My Birthday Song...

Every year since they were in the third grade my kids (more accurately, my daughters with some help from my sons) write a parody song making fun of me and how old/gray/geeky I am. It is referred to as my "birthday song". Every year my daughters perform it in front of everyone at the church Youth Group meeting that week and a written transcript of the lyrics is part of my birthday card. It's probably because of too much Smothers Brothers and Weird Al in the playlists while they were growing up or something.

Here's a short but memorable example of what I'm talking about from a couple years ago (sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic):

Mine eyes have seen the glory of Mom's hair turning gray
We have scraped at every nerve and put them on display
We've stomped on all her Halo skills and fragged her every day
and her hair's still turning gray....

It can seem mean written out like that but it's all in good fun, and they work on it for a good couple months leading up my birthday. They take it seriously and they all work together. I love that they make the effort and how creative they are with it. I do my part by pretending to be stung a bit because they'd be disappointed if I didn't, but it's really hard to hide the smiles.

Mostly they're from Disney songs or classic musicals like "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Life", "At the Desk Where You Live", or a remake of the "Part of Your World" song from The Little Mermaid detailing all the computer crap I own and how I should go out to mall. There's a Muppets song in there, too.

This year's was a little more pointed to make up for the tear-jerker they hit me with last year when they reworked the song "I Loved Her First" from Heartland to talk about how they knew I loved them and how important I was to them even when they hadn't done their chores. The kids in the youth group thought it was hysterically funny but all the moms were a complete mess.

Even though they've outgrown the youth group and are busy with jobs and stuff they made the time to show up last night for the big performance, and I want to share it with you. Sung by both girls to an arrangement they did of the tune of a song from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", here's this year's ode to my age.

Mom's As Old As Time
========================

Mom's as old as time
Both feet in the grave
Barely even sane
Broken in the brain
Dinosaur in a cave

Just a little strange
No reason or rhyme
Small and yet deranged
Never has she changed
Mom's as old as time

Ever just the same
Never a surprise
Ever as before
She's been through the war
Proof the dead will rise

Mom's as old as time
Queen of out-of-style
Simply not all there
Losing all her hair
Still has quite a while

Older than the sun
She shook hands with Zeus
Older than Optimus Prime
All her screws are loose

All that we have said
Is she's foggy in the head
Mom's as old as time

Take it as a sign
You're improving like fine wine
Mom's as old as time

There's no way to follow an act like that, so we had cupcakes and a couple rounds of dodgeball. And I'm a year older in my favorite way to measure it. ;)

This Mother of the Bride Ain't wearing THAT!

I knew this wedding planning thing was going to be a project, but there are some odd things that are catching me flat-footed. Outside of the expected Charlie Foxtrots of guest lists (aka "Uncle WHO!?") and how to decorate a late 70's chapel into something that isn't so hopelessly retro without just draping the entire thing in tulle until it looks like we're trying to make sure no one catches malaria at the ceremony, I've run into something new.

It shouldn't have been a big deal. Now that the color scheme and a some other details are firmly established I started thinking about my dress. I have to be in the wedding pictures and I'm not good at that without a lot of prep. I went to several bridal sites to get an idea of what they thought was an appropriate getup for a December afternoon wedding.

This may turn out to be a mistake on the level of Napolean calling a rain delay on his third advance at Waterloo.

Please understand I'm not the kind of girl who dresses up a lot. I can do it - I have a couple of those perfect little black dresses and a couple pairs of killer heels. I just don't wear them while stringing CAT5 under people's desks and that's sort of my natural habitat. But you would not believe what I these people call a dress for the mother of the bride!

First off, my daughter chose some great colors that really fit her theme and the season: two shades of cool blue accented with silver. It's totally accidental, but I look awesome in them. I am not going to show up in any shade of "champaigne" (misspelling solely on the dressmaker) or chocolate or rose or "petal vermillion". Seriously ran into that color name. It was an unfortunate shade of pallid Pepto Bismol that would have been better termed "Pink Pearl" (as in the eraser). Someone obviously isn't too clear on what vermillion is. It is red, but it's tint is a reddish orange.

I've repressed the horror of the mass of tortured shantung that color was gracing/cursing entirely. The style of the dresses themselves are where things really get ugly. I mean uglier than grudging forgiveness. Judging by what's displayed in these bridal sites, my options seem to run between a sleek number from the Baroness von Schräder's Satin Cougar collection, the back rack of Cruella DeVille's closet, a castoff from Jackie-O's garage sale, or something dripping organdy flounces that would make you look like a pink, lacy Ringwraith. And they're bringing back JUMPSUITS, if you can believe it. Tony Tennille style with huge elephant leg bottoms. Straight off the Love Boat. Uh... no. Just no.

The best site I ran into is a company that sells women's suits of all descriptions, but has a section particularly designed for wearing to church. Think full-on Southern Baptist belle. There were some gorgeous clothes in there, and some even better hats. I wonder if Michelle Obama knows about it, because there is some stuff in there that would really do well for her. Unfortunately, I don't think we have a physical feature in common outside of our plumbing. I didn't see much there that would work for me off the rack. But I am keeping that one bookmarked and using it as inspiration for idea shopping as I start looking around.

I want something classic. Something tasteful. In a color you're not likely to find involved in a freak chemical plant accident or a compost heap. I'm thinking more along the lines of Lauren Bacall instead of an extra from "Golden Girls." We'll see how this turns out.

Now that I think about it, the rosy ringwraith is a mental image I have to loose before the wedding. If my prospective inlaw or my monster-in-law walks in wearing something like that I CANNOT even think it or I will end up saying it and I'm going to offend someone. And since I don't want my son giggling and referring to me as the Witch Queen of Angmar or Cruella theDev, I'm going to have to come up with another source for clothes advice than wedding sites.

Awkward Changes and New Beginnings...

I slog my way from the bus stop to the front door after a very long day, to be greeted by a barbaric yawp from the couch.

"Mom? Hey. How do I get my wife to go to bed with me?"

I stood there half in and half out of the door for a frozen second while my neurons wrenched themselves from mulling over the day's work troubles to full Mom-mode. But before my lips even parted for the string of questions lining up in my frontal lobes I caught myself. I remembered that I'd brought home Fable 2 the night before, and he had been home all day.

He had a big grin on his face. He'd probably been planning that particular heart attack for a couple hours. Once I could breathe again I muttered, "I guess I should be grateful one end is smart."

I asked him if he had a Condom (the game item) and he said he did, but he didn't want to use it. He wanted to start a family. Wince. I tried out what I remembered from the previous game. There were a few hilarious bad moves but that didn't get his horned and horny fellow where he wanted. We made a quick run to the bookstore across the way from the blacksmith's shop for some sage advice for the lovelorn and tried again.

A few fumbles and a decorous fade-to-black later, he got the predictable result of unprotected sex. After some thought and a couple rude suggestions from his sister who had put down her manga to see what the commotion was all about, he named the resultant house-ape JamesBond. I went to make dinner while he made farting noises over the cradle to make the baby laugh.

I didn't chose this little story because of the obvious morality play. For one thing, the kid in question is of an age where being married is a possibility (though I hope not to any of the current prospects). We long ago got past the embarrassment of any condom discussions and having to work out the game's corollary wasn't a big deal.

I know it can be hard to imagine when the when your kids are the age where the worst you have to worry about is watching your own language when they are blue-shelling you into eighth place again, there comes a day when when the conversations get a little more awkward. Once they're reach the M-rated age, you had better get prepared.

I feel like I've moved back in with my college roommates. I think back on those years and I remember all the stuff I saw and did. The all-night Talisman marathons running into the all-day D&D sessions. Drinking red Kool-Aid out of plastic skull goblets while plotting our way through our little weekly Elysium. The way a wooden practice sword stings your hand when you get in a good strike. I had this one friend who used to snort Vivarin and try to read religious materials upside down in between his turns in Axis and Allies. He was messed all kinds of up. For all my grousing I think this is an important stage of life. And for all my discomfort with parts of this, I wouldn't take away whatever they are doing to shape their stories.

When I'm stuck half in and out of the door with my jaw on the floor, I try to remember that no matter how awkward or embarrassing or shocking any one moment may be there will always be one just a little bit more so just around the corner.

Gaming parents in my particular place in life are rare beasts. Even with the self-selected older average age here, you guys are just starting your families. You're facing diapers and teething. My children are all 18 or older, and the youngest two just graduated from high school.

Or, to put it in proper terms, we raided Pomp and Circumstance. We got a tell from the last member of our group the day of the raid. We're no twinks, but we're buffed pretty good and I figured if we sheeped the trash between us and the Principal we should be able to pull the Superintendent without too much scraping. They drop the Ugly Acetate Armor, and in this school instance that's a Green item.

The post-raid wrap up had an even bigger surprise in store.

My younger daughter has been dating a young man for over six months now. Her brain is shut off as bad or worse as mine was when I was dating her father. After a couple months of dealing with her in this state, I actually called my mother and apologized for all the crap I put her through that summer after I graduated.

The big hurdle is she was still in school and he was out and I'm the kind of jackbooted fascist who insists on things like curfews and not hanging out unsupervised. After a few false starts and teary arguments, we negotiated curfews and various other lines in the sand. The biggest one of these being she had to graduate high school before anything went ANYWHERE.

But like all lovebirds, they wanted to be within arms reach every moment of every day. They solved the problem by him coming to the house every morning at 5am, her cooking him and her sister breakfast. Then after they've eaten he drove the girls to school. Then after school he'd pick her up and they'd spend every single second possible that they both weren't either at work or church together up until curfew. The day then usually culminated in coming back to the house for dinner and 15 minutes of goodbye-ing on the front porch with me standing awkwardly in the kitchen trying to decide if it was time for me to gently and politely remind them that it was time for him to head home.

Okay, sometimes I wasn't too gentle. After the fourth time I spoke up and they didn't even come up for air they both deserved it. But I respected the dedication on his part for getting up like that, and hers for actually learning how to do more in the kitchen than burn boiling water. I was very grateful that they returned the respect by following our agreements. And I can tell he loves her so very much.

The time they spent at my house told me a lot about their relationship. She fixes his car, and he buys her roses just because. There were a lot of afternoons alternating between Halo and Soul Caliber in the living room, depending on whose ego was most scorched at any given moment. He's better than her at FPS, but she's better than him at fighting games. When things got too tough on the one behind, they'd switch out. Conflict resolution skills are firmly in place there.

He's worked out a cautious truce with her twin, who at first was pissed off in a big way he was stealing her sister. The boys accepted him rather quickly, after a couple times catching them kissing when they were supposedly out there dealing with his balky headlights in the parking lot and embarrassing them.

I'd planned on surviving this week (which between graduation and my work has been a killer) and then sometime this weekend when the dust had settled sitting them down and finding out how we were going to do this from here on out. But my best-laid plans gang a-gley last weekend.

He asked me if he could talk for a moment so we went out onto the porch. And without further ado, he nervously asked me for permission to ask her to marry him.

While I was still standing there like he'd hit me in the head with a board, he launched into a recitation of the facts of the matter. He'd been planning this for months, but he'd waited until after graduation to do anything. He had bought her a ring and had been working to pay it off. And he'd already set his plans in motion to pop the question on their date already scheduled for the day after graduation. I just kept nodding while he talked and I tried to get two synapses on speaking terms.

I finally pointed out that I wasn't opposed to the match. And after we'd talked a moment, we agreed he'd better talk to the girl herself before we planned anything. When we went back inside, my sons asked him to have a little talk which I assume is going to be an expansion on the "you break her heart and we'll break your kneecaps" conversation they had already had.

For me, the intervening days have been spent trying to keep my head above water on the graduation front while keeping my mouth shut about the big surprise. And while I stand here in the server room at work watching this computer do it's thing, somewhere on a beach in Seattle my little girl is getting handed the first really big shock of her life. And I know in a few years, her own little ones will start throwing her a whole new set of awkward surprises.

I can hardly wait.

November Sucks...

Or blows, or something....

I'm a gamer, but because I'm also trying to have a grown-up life, it's not whether or not I can get a game that limits me anymore. My telling factor is getting time to play. Lately it's been telling me to kiss off. And thanks to the release schedule in November it's getting a little ugly around Chez Momgamer.

I finally got to play a little Gears 2 with my son (which I will keep offline for now due to EXTREME levels of humiliating suckitude), and he had to open the box to put it in. It had been sitting on my coffee table, just waiting patiently. I had to hide Valkyria Chronicles from myself because I don't think I have the self control not to do stupid things to my schedule to play it.

I've got eight games in a stack on the coffee table, among them Fable 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, the aforementioned jRPG crack pipe. Top that off with the three more I just picked up (Left for Dead, Naruto: Broken Bond, and Need for Speed: Undercover). Still got Persona 4, Prince of Persia, and something else I can't remember off the top of my head to come here in the next few weeks. That list doesn't touch the ones that I'm not done with yet.

On top of all that I have that pesky job-thingy, a Thanksgiving dinner to plan, my daughter's importunate boyfriend to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped.

There are days when you just want to say, "Screw all of this. I'm going to plug in Coltrane and play Bejeweled until the world gets it's sh*t together." But you don't.

For one thing, my son still thinks cover is only for secret agents and in the bowels of the Burrow that will flat get you killed. ;)

He speaks truth!



Though I would let both Robert Heinlien and Frank Herbert off the hook as well. *

;)

*hint for the un-XKCD-savvy - hover your mouse over the image and read the text that pops up for the extra funny

White Shirts...

I need to do laundry. Not just a little. I mean the dresser is empty sort of need. I need to do laundry like Blue Elf needs food. That means my traditional uniform of geeky t-shirt and jeans is being replaced today with something from the grown-up section of my closet. And since it's 80+ outside, it's a certain embroidered white cotton blouse. I only wear it a couple days a year, because that's all it takes to remind me why I don't wear it more often.

This thing doesn't just "get" wrinkles. It manufactures them to it's own fiendish specifications. No, that's not the best way to explain it. Manufacturing implies some sort of system or limits. This level of crease requires some sort of dark pact. I can just see it.

The moment I close the closet after hanging it up all straight and starched it begins the rite. By some sort of cottony osmosis it slouches to the floor, genuflects and then kneels in front of a secret shrine way back behind the shoe-rack and the outmoded monitor. In the deep dark of the night when the omens are most auspicious it begins to chant and offer up cedar and mothball scented offerings to its wrinkly masters. The dim light of morning peeks in the crack under the closet door. With its need sated by the Creased Ones, it is exalted and lifted back onto the hanger to revel in its return to it's natural corrugated glory and await my bleary-eyed summons.

With all the embroidery and my usual 5am stupor as I fumble it out of the closet and get dressed it's more than possible I'll get all the way to the harsh purple light of the cheap fluorescents in the elevator of my office building before I realize the state that it's in. By that time there's nothing for it but to keep going. I can try to steam it a bit when the walking group in my office hits the showers in the locker room after their daily stride-and-gossip sometime around mid-morning, but for now I have a meeting with the coffee machine and an errant mail server. I'm stuck in my furrowed shirt for the duration.

Then the trial-by-coffee begins.

There's that old truism about how if you wear white you'll always spill your coffee on yourself. Happens to everyone. What most people do not know is that this is not a passive problem. The shirt isn't just lying there across your chest waiting for the coffee to strike the first blow. They bow and square off at the center of the mat when you start to pour, and then every sip is a silent struggle along every tight corner, jostling step and distracted sip. Cup after cup, the battle will rage until one is consumed or one is stained.

Like any good soldier, it has its squad mates. It won't trust just any old garment. It needs a grizzled old veteran of many-a-skirmish and today it's got the best. The white camisole that goes with just about every outfit has it's back, as it has for many a sharp young prospect that has fallen before. Its ability to take even a full cup black coffee strike and then survive the Bleaching brings it back from ignominious defeat time and time again. Behind the scenes keeping everything together is the serviceable but perky white foundation known as "Wires".

The usual coffee and tea tag team called in it's own big guns. The whole seed German mustard from my lunch sandwich made a solid effort but missed its strike and hit the pants leg. There is little damage to the highly defended denim and what is there gets cleaned up with no trouble. An afternoon yogurt tried a drop off the left side of the spoon but was caught in the other hand.

The day done and the battles won, the shirt basks in the sunlight on the way across the parking lot. In the dishwasher sits the vanquished coffee cup, shaking its handle at an uncaring sky and vowing to return to fight the next day.

Once home, the weary combatants head off to the Dryvel bag to down a few, share old stories and maybe manhandle their way through a dryer-dance or two with that lacy demi-cup that everyone thinks is so hot while I shrug myself into that disgraceful old yellow sweatshirt I won't wear out of the house even just to get the mail and toss in a load of laundry.

One of THOSE days...

I've been having one of those days. Those days that make you realize that if you did, Diety forbid, run into a dragon today they would not only win but they would go on to win $10,000 dollars on some Funniest Videos type of show with the footage of your fight.

It would help if this morning had not actually started out yesterday. I spent most of the night working on an article, and I was deep in the toils. I looked up at one point and noticed it was 4:45am and said several unladylike words. I needed to get this done, but I should probably have not gotten quite that enthused about it. To add insult to injury, I had to get the girls up for school at 5:15 this morning. They were going in early for some project or other. I would have gotten annoyed with myself then, but at that point it didn't really matter. The difference between the two times is only half an hour.

May as well be hanged for a sheep, so I don't bother to go lay down. I make some coffee and burn four pancakes and the back of my right hand before I get the pan heated properly. The girls are wakened by the smoke detector three minutes early. They grumble their way into the bathroom while I stand there fanning the front door until the baensidhe embedded in the ceiling stops wailing. It wasn't too bad, so it only takes a few swings. Hopefully the neighbors just turned over and pulled their covers up over their heads for another hour.

The next pancake comes out just right and I settle into the flipping groove. I don't get to eat any of them, by the way. I'm fasting for some blood tests. I'd forgotten that, but one of the girls reminded me with a bite halfway to my mouth. I think back and realize that I'd accidentally followed the plan anyways by zoning out when I sat down to get some work done right after I got them off to bed the night before. I get them on their way, and then I hit the shower and head off to the doctor's appointment.

I had an asthma attack week before last and I've been fighting this cold that's going around ever since. My head's still really stuffy and the fever just won't stay gone. My doctor has gotten paranoid again so she asked me to come in and do some labs for her. It's one of those "we'll fit you in" type of appointments, though. I should have known better. Two and a half $*%)@* hours later, the nurse practitioner calls me in and we do the traditional measurements thing, and I hand her the lab request form the doctor gave me. She still makes me repeat everything I told the doctor last week and everything the doctor told me last week while she dutifully writes it all down again. She pokes me in the tongue and performs a couple other indignities and then she leads me off to the lab.

She waves as she leaves and I sit down in the Marquis de Sade school desk thing. It always makes me feel uneasy, and not just because they've basically parked me here to wait for the phlebotomist. That's just not a word anyone ever wants to deal with. Besides, the chair sits disturbingly close to the little door that I happen to know is a direct line into the men's restroom that's on the other side of the wall behind me. It's so the guys don't have to haul their samples down the hall and around the corner. I approve of it's purpose on principle, but it makes me uneasy. In all the years I've come here I've never had it happen, but I just don't know how I'd react to a hand reaching through the wall and setting a little cup half full down right next to me like that.

Three and a half fidgets and two uncomforable wriggles later, the lab worker comes in carrying a long box. I would ordinarily ask her what that was, but by that time I honestly didn't want to know. I just wanted the heck out. She leans it against the far side of her station, and starts pulling on a pair of gloves. Remember the box. It'll be back in a bit.

She starts her round of indignities while we discuss today's current events. Which I know nothing about because I've been trapped in their waiting room all morning. Seven different vials of blood later, she turns to get a roll of Coban to hold the cotton ball into the crook of my arm and she knocks the long box with her elbow.

This whole room is no bigger than a minute, and is lined with shelves full of odd glass and plastic things and small white paper boxes with strange words all over them. Whatever was in that box must have been somewhat heavy. It knocks into a shelf over us and we both sit in a shower of enigmatic medical stuff. Most of which is very light. It just sort of rolls across the floor until it looks like Hypocrates was playing Yahtze in there. It's the "most" part that gets us. On the shelf are two glass beakers full of the solution they use to test to see if you are anemic. You know, where they poke your finger and squeeze a drop into what looks like a glass of Romulan Ale? One of them hits the edge of the shelf below just right on it's way down and the cover comes off and the contents splash all over both of us.

Well, that stuff isn't particularly nice for you, even when it hasn't been used yet and is not full of sunken droplets of other people's blood. It's also not nice to the brand new shirt I just got for Christmas. Cue several minutes of Keystone Cops hysteria as they try to figure out if the stuff is still considered a biohazard if it hasn't been used yet and trying to make sure I don't have any of it left on my skin. I head home to change clothes in a t-shirt from my gym bag and stew in the scent of yesterday's workout and scorched ego through the traffic, which is moving at half the speed of smell. This was NOT in the schedule.

I jump into the shower. After I'm done, I make the discovery that my younger son has apparently gone into spring nesting mode or something and in his preparations to go to work has managed to use all five of the towels that were clean and folded on the back of the toilet and taken them into his room. I drip my way down the hall to the other bathroom to get a towel and then head to my room to change. Finding that I didn't have any work clothes clean to wear just made the moment all the more special. Punt with a vaguely suggestive game t-shirt I got at a convention and a sweatshirt that I have no intentions of taking off all day and head out the door yet-a-fargin'-gain.

I finally get into work at nearly 11 to be greeted with my favorite passive-aggressive customer service rep who has decided that I managed to cause this customer's problem via etheric transmutation or something and is pissed as all hell that I wasn't there to fix it immediately. After looking into it and showing her where she already had the solution to the PEBKAC in question if she'd bothered to read the technical support materials she's had sitting proudly on her desk for over two years, I go hit the kitchen for some coffee.

The pot's empty. While I'm making a new batch I stand at the counter trying to organize my To-Flail-At-To-No-Effect list into a To-Get-At-Least-This-Stuff-Done list, with the occaisional uncharitable thought about burlap bags and a deep pond nearby. I bag waiting on the coffee maker and make a cup of tea.

It's all for naught anyways. I get to my desk and open my email and find out that a group of people we used to offer a discount to we don't anymore effective last Friday but they forgot to tell us. Tee hee. That means I have to hand-hack every single one of their customer accounts so when their renewal notice comes out it won't break on them. Not complex, but there's just enough of them to be a total drag but not enough of them to bother with coding a tool to do it for me.

So instead of getting done what I was supposed to get done I'm getting dragged through the bowels of these accounts. That takes me until after six. All along I'm swilling tea and realizing that I forgot to eat lunch when I was at the house. I come up with several more festive variations on the whole burlap bag thing above. Then I get to start on what I should have been doing five hours ago for another project that was due last Friday.

I have no illusion the pint of blue mush serving as my brain today would pass current, but you would think the accumulation of caffiene would eventually spark some sort of chemical reaction in the gray matter that might aproximate functionality. So far no luck. I was just trying to eat a chocolate coin someone brought into the office as a treat for everyone, and I forgot to take off one side of the foil before putting it into my mouth and biting down. Eeeaauggghhh! You know how it feels when someone runs their fingernails across a chalk board? Imagine that feeling with your teeth.

On that note, I think I'm going to head out. The server I was using started getting really sluggish. That happens when you've got 200 GIGS (yes, I meant gigs) of Recycle Bin. Maybe Microsoft needs to make a new icon for "Take Cover, She's Going to Blow!" levels of full wastebasket on your desktop. It's been at it for fifteen minutes and the time estimate for how long it's going to take this poor neolithic creature to clear it's mind is still going up so I think I'll exit stage right.

I have to get home and feed the kids to something anyways. After the towel stunt, it's going to be something large and toothy.

Happy 2nd Day of Christmas....

I'm blearily blinking in the cold, hard flourescent light of my office trying to deal with life. The run up to the holidays was such a madhouse this year with work and everything I never really got the "Christmas spirit". Looking at the current schedule, I figure I'll get around to getting in the mood around 12th Night. ;)

Even with all the kerfubble the whole thing went very well, starting with the firing off of the Yule log in the fireplace right before we started opening presents and ending with watching the anime series box set brought by my eldest son.

Someone told me that teenagers don't do the crack-of-dawn present thing. When is that going to happen for me? My 19-year-old younger son was up every 20 minutes all @&$%)@ night, and the whole gang was up by 8am. No rest for the wicked - not even the extremely wicked.

Game-wise we opened up Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, NiGHTS, Need for Speed, and Mass Effect.

On top of the games, my eldest boy got some stuff he needed for deployment, a gift card for some other stuff I know he needs but I didn't know how to buy, and a book on how to be immature. It contains, among many other priceless gems of knowledge, detailed instructions for the making of armpit noises. This was tested out immediately upon opening. ;) I figured it might come in handy in case he starts to forget now that he's grown. My younger son got a new shirt and tie for work, some tools for his new mad scientist workbench, and a cushy new blanket for his bed he wanted.

The girls got these cool hematite magnetic necklace-thingys that you can wrap up into all sorts of bracelets and stuff and they stick together, the cushy new blankets they wanted, and books. A couple new series I know they were looking for and the paper collection of their new favorite webcomic. I was doing a quick check through my security logs after Thanksgiving I found they'd been hammering this poor guy's archive so I went and got them the books. To top them off, the main character wears this extravagant scarf, so I knitted them one to go with them. They were totally suprised. They cheered when they opened it.

The kids got me a Dilbert book and a special edition of "Real Genius". My monster-in-law got me pajamas and a Starbucks giftcard, my mom made me a whole new set of kitchen linens and fridge magnets. And she sent me seven quart jars of her best homemade jam (six of them made it - shipping heavy glass things from Alaska is a chancy business).

There was a whole lot more here from the Grammas and in general. Between my mom, my monster-in-law, and my grandmonster-in-law the kids make a pretty good haul.

We topped off the day by staying up to a really ugly hour of the morning watching an anime series. But we were having fun, and "work tomorrow" has little weight against "they're all growing up way way too fast" at times like this.

We're still not done with the Christmas thing. My BIL and his girlfriend are coming over Saturday to finish off, and the kids are chasing down some of their friends who were gone that they didn't get their gifts to before they left. I've got three more boxes of stuff that has to be finished off and sent.

For the Record...

Today's XKCD

... I did NOT try this at my son's school.

A few happy thoughts...

Good news is few and far between here, but I can share a couple things.

--There is sun today in the greater Seattle area. I've probably jinxed it by mentioning it, but it is. It's not exactly swimmin' weather, but there are parts of the sky-dome with RGB color values with high numbers in the third pair, and low ones in the other two.

--That coupled with a low volumetric haze and almost no fog of war means I can see the heron down on the river getting his ass kicked by that pair of ducks again. You'd think he'd find someplace else to fish farther from their nest. He's perched on a snag across the way in a serious snit. Reminds me of those Peanuts cartoons when Snoopy's pretending to be a vulture.

--My daughter sent me these links a couple minutes ago: this and this. This is good because a) she got the jokes, b) she's trolling the Whiteboard archives from school so she must have finished her math final with time to spare. Well done, my Padawan.

Pet Woes...

We have a pet labrat. He's a portly old sucker so I let one of my daughter's friends bring her two pet labrats over to play with him so he'll get some exercise one afternoon. A bit later he started getting sick, and we couldn't figure out why. After a month of fooling around with allergy tests and etc it turned out he had caught a rat-specific sort of mite from the others. It doesn't affect humans at all, and the stuff that kills lice does nothing to it.

Not only is he miserable and his skin a wreck, it knocked down his immune system so we're fighting an infection in the bones of his head from a tooth abcess that killed part of the skin of his face and required the vet to shave some bone off his upper jaw that was dying. The worst part is he had to be awake for it because when she tried to sedate him his heart stopped for a little bit -- he's too old.

The last three weeks have been vet visit after vet visit for the injections to kill the mites and twice daily antibiotics. Have you ever tried to wrestle a medicine syringe into a rodent's mouth? He only took it gracefully that first time. That evening and every one since it's Splinter-time and I'm a Foot grunt.

He's doing much better now, and he seems to forgive me for the medicine with little trouble. He's just not going to take it lying down. It probably tastes like crap even with their attempt to flavor it. Needless to say he's on a strict diet, we're looking for other forms of exercise, I've sterilized everything in his cage and the rest of the house as I can just because I can't cope with the concept, and he's not having any more play dates. Hopefully this round of the anti-biotics kill the infection because if they don't she'll have to pull that tooth and that means I get to add clipping his teeth to our usual routine of clipping his claws.

I better get Shredder's armor if that happens.

Disproportionately Funny....

Sometimes people say things that strike you as funnier than they probably should. There's no rhyme or reason to it; you just find yourself randomly chuckling about it for a couple days afterwards.

I ran into this exchange between two anonymous slashdot users today who were discussing modifying game hardware, and I nearly snarfed chai on two computers at once.

>"If you can't install Linux on it or otherwise do with it as you
>please, it's not anywhere near as useful as it should be."

I apply the same litmus test to all decisions in my life, including my choice of girlfriends and pets. That's why I masturbate a lot and have a hamster that runs Ubuntu.

I'm not going anywhere near the first part, but I want a hamster than runs Unbuntu.

Something Old, Something New...

Well, this new voice recognition software is finally getting used for what it is designed for. I've got the new houseape in my arms and I'm writing away busily. Thank goodness the microphone did not pick up the huge working man's belch he just gave me. I've got all this brand new stuff, but so much is still just the same as it's always been.

It’s been two weeks, and the world is settling into its new grooves now that he's finally here. His mother and my son are in the other room talking about their relationship yet a-fargin’-gain, and I'm not sure where this is going to go. A lot of my incomprehension is that I'm very tired, but still. All this nonsense seems very juvenile to me. But it's not my relationship so who am I to say.

He's kind of fussy. We just changed him and I’m feeding him, but I’ve got the audacity to insist that he burp halfway through guzzling his meal. How rude! But I think we've worked it out. There's always a certain amount of learning about each other at the beginning of all of this. Each baby likes their own position, and their own lullabies. We’ll figure it out as we go. He's only been at this whole life-thing for two weeks, after all. He's not sure where his own limbs are much less what he likes.

See, I said I had big news. That adorable mite in the picture is my sort-of grandson, Christopher Myron. His mom and my younger son are engaged. There is a whole lot of complications involved, but when it all boils down to most of the stuff he's going to be my official grandson here soon so I figure why wait. So I stand in loco grandparentis. Or right this second, I stand to get urped on, but that's always a risk with babies.

The girls are in the room tittering about something at the top of their lungs. One of them was on the phone with her ex-boyfriend for quite some time and they’re probably rehashing the whole conversation looking for signs of meaning like priests sifting through the entrails. It's funny to me how much rune-casting and maneuvering is required for just a simple thing as a phone call or even talking in the halls. I guess it's just another symptom of how old I'm really getting.

Sometimes I begin to wonder how I’m going get through all this. I don't now how older parents do this. I'm 38 for crying out loud and I'm about ready to go Elven postal. (Believe it or not this crazy software actually has “Elven postal” as a selection under phrases) I can't imagine starting off with the baby and size of him right now and be staring down the barrel of the next 20 years like so many of my peers are doing. I know I could do it if I had to, but it seems foolish in the extreme.

It’s kind of peaceful, though. This situation, I mean. It certainly brings back a lot of memories. And it takes quite a few of the rough edges off today. I spend a lot of time fumbling around, but this squishy weight on my chest just sort of simplifies a whole lot of stuff right into insignificance. It just sort of boils all the priorities down to brass tacks. It’s starting to show with his mom and my son, too.

All that emo feeling and crap washing around that was so important to them just a couple weeks ago became Priority five. For Priority 1 and 2 you’ve got what he needs and what he wants. Then comes whatever it takes to get those things for him in third place. Then what the parents actually need comes in fourth. You don’t even get to wants and what have you until after all that. And most of the time you just don’t have a way to get that out of the amount of energy and time that there is in a given day. I told them, but it takes having that warm weight in your own arms before you can really understand it, I guess.

It doesn't last long though. They hash out whatever they’ve got their knickers knotted about and her mom has come to pick her and the baby up. The tide of giggling in the other room has risen again, and Mr. Fussy here is doing his damndest to kick off his blanket. That’s life for you.

Zen Influenza...

remember the green skirt girl...
and everywhere be tender of the grass

She looks up from the page and over her shoulder out the window at a noise. Not startled or alarmed. Just wondering. The blinds lid the weeping window's eye but the rain is over. Clear thin tracks and lowered gray brows beyond are all that remain. The girls are out with a flock of their friends under the carport tossing a hackey-sack and discussing lipgloss. The sound had been the particular grainy slap the beans inside make when it hits the steel uprights, and the teasing laughter that had followed that miss.

Turning back and shifting on the couch to ease the neck-crick, she looks down again. Where were we?

remember the green skirt girl...
and everywhere be tender of the grass

The guys thunder in the front door, soaked to the bone and dripping mud and bravado. They'd been out playing football with their buddies and somewhere there's a patch of lawn that is being beaten into this spring's battlefield. At her comment about the mess they're making they laugh and step back onto the doormat. Arrangements are made to go out again, and then back to the page for just a flicker.

It's not making any sense. The words lie on the page in their ordered ranks and come readily to her beck and call, but for some reason once they get to their destination they are blunted. Maybe they're just tired from the journey from page to eye, or maybe the caucaphony of complaints from the rest of the body are drowning out the sense. She closes her eyes. Maybe if she just thinks about a line at a time it'll work.

remember the green skirt girl...
and everywhere be tender of the grass

The girls chatter and squelch their way off to the basketball court, and now the computer fans chanting their one-note koans are the only sound. A sniffle and a sneeze curl the body momentarily, but then they are gone almost like they were tossed into the wastebasket with the tissue. The motions are automatic now from many repetitions. She hardly notices anymore.

There is work that should be done. The test scripts are done running - the excuse for lying idle is gone. The dryer is done and is waiting to have this mouthful of it's daily meal of jeans and socks taken out. It would be easy to just pull the covers up over the head and let them wait. A half-hearted negotiation with her sense of duty later she gets up and deals with the laundry.

The words still ring in her head. "Do the girls have a green skirt?" she wonders aloud as she chases that last fractious sock around in the dryer's drum.

The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces surrounded by teeth. -- Charles Luckman

Sorry - that's just a thought to hold you for just a couple more days. Boy, do I have news for you!

Wednesday and Eric, sitting in a tree.... Kay - eye - summtin'- summtin'....

If you're an afficiando of Web Comics and their critique, you might have heard of Websnark and it's author Eric Burns. He also writes for a couple other webcomics publications.

He proposed to his long-time co-writer Wednesday White here with the help of a few friends.

(And she said yes. Well, first she said, "Duh!", but then she amended to the more formal "Yes.")

Congratulations to you both. May you live as long as you love and love as long as you live!

Between Week...

No, I haven't had a time warp. This one got caught in the fun Blogger's been having putting out their new service, and even though that was last week today feels a lot the same so I decided to just hang it out there.

New news at 11. Or something like that.

I sort of slump here in my chair. It's a Wednesday, which is in the middle, of a week that is perpetually in the middle. That week between Christmas and New Year's.

It's a between time. Things don't really work right. The whole world just waiting to get to that seventh day so things can starting going back to normal. And if you're one of those who are charged with keeping things on an even keel while you're waiting it can seem very hard.

A lot of lucky people are still out there on vacation visiting family and friends (or unlucky, depending on their level of family-of-origin fun). Every morning you do this sort of Left Behind perp-walk past all the closed doors and empty chairs on the way to your desk. We'll call it the Greenbar Mile. It adds just that little bit of insult to the injury of those who do have to come in.

In some cases it's nice because you know they're not going to be bothering you. But sometimes you need these people. Nothing says "Happy Holidays!" like a pissed off customer you can't help because the accounting rep is out until next week and she's the only one in the entire world who can perform the particular function that customer needs.

Everything else has ground to a halt, too. Heaven forfend the company who does your hardware support be staffed with more than a skeleton crew of cardboard Captain Picard cutouts with company polo shirts pulled on over their paper shoulders. How they get those headsets to stay on is a mystery. This motherboard problem we're having makes my current Christmas wish a guy with a really thick accent from Bangalore. I'll promise to leave him alone during the next Dewali if he gives me this obscure undocumented jumper setting we need to get this frelling server online now.

Me and the gal who is also stuck here are doing "team development" today on this little application that updates one of our remote installations. It's supposed to be a really efficient way to work, according to all those shiny best practices magazines. In real life, what that means is she codes something, and I sit there and try it out. It barfs. Then I tell her it barfed. And then she tells me her code is perfect and it's the fault of the patch we're trying to code to. We go back and forth until she comes over here to look at the error code herself since apparantly Terminal Services is lying to her or I am. Then I tell her exactly what I did again. And she complains for several minutes about it while re-doing the same bloody steps and chasing through the logs to confirm that I in fact did the right thing while badgering me to confirm each and every step. Then she decides it was something else so I have to tell her exactly what I saw again. Then she blames my computer and we have to go through the testing steps again on another box. I go through the same thing again. And then she looks at her code and complains for several more minutes cursing whatever has suddenly decided not to send her code back the proper return code. Then she sees what's wrong in her code. She fixes something. She drops the new files. I have to reset the box to the baseline so we can test again which involves uninstalling several things and rebooting the box three times. Lather, rinse, and repeat for 11 hours now.

Home isn't over-fun either right now. The kids are in the throes of acute School Break Social Life Disorder. With my eldest's best buddy who joined the Navy on leave and back in town, and everyone else off school I've got huge drifts of sneakers and coats all over my house. There are clattering herds of house-apes stretching as far as the eye can see like bison on the prarie. If I shield my eyes carefully I can see a dim orange light on the horizon that gives me hope - school starts up again next week and the friend has to head back to Norfolk. And then all these persons from Porlock will shuffle off to their normal lives again and only hold a mock UN meeting on my front porch on Saturdays.

Power back on, Christmas Accomplished...

We're back up now and much happier for it. I've still got a bunch of stuff to deal with, but now I have the tools to do it at least.

Christmas has come and gone in a blur. Thanks to the power outage and all it's accoutrements, I had a little less than two days to get ready and it was hard to do. We did it, though. The kids helped out a lot and we cut corners in all directions but we kept the important stuff.

So I hope you all had a Happy Holiday, and I'll see you in the New Year!

Power Outage Still Going...

They still have major transformer stations down all over. About half the areas have partial power. New estimate is that my street will be out until at least Saturday, and early next week is a better bet. We're right off the major distribution lines and the one at the entrance to our place got a 2 foot thick fir tree through it which then took out the fire plug across the street. Since this feeds a bunch of other stuff they can't bring it up until they get the four major transformers downrange working right or they'll blow that up. The fireplug is already fixed, though.

So we may not have power for Christmas. Not to mention no real Christmas for something like 400 power company repair crews and a lot of other folk doing double shifts to get us through this.

Some people are being really dumb. There was this stupid bint on TV today going on about how people burning wood was messing up the air quality. WelllDUUHHHHH! However, if they had any choice that isn't what they'd be doing and besides, the rain we're supposed to start getting tomorrow or the next day will wash things clean. And have the nice side-effect of warming things up about 20 degrees and we really need that.

On the smaller scale, people are grouchy and some are just plain being idiots. Gal at the grocery store tonight was going off at the manager because they didn't have her special whatever. The power was off for long enough that they had to throw away everything in the freezers and coolers on Saturday and they're still re-stocking. But her power hadn't even gone out at all and she just couldn't understand what the problem was. Somehow it was this poor guy's personal fault they didn't have her specific special meal. It's almost like they figure if it didn't happen to them, it didn't happen.

To offset the idiocy, we had a very nice man drive by us chopping wood yesterday afternoon who stopped and got out his chainsaw and made quick work of a day's worth of firewood for us.

His help freed us up to go after some big stuff and I got about half a cord in 8' lengths back to the patio for us to saw up and then split ourselves. We've been going to a brushpile left by a road project down the street year before last and it's gorgeous seasoned pine and poplar. Almost a shame to burn some of it.

My boss told us today that we can basically use the office facilities and do whatever we need to do. Our pet rat is going to be moving into my office for the duration. Tomorrow is going to be interesting because there's a couple real winners here who are raising a fuss about him and one of the other guy's dog. Another case of idiocy. I don't know what her problem is; Scooter lives in a cage and besides he's litter trained. Maggie is the sweetest old poodle-mix. It's not like she's a puppy piddling all over the place or jumping around or something.

I finally got paid - the power outage disrupted payday last Friday, and it's been an interesting weekend. We got our servers back up Saturday and we thought we were okay. Once they got under load this morning it turns out we've got three of them with damaged motherboards. We're running on backups and a cobbled together collection of my test and dev servers.

We're up, but it's like keeping a house of cards together when someone is walking around with a fan. A few too many people show up or someone searches on "court" in the entire Eastern District of New York and fwooosh! down we go again. True one from today. It's not the first time I've seen customers do a search like that; what the HECK do they think that is going to get them!!?? If we could figure that out, I'd find some way of getting them what they want that doesn't do this to my machines. Or at least find them a good scenic route on their way to the Alternate Destination before they submit it. It's taking two people to keep us up. Tonight it's me and the guy with the dog.

Poor Scooter has caught a cold and is utterly miserable. He started sneezing this morning. Vet saw him today says it's bacterial so nothing to do but keep him quiet and settled and wait it out just like everyone else has to and make sure he eats well and takes his vitamins. But I can't make him chicken soup like I do for them. He's not in any danger or anything as long as we stop this now. I feel awful because I should have seen this coming and done something sooner but the vet said it could be much worse - at least he's not a reptile of any sort or tropical fish or bird. It's been really bad for them.

One of the local laundromats is up and running and doing a VERY brisk business. I'll be there tomorrow.

I don't know what we're going to do about Christmas. We can get some of the decorating and stuff done without power and I can fake some of rest. But dinner is going to be tricky. And needless to say my Christmas cards and etc are going to be late. This really has me upset because this is going to be Johnathan's last Christmas home and I really did want to make it a good one. I can't think about that too hard or I just start crying.

Anyhow, I promised the kids they could go see Eregon so we're going to head out and do that now. I'll be back once I get them in the door. I should go but I really don't have the heart for it. I can use the two hours knowing they're safe and warm to get some things done for later.

Power Still Out....

We're still out, but they got the downtown Redmond area back on at least so the grocery stores and stuff can work. Now it's hard to get gasoline and propane. There are lines down the street at the stations that have it. I'll be joining one as soon as I'm done here. Then we're off to cut more firewood.

We're all still fine. I was worried about our pet rat because while the fireplace will keep things okay for a human in a sweater, it definately wasn't in the comfort zone. He cuddled with us for most of the night but he had to get back into his cage to eat and sleep. Turned out fine - he just burrowed right into his bed and has hung in like a trooper.

No snow yet, but they're threatening it every time I turn on the car radio. It did freeze. Not what I would call a hard frost but hard enough for around here. There's ice on the puddles and these single-pane windows just breathe the cold.

My server room is still a mess, but my boss got a fan in here and we're heating the rest of the office quite nicely trying to keep it cool in there. It hasn't gotten any worse, and we got the rest of the machines up and in the right order so everything talks to each other again and everything works.

The kids are officially bored with poker and Munchkin, so I ended up reading 10 chapters of Howl's Moving Castle to them by candlelight last night. My voice is shot.

It's kind of odd. I grew up in a harsh climate and in conditions that make this look like a vacation. We've been able to take care of ourselves and help our neighbors. I have the tools (because I'm a weirdo who considers a properly maintained axe an integral part of setting up a household). I know what to do. I'm glad. But when I was growing up, there was a part of it I was missing. The constant worry. Can I take care of the kids? Can I get us what we need? When the stakes are personal, it's one thing. When the kids get into it, it's another. It really makes me think about my Mom and what she went through raising us kids. She did this with nine kids ranging from 9 on down to newborn and she did it with no running water in the house and no neighbors closer than 60 miles.