of them and give them a big hug. Not that NBC is helping any with their constant back stories about how they had to move across country without their families to train with coaches that could get them to the Olympics. Swimming? I'm fine. Synchronized diving? Not so much as a sniffle. But these 16 year old girls flying through the air doing flips and leaps? I'm sobbing like I'm the one who just won or lost the gold. I don't know why they get me like they do. I'm a blubbery mess.
2. Did you see where Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins won gold in the road cycling time trials? I was feeding ZB breakfast at the time he was racing so I didn't get to watch/couch cycle with him, but I listened to it as I cleaned mashed banana up off the floor. I'm glad he won. I always root for the host nation if the US isn't in medal contention. That goes double for Great Britain, since they always seem to come in 4th for everything. Plus I just like saying the name Bradley Wiggins. It sounds so English, doesn't it? Wiggins. Like he's Paddington Bear's best friend or something.
3. I read an article the other day that said that the organizers provide 100,000 condoms to the athletes in the Olympic village. (Up from 70,000 at the Sydney games when they had to order another 20,000 when they ran out). Apparently when you put 10,000 young, attractive, fantastically in shape and mostly unsupervised athletes under a lot of pressure together, they erm, find a way to get rid of that excess energy. I guess some of that's to be expected, but 100,000? That's a lot of excess energy.
4. So what the heck is going on between the sets for men's beach volleyball? All these couples in swimsuits are waltzing around on the sand. Like, literally waltzing. I'm assuming it's some kind of weird halftime show? Instead of cheerleaders or bands they have beach waltzing? That cracks me up. Those crazy Brits!
5. This doesn't have anything to do with this Olympics, but if you get a chance, read this article in the Atlantic about a gold medalist in the 1896 Olympics in Athens. It's crazy how things have changed between then and now.
6. Did you know that they used to have an Olympic swimming obstacle course race? I'm not sure how they did it, (buoys? nets? underwater mines?) but I wish they still had it, because I think that would be awesome to watch. I like to watch swimming, but sometimes it gets boring watching them just splash back and forth in their straight little lanes. Let's put a ring of fire at the end that they have to jump through. I'm thinking a cross between the 200 meter freestyle and that show Wipeout. Get on that Olympic committee.
7. Oh my goodness. Did you see the Chinese synchronized diving? Blew my mind. How many hours and hours of training do you think that takes to be able to not only do a complex dive, but to do it exactly like someone else? And the other teams get ready and go, "Okay on three. One, two, three!" The Chinese just stand on the end of the board and say one word, which I'm assuming is just "go". And then they go. Together. Perfectly. I kept jumping up and down and going, "Did you see that?!? They even have identical water ripples!" I tell you, these athletes blow my mind.
I realize it's weird to stop on the number seven, but I can't think of any other Olympic moments right now. If you have some, feel free to add them to the comments. I'm sure there are some great ones that I've left out, but after staying up half the night to watch the Latvian underwater basket weaving team weave their reverse double-loop way to gold, my Olympic reflexes are a little fuzzy.
5/15/12
A Little of This, A Little of That
Hola Internets!
I thought I'd drop in to give you an update on the tree situation, as well as a Mother's Day recap and any other random things that happen to pop up while I'm typing.
First off, Mother's Day. It was very nice despite it being all gray and rainy outside, and sleepless and cranky inside (someone who will remain nameless is teething. She won't let me see for sure, but I'm thinking the dreaded one year molars. Suffice it to say, it is a whiny time in the House of Quirk right now...and I don't care how many times Tony tells me to knock it off). But Tony and ZB gave me a lovely necklace with ZB's name and baby footprint etched into it. Apparently you scan a copy of the hospital footprint and send it to the company, and they use it to make a tiny replica of your baby's print. (Or in ZB's case- her giant one). It makes me smile every time I see it. Total Mother's day score on that one!
In unrelated news, can I just say how totally bummed I am that Fox is taking the show The Finder off of the air? (Or took, as the case may be, because I just learned that the season finale was it for the show). Seriously Fox?!? I actually LIKED that show! It wasn't just a carbon copy run-of-the-mill police drama, or medical drama, or (heaven forbid) cheesy reality show. It had some good one liners, and while it felt like the characters were still finding themselves, I thought the show had potential. BAD FOX! BAD! At least give me an epilogue that tells me what happens to everyone! You can't just leave Willa hitch-hiking by the side of the road!
Speaking of TV, has anyone else seen the preview commercial for Underworld Awakening?
I haven't seen the movies, and I know nothing about them, which is probably why whenever the previews come one and I hear the line where the main character says, "In the endless war between vampires and lykins...", I always think of this:
Now, I'm probably not the movie's target audience so this "endless war" doesn't really make sense to me, but if I had to guess, I'd put my money on the lichen, because the thought of an algae/fungus combo laying the smack down on the blood-sucking undead cracks me up every time.
Finally, I'm sure you're all dying to get an update about our whole "tree or not to tree" question. Sure enough, the tree guy came back out last Thursday and was like, "So what's it going to be?" I cannot tell you how hard this decision has been for me. It totally consumed my every waking thought for a week and a half. I went back and forth and back and forth roughly 400 times a day. And I can't express to you how much I appreciated all your comments and suggestions. So in the end I decided that the reason that the decision was so hard was because as much as I liked the idea of a small flowering tree, I just couldn't imagine our yard without at least the pin oak in it. For better or worse, it is a main part of what makes the yard what it is. So I'm splitting the difference and cutting down the regular oak and keeping the pin oak. By cutting just one down I can solve the crowding problem and let a little light in for at least half of the grass while still keeping a mature fixture in the yard. And after talking to the tree guy about just how much they'll cut off the pin oak, I think I can shape it up a little bit on the other side to balance it out and keep it from looking so weird. So that's that. As soon as I signed the official paperwork, I instantly felt 100 times better. The pretty tree is saved, the yard will look brighter and more balanced, and I still get one flowering dogwood as a replacement. So thank you, beloved Internets. You have saved a tree and helped me out once again.
I thought I'd drop in to give you an update on the tree situation, as well as a Mother's Day recap and any other random things that happen to pop up while I'm typing.
First off, Mother's Day. It was very nice despite it being all gray and rainy outside, and sleepless and cranky inside (someone who will remain nameless is teething. She won't let me see for sure, but I'm thinking the dreaded one year molars. Suffice it to say, it is a whiny time in the House of Quirk right now...and I don't care how many times Tony tells me to knock it off). But Tony and ZB gave me a lovely necklace with ZB's name and baby footprint etched into it. Apparently you scan a copy of the hospital footprint and send it to the company, and they use it to make a tiny replica of your baby's print. (Or in ZB's case- her giant one). It makes me smile every time I see it. Total Mother's day score on that one!
In unrelated news, can I just say how totally bummed I am that Fox is taking the show The Finder off of the air? (Or took, as the case may be, because I just learned that the season finale was it for the show). Seriously Fox?!? I actually LIKED that show! It wasn't just a carbon copy run-of-the-mill police drama, or medical drama, or (heaven forbid) cheesy reality show. It had some good one liners, and while it felt like the characters were still finding themselves, I thought the show had potential. BAD FOX! BAD! At least give me an epilogue that tells me what happens to everyone! You can't just leave Willa hitch-hiking by the side of the road!
Speaking of TV, has anyone else seen the preview commercial for Underworld Awakening?
I haven't seen the movies, and I know nothing about them, which is probably why whenever the previews come one and I hear the line where the main character says, "In the endless war between vampires and lykins...", I always think of this:
Now, I'm probably not the movie's target audience so this "endless war" doesn't really make sense to me, but if I had to guess, I'd put my money on the lichen, because the thought of an algae/fungus combo laying the smack down on the blood-sucking undead cracks me up every time.
Finally, I'm sure you're all dying to get an update about our whole "tree or not to tree" question. Sure enough, the tree guy came back out last Thursday and was like, "So what's it going to be?" I cannot tell you how hard this decision has been for me. It totally consumed my every waking thought for a week and a half. I went back and forth and back and forth roughly 400 times a day. And I can't express to you how much I appreciated all your comments and suggestions. So in the end I decided that the reason that the decision was so hard was because as much as I liked the idea of a small flowering tree, I just couldn't imagine our yard without at least the pin oak in it. For better or worse, it is a main part of what makes the yard what it is. So I'm splitting the difference and cutting down the regular oak and keeping the pin oak. By cutting just one down I can solve the crowding problem and let a little light in for at least half of the grass while still keeping a mature fixture in the yard. And after talking to the tree guy about just how much they'll cut off the pin oak, I think I can shape it up a little bit on the other side to balance it out and keep it from looking so weird. So that's that. As soon as I signed the official paperwork, I instantly felt 100 times better. The pretty tree is saved, the yard will look brighter and more balanced, and I still get one flowering dogwood as a replacement. So thank you, beloved Internets. You have saved a tree and helped me out once again.
 |
| The Pin Oak is giving you a standing slow clap. |
2/21/12
Phineas and Ferb, Part Deux
I know I just posted about us being addicted to Phineas and Ferb (the cartoon on Disney), but at the risk of sounding REALLY geeky, I'm going to post about it again. I promise I'm not as weird as this makes me sound.
See, shortly after the first Phineas and Ferb post, the official Disney Phineas and Ferb Live show came to the Knoxville Coliseum, and my work had some free tickets, so I said sure! That'll be fun! (Plus, you know, bonus points for being such an awesome Mom, right?) So on Saturday afternoon, Tony, ZB and I headed out to discover exactly how you turn an animated cartoon into a live show. (Answer: costumes. Which I suppose makes sense, but I was really disappointed that they didn't teach a real platypus to wear a fedora and do round-house fighting kicks).
I dunno. It was weird. This is the first time that I've ever been to a show specifically for kids, and it was slightly unnerving seeing them EVERYWHERE. I mean, they had the adults outnumbered probably 4 to 1. It was just rows and rows of keyed-up, sugar-fueled, running, screaming, jumping children...a riot mob all under three feet tall. AND there were cotton-candy hawkers every two feet, which is just tossing spun sugar fuel on the munchkin land fire. As soon as we walked in, Tony leaned over and whispered, "I don't know how wild these things get, but if the natives get out of control, head to that security guard over there. He's got a billy club at we can beat them back with while we make our escape".
The scary part was I don't think he was entirely joking.
But I gotta give Disney credit; they really know how to work the crowd to get the kids excited but not too excited. Cheering, yes. Widespread looting and tipping over cars, no. (Of course, they also made sure that each child walked through a maze of vendors before getting to their seats, so it's also possible that the kids were bought off by the various t-shirts, hats, pendents, stuffed plush dolls, light-up doodads and commemorative platypus cups. It's hard to riot when carrying all that overpriced loot).
The show itself was very cute. Lots of singing and dancing and acrobatics. Lots of flashing lights, t-shirt guns, confetti cannons, fog machines and elaborate set pieces. (In short, everything a 12 and under would love to spend an hour and a half looking at). Zb stood on Tony's knees and danced though all of it. She couldn't follow the plot, of course, but she really loved the singing and dancing.
It did take me a while to get used to the "live" characters though. For some reason, I am really uncomfortable with people in costumes with giant heads, (i.e. mascots, roaming Disney characters, and the Easter bunny-which I will still go out of my way to avoid whenever I'm at the mall, by the way) and some of the characters had really trippy eyes that will probably pop up again in my nightmares, but none of the kids seemed to mind, so maybe it's just me.
But all in all, lots of fun. ZB liked it, it was entertaining enough that it wasn't torture for parents to sit through, and I may or may not be the proud new owner of a Perry the Platypus t-shirt.
Plus I figure that knowing all the words to the theme show will allow me some leniency if the sugar high ever wears off and the munchkin mobs take over.
2/3/12
Hey, Where's Perry? (You Can Bet I Know!)
I'm going to admit something now that's going to sound completely crazy to people without young kids: I'm addicted to a children's cartoon.
I didn't mean to be. See, ZB likes to get up freakishly early in the morning. Freakishly early. And I do not. Which means that she has me at a disadvantage when it comes to coming up with pre-sunrise activities to keep her entertained. (I know, I know, you aren't supposed to use the tv as a babysitter, and babies her age can't process the rapid camera changes, and she will be forever mentally stunted if she so much as glances at a tv screen, but you gotta cut me some slack here! Did you read the part about it being FREAKISHLY EARLY? And there comes a point where you will gladly trade 2 or 3 future S.A.T. points if you can just distract her with the singing and dancing shapes on a screen for 5 minutes, just 5 teeny minutes so that you can slump down on the couch without worrying about her digging all of the dirt out of the potted plants or dropping cheerios down the heating vents.
So I turned on the TV.
And she didn't care one whit about the singing and dancing shapes, but I was instantly hooked.
See, the Disney channel has this cartoon called Phineas and Ferb, and it's incredibly well-written, with fabulous one liners, and an evil scientist character that seems to monologue in the same bizarre stream-of-consciousness that I do in my head all day. (Is it bad that I identify with a cartoon character as a kindred spirit? How about the fact that he's supposed to be the bad guy? At what point would a therapist start putting giant red exclamation-points in my file?)
Anyway, Phineas and Ferb are these two brothers who spend each day of their summer vacation building incredible inventions like giant submarines or space ships or robotic bulls for a rodeo. And the boys have an older sister named Candace, and she's always trying to bust the boys over these ridiculous inventions and get them in trouble with their Mom. Oh, and they have a pet platypus that is also a secret agent who battles the aforementioned evil scientist who ALSO builds ridiculous inventions in his never-ending quest to take over the TRI! STATE! AREA!
(Hmmm. When you write it out like that, it sounds kinda silly. But it isn't, I swear!)
I normally have low tolerances for kid's shows. Too many of them have kids that are bratty and disrespectful to the adults in the show, or they stereotype everyone, or they're just crazy violent, and I think that's a bad thing to introduce to your kids. But I've been impressed with Phineas and Ferb. They value imagination and ingenuity, and even though their Mom never catches them doing whatever they are doing, it isn't because she's stupid or because they're trying to be sneaky. (It's usually because a helicopter accidentally snagged it and carried it off, or aliens beamed it up, or Dr. Doofensmirtz's invisibility machine hit it right before Candace could drag Mom out to see it...you know, totally plausible situations).
So now I watch Phineas and Ferb. In fact, it has become my favorite show to watch on television. And I don't just watch it, I DVR it. But up until now, it's been my guilty little secret. If Tony came home and caught me with it on, I'd pretend that ZB wanted to watch it. (For the record, she could care less, although sometimes she will dance to the songs they sing). If someone called on the phone during a show, I'd mute it so they couldn't hear it. If there was a Phineas and Ferb marathon on that day, we found excuses not to leave the house. And it probably would have continued this way forever, except that something happened:
Unbeknownst to me, Tony got hooked on them too.
He found them on the DVR where I was studiously recording them "for ZB", and one morning when it was his turn to get up freakishly early with her, he turned it on. And the rest, as they say, was history. (Which Phineas and Ferb totally visited in that one episode when they built the time machine and went back to the age of the dinosaurs! But I digress).
Now we watch Phineas and Ferb together. (Except for today when he was totally bummed because he had to go to work and missed Phineas and Ferb the movie. When he suggested we netflix it so that he could see it, I knew we had fallen through the rabbit hole).
So yeah. I watch a kiddie cartoon. And I know all the words to the theme song. And I've caught myself saying "Whatcha' doin'?" just like one of the characters. And I want to be Perry the Platypus when I grow up. But it's all good. I am not alone. If nothing else, it's given me and Tony something new to talk about.
And when the kid finally gets old enough to enjoy it, we may even let her watch our cartoons with us.
7/14/11
Think Twice Before Coming Between A Woman and Her Doctor
I'm sure by now you've heard about the thing Netflix is doing with the whole charging for DVDs and streaming separately? You used to be able to get the DVDs and streaming together for one low price, but as of September 1st, Netflix is charging for each service separately. Well, Tony and I were talking about it when we heard the news, and after tsk-tsking at the extreme selfishness of Netflix, Tony was like, "Well we don't use both DVDs and streaming enough to warrant paying for both of them. It's obvious which one we should keep". And I was all, "Exactly. The streaming". Only at the exact same time I said streaming, he said "The DVDs". And then we both stared at each other in horror.
Here's the thing. Tony likes to watch movies. He has an entire queue set up with movies that he wants to watch. I however, like the streaming. I rarely have time to watch an entire movie what with the baby needing near-constant attention, so I use the streaming to watch tv shows like Dr. Who and Numbers and Firefly and Wings (and yes, MacGyver). And in the event that I do find myself with 2 hours of free time, I need a movie right that second, not three days from now. So I want the streaming. Only he pointed out that the new movies almost never go to streaming...you can only get them on DVD. And then I pointed out that if he really wanted a movie, he could get it at redbox for $1, but where was I supposed to find the past 50 years of Dr. Who? And he said that I could probably find them online somewhere, and then I pointed out that if I did that, I'd have to watch them in Chinese with translations, and not to mention the computer viruses that those sites hit you with, and by the way he only watches 4 or 5 movies a month anyway, so it'd be a much better value just to get the streaming. And he was like, "why should I pay for each movie at Redbox when I can get unlimited number of movies for roughly the same price? And besides, Doctor Who is dumb". And then I was like, "OH NO YOU DIDN'T!! NOBODY BASHES DOCTOR WHO!" And, well, let's just say the conversation deteriorated from there.
So we're at kind of a stale-mate at the moment. We're both frantically trying to get through as many of our shows/movies as possible before the September 1st deadline. And yes, we could just pay the extra $8 a month or whatever and keep both, but that's just letting Netflix win.
Anybody else trying to decide what to do about Netflix? Do you have any suggestions? Be sure to leave a comment if you agree with me. If not, then please take a moment to re-examine your motives and ask yourself why it is exactly that you hate good programming, you anti-Whoite.
------
In other news, our garbage disposal is broken. Apparently, one of ZB's baby washcloths fell down the disposal and got shredded into tiny pieces, which then fatally wrapped themselves around the blades and the whole thing went kaput. (Who knew baby washcloths were so dangerous? They are the kryptonite of disposals). And since I'm the one who regularly "fixes" the disposal (read: knows where the reset button is located), Tony has decided I'm in charge of finding a new one. So here I am last night, doing an internet search on the benefits of In-sink-erator vs Kenmore vs Waste King when I come across this late-breaking news story about the woman who cut of her husband's, er, man-part and dropped it down the disposal. I'm reading the article out loud to Tony when I suddenly get the giggles. I don't know why. Surely such a crime is no laughing matter, but I just can't help it. It's like laughing at a funeral. You know you shouldn't but you just can't seem to stop. (And in my defense, the victim did refuse to comment, siting that the whole thing was a "private" matter. I mean, c'mon!) Anyway, I'm laughing, and Tony is looking rather disturbed and telling me that such things are not funny, which only makes me laugh harder. Long story short, my husband now thinks I am a crazy woman who thinks that dropping man-parts down the garbage disposal is hilarious.
But on the bright side, I don't think he'll be trying to take away my Dr. Who any time soon.
Here's the thing. Tony likes to watch movies. He has an entire queue set up with movies that he wants to watch. I however, like the streaming. I rarely have time to watch an entire movie what with the baby needing near-constant attention, so I use the streaming to watch tv shows like Dr. Who and Numbers and Firefly and Wings (and yes, MacGyver). And in the event that I do find myself with 2 hours of free time, I need a movie right that second, not three days from now. So I want the streaming. Only he pointed out that the new movies almost never go to streaming...you can only get them on DVD. And then I pointed out that if he really wanted a movie, he could get it at redbox for $1, but where was I supposed to find the past 50 years of Dr. Who? And he said that I could probably find them online somewhere, and then I pointed out that if I did that, I'd have to watch them in Chinese with translations, and not to mention the computer viruses that those sites hit you with, and by the way he only watches 4 or 5 movies a month anyway, so it'd be a much better value just to get the streaming. And he was like, "why should I pay for each movie at Redbox when I can get unlimited number of movies for roughly the same price? And besides, Doctor Who is dumb". And then I was like, "OH NO YOU DIDN'T!! NOBODY BASHES DOCTOR WHO!" And, well, let's just say the conversation deteriorated from there.
So we're at kind of a stale-mate at the moment. We're both frantically trying to get through as many of our shows/movies as possible before the September 1st deadline. And yes, we could just pay the extra $8 a month or whatever and keep both, but that's just letting Netflix win.
Anybody else trying to decide what to do about Netflix? Do you have any suggestions? Be sure to leave a comment if you agree with me. If not, then please take a moment to re-examine your motives and ask yourself why it is exactly that you hate good programming, you anti-Whoite.
------
In other news, our garbage disposal is broken. Apparently, one of ZB's baby washcloths fell down the disposal and got shredded into tiny pieces, which then fatally wrapped themselves around the blades and the whole thing went kaput. (Who knew baby washcloths were so dangerous? They are the kryptonite of disposals). And since I'm the one who regularly "fixes" the disposal (read: knows where the reset button is located), Tony has decided I'm in charge of finding a new one. So here I am last night, doing an internet search on the benefits of In-sink-erator vs Kenmore vs Waste King when I come across this late-breaking news story about the woman who cut of her husband's, er, man-part and dropped it down the disposal. I'm reading the article out loud to Tony when I suddenly get the giggles. I don't know why. Surely such a crime is no laughing matter, but I just can't help it. It's like laughing at a funeral. You know you shouldn't but you just can't seem to stop. (And in my defense, the victim did refuse to comment, siting that the whole thing was a "private" matter. I mean, c'mon!) Anyway, I'm laughing, and Tony is looking rather disturbed and telling me that such things are not funny, which only makes me laugh harder. Long story short, my husband now thinks I am a crazy woman who thinks that dropping man-parts down the garbage disposal is hilarious.
But on the bright side, I don't think he'll be trying to take away my Dr. Who any time soon.
6/22/11
Insert Clever Title About Jello Molds, MacGyver and Naked Goat Dancing Here
So hey. I'm back. I don't know if you noticed or not from the weeks of silence followed by three posts in a row followed by more silence, but I'm trying to spend a little more time on the ol' blog here. Not sure how long this commitment to quantity will last, but at least you'll get to follow all the exciting and mind-blowing stuff happening here in the House of Quirk.
(That said, I've decided to package all this mind-blowing awesomeness in a list format so that you can absorb it in small doses. Don't want you to get an ice cream headache from all the excitement all at once, now do we?)
First of all, I've officially gone back to the gym. You might recall that I was a regular there pre-pregnancy, but what with the one kidney and tiny uterus and growing-a-new-human and all, the doctor suggested I not do anything high risk, such as walking fast or lifting heavy things or stepping on and off a step to music, so I had to put a temporary kibosh on the whole exercising thing. But! Fast forward 10 months and I am back, baby!
And boy does it hurt!
I knew I couldn't just pick back up where I left off after almost a year of couch-potatoness, but I was really hoping that there was still some muscle memory left. Alas, how soon muscles forget. And how vindictive and cranky they are when they figure out that yes, you want them to support the rest of you while you hover in a thigh-burning 90 degree squat for the next 15 seconds.
So the muscles are angry, but they're just going to have to get over it because there's nothing like marching on a little six inch high bench in time to music in front of a wall of mirrors to make you realize that since the baby did those unspeakable things to your body, parts of you that never jiggled before are certainly jiggling now. And unless you are one of those fruit filled jello creations that old ladies bring to church potlucks and funerals, jiggling is not good.
(I'm talking to you, thighs).
So to recap: jiggle=bad. Exercise= necessary evil. Fruit filled jello mold thingies= kinda scary.
Another thing that you could possibly care less about but that I am going to mention anyway is that Tony and I have just discovered that the entire MacGyver series is on Netflix Instant! And oh my goodness they are so bad they're wonderful! As soon as we found them we knew we'd have to watch every single episode, in order. We're still on the first season, which aired in 1985, so you can imagine the cornucopia of mullets and bad special effects and "computers" that are just giant gunmetal boxes with rows of random blinking lights on them. Oh, and I didn't realize this when I was seven and watching it the first time, but Mac was totally a player! Seems like every episode he saves some big-haired blond and she kisses him passionately. (Of course to be fair, dude did just disarm a nuclear warhead with a tic-tac, so I can see where women might assume that all of his other skill-sets were equally...ah, inventive.) Still, if you have the instant Netflix, you gotta watch old MacGyvers. Preferably while you're drunk or severely sleep deprived. You'll laugh your jiggly derriere off.
Finally, (because I really feel like this post needs a third thing, even though I doubt anyone has actually made it this far what with my sore muscles and tv watching habits being SO RIVETING AND ALL), you'll be pleased to know that ZB is doing just fine. She's hit the 3 month mark, which means that she's 1) working on her baby babble, which is adorable, and 2) drooling like a Saint Bernard, which is less so. We're also working on our daily routine, because BabyCenter (my go-to baby information website) says that babies need a consistent schedule so that when it comes times to nap or eat or poop they're not all like, "Whoa! Where did THAT come from?" (BabyCenter also says having a consistent daily routine will help ZB sleep through the night, and while I'm not quite sure about how consistently eating at 3pm helps mama get some zzzzzs, I'm just desperate enough to try it. Sleeping through the night is our holy grail, and if Babycenter said that me dancing naked on my roof with a goat would ensure a solid 8 hours of sleep, I'd be up there in a heartbeat with an entire herd). Actually, since we started this whole schedule thing our days have been a little more organized (for instance, I can tell you that she had exactly 15.8 oz of milk today and 6 wet and 2 poopie diapers) AND ZB has been sleeping a few minutes longer each night, so goooooo baby schedule! The only downside to it is that it requires a bit of record-keeping as to when the the above mentioned eating and sleeping and pooping occurs, and so far Tony has been remiss in recording pertinent information. (My part of the official record is documented minute by minute, while the three hour section that he watched her while I was at the gym just has the words "One Poop?" scribbled on a random scrap of paper. It appears that baby training is a lot easier than husband training).
So yeah...that's the inside look at out lifestyles of the rich and famous. Our evenings now mostly involve us sitting around on the couch watching a tv show from 1985 while Mama complains about her sore glutes and marks down the EXACT second the ZB takes a sip of milk or needs a diaper change. Not exactly world-changing, but I've seen reality shows with worse stuff.
Plus if you're really lucky and ZB has a couple of bad nights, there's a chance that whole naked-on-the-roof-with-goats thing will still happen. And what with the jiggle and all, there's no way you'd want to miss that.
(That said, I've decided to package all this mind-blowing awesomeness in a list format so that you can absorb it in small doses. Don't want you to get an ice cream headache from all the excitement all at once, now do we?)
First of all, I've officially gone back to the gym. You might recall that I was a regular there pre-pregnancy, but what with the one kidney and tiny uterus and growing-a-new-human and all, the doctor suggested I not do anything high risk, such as walking fast or lifting heavy things or stepping on and off a step to music, so I had to put a temporary kibosh on the whole exercising thing. But! Fast forward 10 months and I am back, baby!
And boy does it hurt!
I knew I couldn't just pick back up where I left off after almost a year of couch-potatoness, but I was really hoping that there was still some muscle memory left. Alas, how soon muscles forget. And how vindictive and cranky they are when they figure out that yes, you want them to support the rest of you while you hover in a thigh-burning 90 degree squat for the next 15 seconds.
So the muscles are angry, but they're just going to have to get over it because there's nothing like marching on a little six inch high bench in time to music in front of a wall of mirrors to make you realize that since the baby did those unspeakable things to your body, parts of you that never jiggled before are certainly jiggling now. And unless you are one of those fruit filled jello creations that old ladies bring to church potlucks and funerals, jiggling is not good.
(I'm talking to you, thighs).
So to recap: jiggle=bad. Exercise= necessary evil. Fruit filled jello mold thingies= kinda scary.
Another thing that you could possibly care less about but that I am going to mention anyway is that Tony and I have just discovered that the entire MacGyver series is on Netflix Instant! And oh my goodness they are so bad they're wonderful! As soon as we found them we knew we'd have to watch every single episode, in order. We're still on the first season, which aired in 1985, so you can imagine the cornucopia of mullets and bad special effects and "computers" that are just giant gunmetal boxes with rows of random blinking lights on them. Oh, and I didn't realize this when I was seven and watching it the first time, but Mac was totally a player! Seems like every episode he saves some big-haired blond and she kisses him passionately. (Of course to be fair, dude did just disarm a nuclear warhead with a tic-tac, so I can see where women might assume that all of his other skill-sets were equally...ah, inventive.) Still, if you have the instant Netflix, you gotta watch old MacGyvers. Preferably while you're drunk or severely sleep deprived. You'll laugh your jiggly derriere off.
Finally, (because I really feel like this post needs a third thing, even though I doubt anyone has actually made it this far what with my sore muscles and tv watching habits being SO RIVETING AND ALL), you'll be pleased to know that ZB is doing just fine. She's hit the 3 month mark, which means that she's 1) working on her baby babble, which is adorable, and 2) drooling like a Saint Bernard, which is less so. We're also working on our daily routine, because BabyCenter (my go-to baby information website) says that babies need a consistent schedule so that when it comes times to nap or eat or poop they're not all like, "Whoa! Where did THAT come from?" (BabyCenter also says having a consistent daily routine will help ZB sleep through the night, and while I'm not quite sure about how consistently eating at 3pm helps mama get some zzzzzs, I'm just desperate enough to try it. Sleeping through the night is our holy grail, and if Babycenter said that me dancing naked on my roof with a goat would ensure a solid 8 hours of sleep, I'd be up there in a heartbeat with an entire herd). Actually, since we started this whole schedule thing our days have been a little more organized (for instance, I can tell you that she had exactly 15.8 oz of milk today and 6 wet and 2 poopie diapers) AND ZB has been sleeping a few minutes longer each night, so goooooo baby schedule! The only downside to it is that it requires a bit of record-keeping as to when the the above mentioned eating and sleeping and pooping occurs, and so far Tony has been remiss in recording pertinent information. (My part of the official record is documented minute by minute, while the three hour section that he watched her while I was at the gym just has the words "One Poop?" scribbled on a random scrap of paper. It appears that baby training is a lot easier than husband training).
So yeah...that's the inside look at out lifestyles of the rich and famous. Our evenings now mostly involve us sitting around on the couch watching a tv show from 1985 while Mama complains about her sore glutes and marks down the EXACT second the ZB takes a sip of milk or needs a diaper change. Not exactly world-changing, but I've seen reality shows with worse stuff.
Plus if you're really lucky and ZB has a couple of bad nights, there's a chance that whole naked-on-the-roof-with-goats thing will still happen. And what with the jiggle and all, there's no way you'd want to miss that.
7/20/10
TV, Music, Movies, and One Sticky Wicket
You know what we haven't done in a while? A 10 on Tuesday. And look! It's a Tuesday! It's like the universe is telling me to string random thoughts together with bullet points!
Edited to add: The Seester has just texted me the following: "Watching Criminal Minds. 3 white guys aged 25-35 were just strangled in Miami over one month. Happy now?" To which I say, Yes. Yes I am.
- Tony's parents and sister can to stay with us this weekend. We made them eat and go to a minor league baseball game (that ended up lasting 14 grueling innings) and eat and box each other on the wii and eat and hike trails at the nature center and eat. Needless to say, a lot of food was consumed. I like seeing them, but my metabolism isn't what it used to be. It takes forever to recover from these weekends. I shudder at the gym time this is going to take.
- There's a Criminal Minds marathon on, and after about 12 episodes, it has dawned on me that every single victim was a young woman. Never any men. Never any old people. (One child abduction, but again, a young woman). Do they only take cases where women are victims? Do they not care about men, children and the elderly? Or are those people just not grievously butchered in the writers' world? Sometimes 4 or 5 women are killed in a single episode. They better be careful or there's going to be a serious shortage of young women if they're all busy being murdered by serial killers. Injudicious thinning of a specific demographic of society will have serious long-term anthropological effects.
- I'm really hooked on the band Frightened Rabbit right now, especially their songs Swim until you can't see land and Backwards Walk. I hum Swim to myself when I'm (what else?) swimming, because the beat corresponds with my strokes. If you haven't checked them out yet, I recommend them.
- Speaking of songs I like, you know that song Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine? I LOVE that song! I added it to my playlist a couple of months ago, but since then I've heard it everywhere! (The preview for that USA show about the woman CIA agent, and the new trailer for the Julia Roberts Eat, Pray, Love movie both feature it). It is wicked catchy.
- Speaking of Eat, Pray, Love, I'm not sure how I feel about it being turned into a movie. I loved the book, but it just doesn't seem like the kind of story that could transfer to the big screen. I mean sure, they could show her traveling through Italy and India and Bali, but the real journey is an inner journey; a spiritual pilgrimage if you will. I love Julia Roberts, but I'm not sure how she can relay spiritual awakening on a movie screen. I'm afraid that they're just going to make a shell movie of the real story. Or worse, just change the story completely. I just don't trust movies based on books. They always feel like they cheapen the story for me. What do you think? Did anyone else read the book? How do you feel about the movie?
- Actually, since we're talking about Eat, Pray, Love, I'm going to go ahead and say that I liked the second book, Committed, much better. It kinda picks up where the first one left off, only instead of being a spiritual journey, it's a journey of matrimony. I highly recommend it. Elizabeth Gilbert makes me laugh and cry and snort and sigh and look at things in a whole new light.
- In other news, apparently my house hates me. First the light in my bedroom broke (well, not so much broke as the bulbs get "surface of the sun" hot and keep burning themselves out and threatening to set things on fire), and then the shower head in the guest bathroom went totally cuckoo for cocoa puffs and started spraying water everywhere, and now the front porch light is on the fritz. (I thought it was just a burned out bulb but I've come to find out that no, the whole thing is shot and the house apparently just hates me). These are all fairly easy fixes, but by ganging up on me at once, it pretty much guarantees that I'll have to spend an entire day trying to play Bob Vila.
- I've been watching episodes of The IT crowd on Netflix recently. It's a British comedy about a woman who claims to know a lot more about computers than she actually does and ends up hired as the head of an IT department. The two guys who work for her are your classic computer nerds (but with British accents!) and the whole thing devolves into crazy hi-jinks and hilarity. There's three seasons that you can watch instantly on Netflix if crazy British sitcoms are you thing.
- Speaking of British television, (or the "telly" as it were) I've decided to incorporate more English phrases into my everyday speaking. Not the accent, mind you, but just the phrases. For example, at least once a day, I will try to work in the phrase "Well, this is a bit of a sticky wicket now, isn't it?" (Why? No idea. I just like the way "sticky wicket" rolls off the tongue. Plus if nothing else, it will be a new way to make people crazy). I also like, "Oh, bother" as an alternative. It reminds me of Paddington bear.
- You know the phrase that I do say more than any other? I mean far more than any other? Like 50 times, every single day? (No, no, it's not "Unbelievable!" for those who watched the whale video, although good guess). It's "It's not time to eat yet". I say this to the cats, and I say it roughly a thousand times a day. They get dinner at 5:00 every evening, but they seem to think that if they go tearing off to their food bowls every time I shift position, they'll get fed earlier. Hence the phrase. Now, how sad is it that this is the sentence I say the most, and how much sadder is it that the majority of my daily conversation takes place with cats? If only I could work "sticky wicket" in somewhere.
Edited to add: The Seester has just texted me the following: "Watching Criminal Minds. 3 white guys aged 25-35 were just strangled in Miami over one month. Happy now?" To which I say, Yes. Yes I am.
2/24/10
In the Medal Standing for Olympic Watching, Just Consider Me Norway
I give! I give! The Olympics have officially beaten me. I have decided that it is humanly impossible to watch every single event, every day. (Besides, how many freaking biathlon races can there possibly be anyway?!? Every time I turn it on the TV, someone is skiing and shooting. Ski and shoot. Ski and shoot. Feuding warlords use less ammunition. And those poor athletes could have probably skied around the globe by now). So I'm giving up on all but some of my absolute favorites. I'll watch the hockey, and any other ski cross events, and maybe some random bobsled, but other than that? Done. Men's semi-quarter-final 100M freestyle two-man luge? Out. Women's longer-than-short-but-shorter-than-long pairs technical ice dancing program? I'll catch the highlights some other time. The in-depth behind-the-scenes history of the making of the official Olympic ice sculptures? I'm sorry, but I just can't do it. I cannot stand another moment in front of the TV. I gave it all I had, but I just don't have the stamina. Despite my Olympic trash-talking going in, I have officially crashed and burned. NBC is slow motion replaying the carnage of me rolling off the couch in an Olympic stupor. I loved every minute of it, but it has beaten me. I'll train hard, find a new coach, and maybe you'll see me again in four years. But for now, I'm done.
(The good news is, I should be back to a somewhat normal blogging schedule after this. I know all one of you has missed me).
(The good news is, I should be back to a somewhat normal blogging schedule after this. I know all one of you has missed me).
2/19/10
Insert Olympics Theme Song Here
I know, I know, I've been off the blog. I blame my addiction to all things Olympics. I have the DVR set to record any program that even utters a word that rhymes with Olympics, so suddenly I find myself watching 10 hours of Olympic coverage EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. (And as someone who can go several days without turning the thing on, all this television is making my eyes bleed. Seriously, I think I'm developing couch sores). But can I stop? Noooooo. I'm an Olympics junkie.
Here's some things I've noticed:
Here's some things I've noticed:
- I thought the opening ceremony was lovely, just lovely. (Well, except for the one part where the giant ice statues of the four founders raised their arms "in welcome". Then they looked like giant zombies. Creeped me out a little to be honest). But the rest with the dancing? Awesome.
- Does anyone else think that the US ski team's uniforms look like pajamas? I have a very similar pair that I purchased at the Gap a few years ago. How funny would that be if that's where they got theirs too?
- What's with giving all the podium winners a bouquet of salad greens? I mean, they're very nice, but it's COMPLETELY GREEN! Green leaves, green mums, green berries. The Pop-Eye song, "I'm strong to the finish cause I eat me spinach" plays through my head whenever they hand out the leafy bouquets.
- Dude! The men's figure skaters? Totally dreamy! All of them. I figure it's the look of intensity that they have. Very manly. (Well, that and the super muscular rear end that they all have. They really put the figure in figure skating!)
- Whoever picked the music for the background stories for the athletes must have been going through my personal song collection. I swear each snippet playing behind every slow-mo jump, flip, and slide is one I have on my ipod. Someone has fabulous taste in music.
- I think poor Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel might just come to blows with "Dr. Doppler". The other day when Jim was explaining that there was no precipitation in the air, therefore the Doppler wouldn't show anything, he looked a little stained. I don't think the "Dr. Doom" nickname helped anything either.
- I have discovered that I somehow know all the words to "Oh Canada". (Well, not the French part, obviously, but all the parts in English). Now whenever it's time for a Canadian to compete, I find myself singing it. Loudly. I didn't even realize that I was doing this until one night when Tony yelled from another room, "Babe! We're NOT CANADIAN!"
- Johnny Weir(d) makes me crazy. He skates beautifully, but all his comments are just ridiculous! I cringe every time I hear a sound bit of his. He's trying too hard to be outrageous and it comes off as obnoxious and phony. I just want to tell him, "You're one of the best skaters in the world...get your attention on the ice."
- Does the snowboard team have official Olympic jeans, or can they just wear their favorite pair? Because if they just pick their own favorites, the marketing guru in me sees this as branding gold, my friend.
- How exactly does one go about constructing his own secret half pipe? And do you need a building permit to do it?
- I know that the medals are all wavy on purpose this year to reflect the light and everything, but every time I see one I just want to hammer that sucker nice and flat again. (What's that you say? Anal retentive? Yes. What's your point?) I just think that if you're going to go through all the trouble of winning an Olympic medal, it'd be nice if it didn't look like it had been accidentally run over by a bus first.
