Pirate Boy Turns 5

A series of random photo postings from my little buccaneer's birthday...

Look! I'm a bunch of grapes!

Guess what Pirate Boy's favorite color is?

The best thing about the day, I think, was seeing my big 5-year-old ride a bike.


My boy so rocks. Coming soon: pictures of Punkin Baby's big day.

Treasure Island

Pirate Boy gives his birthday cake a good review. He'll divide the plunder later...

I tried and tried to get him to change this shirt for pictures, but to no avail. Sigh. I guess pirates are supposed to look scruffy.

Here's a better shot of the whole cake:

And it was tasty, too. Mmmm... triple chocolate pirate ship....

We've Got the Guts

In case you've ever wondered what the inside of a piano looks like...


Ours had a faulty keyboard cover, so Wolfman Jack took it away, promising it would be repaired in a couple days. That was 3 weeks ago. This is still what our piano looks like. Well, it plays OK anyway, and nobody's stuffed a peanut-butter sandwich into the works. Though the mysterious disappearance of Darth Vader is still unexplained...

Who Gives These People Kids??

#1 Son came home from a weekend visit to "Mommy's" this afternoon, 3 hours late and covered in bruises. When we ask how he got hurt, he says evasively, "I dunno." Sulks and complains of stomach ache. Plays rough with his little brothers.

Now, if it was the other way 'round, and he showed up at her house like that, we'd have had cops on our doorstep before we had time to blink. But we're not like that. We don't assume that people are doing evil things all the time... well, maybe we do. But we didn't do that anyway. No, we simply email and ask if she has any idea what could possibly have happened. No hysterics, no paramedics... no answers.

Sometimes I hate being the sane one.

Who Are We, Anyway?

Did anyone else see this? Thursday, CNN.com was reporting that women and minorities are underrepresented in the U.S. technology industry. I'm not so sure that part was news. However, the article did contain some fascinating items.

This part was incredibly disturbing to me:

Women made up 32 percent of the tech work force in 2004, a drop from 41 percent at its peak in 1996. That's largely because of the shrinking number of administrative jobs in the tech industry, the Arlington, Virginia-based Information Technology Association of America said. [Boldface added.]

Let me be perfectly clear on this: Are we saying that women in tech jobs aren't really technical, they're administrative? So we have fewer women in IT because we've fired all the secretaries? Am I overreacting? 'Cause my pointy stiletto shoes are gettin' all fidgety over here.

Another bizarre observation by this group: "white" was one of the underrepresented racial groups cited. OK, so if Blacks, Hispanics, and Caucasians are all minorities in IT... who's left? Well.. the study mentions that Asians are overrepresented by a couple hundred percent. OK, so everybody trade in your stereotype of the round, bearded European-looking IT guy. I'm watching you!

But do we even care who does the job, as long as somebody does it? I'm kind of torn on this one. I do not want anybody competent shut out because of superficial physical characteristics. And I certainly don't want anybody incompetent running my servers and having access to my data. But beyond that, I don't much notice the demographics.

I'm pretty sure that people from India are counted under "Asian," but where does "middle eastern" fit into this survey? No, I'm not being paranoid. I'm just wondering, 'cause when I was in college, our engineering department (huge) was full of Saudi students. (Male, of course. Duh.) I imagine plenty of them are employed in this country now. But I never see that demographic listed on the questionnaires. If they're also "Asian," I can better understand the disparity.

Anybody know the answers?

Green Eggs and Grandma

We're anxiously awaiting the arrival of my parents for the July 4th weekend. Less than 2 weeks! Hooray!



This is my mom reading to the littlest boys last time she was here. I hope I age half as gracefully as she has. But if not, I hope I'm around to read to my grandchildren, if only once.

Three of a Kind

Aha! I have beaten Picasa into submission. Behold! My three sons:



For a while there, #1 Son (far right, of course) was doing the exercise thing for Cub Scouts. The other boys, being younger brothers and all into that hero-worship stuff, joined in every chance they got. It's awesome to see a toddler with a huge athletic repertoire.

This picture was taken several months ago. Just this afternoon, Punkin Baby was doing backflips off the couch; he only bobbled one landing. All that with a bad headcold! Need to find him some baby gymnastics classes... to teach! Heh.

Days of Our Lives

I've had a post in the works for a week now about my Pirate Boy's 5th birthday. It was a tremendously fun and exciting day for everyone. Donuts for breakfast, balloons to play with all over the house (green, his favorite color), decorating the cake. Now the cake gave me a little difficulty: How do you make a pirate ship out of a boxed cake mix? I had this idea to bake a circle and a square layer, then use half the circle as the hull of the boat and the square as the sail. The folly of this course became clear when I actually got out the cake pans and compared them. No, that sail would clearly topple any kind of mast I gave it, and probably sink the boat in the process. What to do, what to do...

I had sent The Man out to the store to buy LEGO pirates to man the ship and was pondering my problem (OK, I was probably reading Agatha Christie), when Aha! an idea struck me: Use the pizza pan! We have this lovely ceramic deep-dish pizza pan of just the right size to make the hull of a ship that could carry an 8-inch square sail. Then hubby came home with a treasure-trove of pirate goodies, including a Blackbeard figurine (complete with working cannon) and a bundle of gold(ish) dubloons. I was on the case. At the last minute, Pirate Boy decided he didn't want a pirate cake after all, but I told him he'd get one and like it-- and he did. (I'll post pictures later; we have to do ours the old-fashioned way: with film.) He spent the rest of the morning "dividing the plunder" with his crew (us). Totally cute and sweet. Arrrrghh.

We had him open presents at lunchtime; he got some cool stuff, but his favorite was... OK, after the money, his favorite was the LEGO Darth Vader TIE fighter. We were hoping he'd fall in love with the shiny new bike we got him instead, but there's really no competition with that blinking red lightsaber. Punkin Baby can do the voice, too. Kinda scary.

Things kind of calmed down when Punkin Boy went down for his nap. The bigger boys (dad included) scampered off to the basement, where a playroom is taking shape. While #1 Son sulked and acted bored, Pirate Boy decided to help his daddy put together the futon frame. The big, heavy oak futon frame. Which he proceeded to lift, then drop onto his poor sweet little foot. His daddy carried him upstairs so that Pirate Mama could kiss the injured tootsie. I held some ice to it, checked for breakage, and cooed to him soothingly, and within minutes, he was running off playing again. No serious damage done, apparently, though I don't know why.

In another hour or so, he was up again and off bike riding while we filled the pool. Again, I took pictures and will post eventually. The water was a bit cold for the boys, but they enjoyed splashing each other and waving the hose around while giggling hysterically. Don't ask me. In the middle of a stormy week, we had sunshine and warm weather-- right up till dinnertime. Perfect. On the menu: meatless lasagna for my veggie boy.

During the afternoon, the bike sat in our living room. A shiny gold-and-blue confection, its sleek lines reminded me of the fierce yet sporty 3-wheeler (what are they now that they aren't Big Wheels?) we gave him for his third birthday, and a pang hit me straight in the heart. My sweet, wonderful, and in all ways awesome friend Sheri had given her boy an identical 3-wheeler for his birthday that year, too. One of our very last conversations before she died was about that trike. Our boys were exactly as far apart in age as she and I were; without even knowing it, we did many of the same things during the years we'd been apart.

I found myself weeping over that beautiful new bike in my living room-- weeping for the mama who will miss her boy's fifth birthday, who even missed her daughter's first one. For all the things my wonderful friend will miss, I cried. For everything I miss about her, I cried hardest. Today is her birthday. I miss you, Sheri. I love you.

The New Ed Wood

So, my darling husband and I got to go on a date today, for the first time in several months, and what did we do? Did we find a secluded booth in an intimate little Italian restaurant and stare dreamily into each other's eyes? 'Tis to laugh. No, we didn't even try sneaking into the early Batman show. We (having apparently missed the demise of the bandwagon) went to see "Revenge of the Sith."

Is it just in our town, or is it a widespread phenomenon, that this movie blasted into the theaters with 10 showings a day on each of 4 screens? How long ago was that, a month? Today, there are about 4 showings, on one screen. We were among fewer than a dozen people in the theater. After about the first 10 minutes, I didn't even notice that the noise of the spaceships and lasers and droids whistling was making my head pound. I was laughing too hard.

This has got to be the "Plan 9 from Outer Space" of its generation. George Lucas has a budget, is all. Take away the gorgeous planetary vistas and the computer-simulated space battles... no, don't. Better yet, watch this movie with the sound turned off. The dialogue isn't funny enough to be worth listening to. You'll still snort when Anakin rolls his eyes back in his head in what I guess was supposed to be a sinister glare at... nobody. What the heck was he doing? And where is the MST3K crew?

I admit I grimaced and looked away when it was time for him to massacre the kids. (You read about that in the CNN article, too, didn't you?) But even that scene had very little emotional impact because you hadn't seen the kids before in this movie. Instead of adding just a little previous contact and relationship exposition to make that act more horrifying, George Lucas decided to do things like call back to Episode IV's melodramatic sunset scene. What. Ever.

I'm not a Republican, but the insulting political comparisons got nauseating pretty quickly. "Only a Sith" indeed. And before anyone says, "Well, you're an editor, of course the lousy writing would bother you," I'll mention that once I realized how atrocious the dialogue was, I turned off my "editor's ear" (as much as I could). I wasn't anxious for any more torture than necessary. There was plenty to go around. The robot medic was more expressive and emotive than most of the live actors. So was computer-generated Yoda. (I still like Ewan McGregor, and Jimmy Smitz did a good job. Oh yes, and so did the Emperor--Ian McDermid, right?)

I have to say this, though: For my birthday, I want a giant frilled lizard that can climb cliffs and will come when I whistle.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow...

My new "boss" starts work at our office tomorrow. I don't even know what to call her, but I'm sure "boss" will do. Except that now I'll have at least 3 bosses to report to constantly, a situation that can only lead to trouble. For purposes of this blog, I'll call her boss to distinguish her (slightly) from my manager and the PHB (slogan: "I can see your house from here").

Case in point: My new intern starts tomorrow, too. It was a parting commission from my previous boss before she left: Hire a summer intern for our team. Well, I did it, and got a really great one, too. (It's kind of embarrassing to hire someone more talented and educated than yourself to be an intern, but what the heck; I got here first.) I was really proud of myself. But I didn't bring the high-muckety-muck boss of the division into the process (how should I know she wanted to interview a summer intern?), so she (PHB) called me on the carpet for it in front of ALL my colleagues in a meeting this afternoon. There's professionalism for you.

And now the PHB is stealing my intern-- that is, my team's intern. Because now that we're all "one big happy fleet," we share all our resources, right? Um-hmmm. And I'm sure that the other team's intern was helping us out all this time, too. I mean, didn't we know his time was ours to allocate? No. We have separate line items, separate budgets, even, and this intern comes out of our team's budget and we should have first dibs. (Help, help, I'm being assimilated!)

But what do I know? It's just my bad attitude talking. I admit I am a little cranky this evening, even aside from the pain and the hormones. I'd planned on having a date with my husband today-- the first one in several months-- but it fell through. Trying again tomorrow; it's our last chance for a while. Of course, my "tomorrow" is completely booked with meetings and training and mentoring and so on, but I'm going to make this date if it kills me. At least I'm better off than the new boss-- PHB has taken it upon herself to schedule every hour of the next 3 days for the poor woman. Can you say "micromanagement"? I knew you could.

Still alive...

I've officially made it to my Pirate Boy's 5th birthday. Hooray! And we've got the "big" boys into a Core Knowledge school for the fall. OK, it's an "inner city" school, but we're not much of a city, and it's nicer than the neighborhood we live in, so we're giving it a shot. Still need to get Punkin Boy (the toddler with the 12th-grade vocabulary) a "school" of his own. And somehow come up with the money for full-time daycare... second mortgage or education loan, hmmm...

Anyway, everyone's very excited about the upcoming day's festivities. Should be incredibly fun. But first, to sleep, perchance to dream...

The Stress Really Is Killing Me

So, what did I do this weekend? I died. Not completely; let's call it "only mostly dead." It started with an unusually bad case of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) that woke me at about 2:15 a.m. Sunday, not long after I'd fallen asleep. Even a mild case is pretty alarming, with the heart rate suddenly elevating for no reason until it feels as if you've been exercising for half an hour. I got those every day during the early part of my last pregnancy (hence, only 3 children), but I managed to keep them controlled by getting a few hours of rest in the afternoons. (Yes, PHB, I did manage to keep working full-time and being quite productive the whole time. Nyeah.)

But this weekend, it was different. This attack was more like the kind I got when carrying Pirate Boy-- just the one, but that was enough for a lifetime. I hoped. That time, I was 7 months pregnant, our new house was almost finished, and my husband had just gotten fired from his job. I was a complete basket case and totally blamed the stress for short-circuiting my heart, although the cardiologist never bought that explanation. This time, I was sure.

At first, I tried just to wait it out, but I had to go to the bathroom, so I tried to get up... and failed. I made it to sitting, then sank back down to the pillow, thinking furiously. Middle of the night, passel of sleeping kids, tightness in chest, nearing a very ugly loss of consciousness... what to do, what to do...

At last, I poked my darling husband, who was doing his best impression of a comatose crocodile. "Honey? I've got a problem... it's my heart." Words that nightmares are made of, I'm sure. As I struggled for breath and lucidity, I croaked out instructions to my boggled and drowsy sweetheart. "Need to go to the hospital. Call Ana to take the kids..." He stumbled around and finally located the phone and phone book. By this time, it was clear to me that this wouldn't cut it. "Just call 911, sweetheart. I'm not going to make it."

Cue husbandly panic. He managed to punch in the numbers and recite our address and phone number and stutter out that something was wrong with his wife's heart. The operator quizzed him some more, while I helped as much as I could with answers. Afterward, he managed to call some dear friends of ours, whose feet we will kiss every day from now till forever for responding so lovingly at 2-freaking-thirty in the morning to our plea for help. They all got out of bed and were at our door within a minute or two after the paramedics arrived.

Ah yes, the paramedics. I had just been working on my novel that evening and had realized that I could use more realism in the chapter relating to a visit from a paramedic team. Well, hallelujah, I got what I needed. Call me blessed. (Dear God, isn't there a better way to do research for this blasted thing?) Ah well, it's not every woman who ends up with half a dozen men swarming over her bed in the middle of the night. Must keep one's sense of humor...

...because what the paramedics did to treat me that night (after determining that the self-help methods really were ineffective, as I claimed) was the same as they'd done the first time: namely, to stop my heart. Can I repeat that? 'Cause it's one of those mind-blowing, wish-it-was-once-in-a-lifetime experiences. They
Stopped
my
Heart.

Meanwhile the cardio monitor was beeping away, which was a whole new experience in terror. One minute, it's going like a telegraph: beepity beepity beepity beepity, 210 bpm. The next minute, it slows to normal: beep... beep... beep... And finally, as that "cold lead slab" feeling creeps over you, stills to nothingness: beep.............. beep......................... beep.............................................................. (no beep, no pulse, no warmth, no light)................. And back again: beep...beep...beep... The lights come up and you can breathe again.

(Strangely enough, it's this stuff that does the trick; it's even safe to use on extremely pregnant women, although I do not recommend it. Also strangely, my cardiologist doesn't find my SVTs to be a cause for alarm; just "one of those things." Yes, well, Doc, you can have this "thing"; it's more than just an inconvenience.)

Once normality was restored, the medics carried me out on a gurney, smashing my bedroom doorframe on the way out. They hauled me off in an ambulance, hubby close behind, leaving the kids in the capable care of our friends' teenage daughter. The ER doc looked me over, did some tests, and scratched his head. Usually, you need to have some kind of health-related vice (alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, etc.) to trigger this kind of reaction, but I turned out to be depressingly boring in that regard. My theory is that it's hormone-related (no, I am NOT pregnant again) and triggered by an abundance of stress. Doc seemed to buy it. Now if I could just get that in writing for the boss...

Does It Bug You When I Do This?

After the huge job fiasco a couple weeks ago, I took a day or two to think about things, then asked my manager (a slightly senior peer) if she'd sit down with me and discuss where I could go from here, what the career path for any of us might be, etc. Totally non-confrontational. We made an appointment for the Thursday after Memorial Day, and I went about my business. I've been working from home part of the time lately, since my back's still hurting, so I was blithely checking my email from my kitchen table late Wednesday morning when I got a meeting request from her. It was for noon that day and it involved the PH Boss AND the HR director. At this point, I started checking for flights to Aruba...

To make matters worse, The Man was out with the car and I had no idea when he'd be back. I'd told him I planned to go in to the office after lunch, but that might be too late. He was trying to clear out our storage unit of the last few items, so the kids were hanging around the house-- I couldn't just call a cab (which, knowing the cabs around here, might have come too late anyway). So I explained my situation and told my manager that I'd be there on time if at all possible. Next thing I know, there's this email with bright-red exclamation points: "You need to be here! Do whatever it takes!!" OK, OK, fine.

By this time, I was getting pretty anxious. I had no appetite even if I'd had time to eat lunch. Fortunately, The Man got home in time, and we all piled into the car and rushed me to the office with a few minutes to spare. I even took the opportunity to finish up some work before going to the meeting. My manager had told me that the PHB wanted to explain why I didn't get the job and I have to admit that I joked, "You know, I can accept the rejection. It's OK if we skip the 'Why I suck' talk."

Well, apparently it wasn't, and that comment only made things worse. Because joking about work is verboten although nobody ever said. I've heard of places where they yell at you for posting Dilbert cartoons on your door, but I'd never seriously thought I worked for one. Until that day. I mustn't point out to anyone else that a national study shows that we are all underpaid; that is "each person's responsibility to find out for themselves," according to PHB. I mustn't imply that the boss's demands for us to do more work are pushing us too hard-- or even me personally. Oh yes, and I mustn't make faces or roll my eyes in meetings. (This comic appeared the day after this conversation; no kidding.) It was bad of me to be honest in my interview, too, and bad of me to work from home, despite the fact that it's been a condition of my employment since I started here. I only do it because I'm too cheap to get childcare, she says. I did point out that Hubby Dearest IS my childcare, and he's on duty 24/7, but the truth is no defense. Oh, and I'm getting demoted for certain.

The next day I found myself interviewing a woman for the position I didn't get. She knows very little about anything we do or anything our customers do, but she's got an MBA and an assertive personality. (Again, see the 6/2 Dilbert cartoon.) Fortunately, I can be a graceful loser, and I think she'll do a fine job. The bosses keep asking me how I feel about her being hired; I don't think they believe me when I say, "I'm thrilled! She's great!" What I'm thinking is, "She has a better chance than anyone of seeing through the PHB and telling her where to get off." Not that she necessarily will, of course, but she might someday.

Meanwhile, enjoy this little ditty penned by my delightful husband himself in honor of my disastrous career situation. It cheers me right up.

Retail Therapy

I have a common ailment: when I'm cranky or depressed, I go shopping. When I'm having a down day-- or more likely, week-- there's nothing like a new blouse or pair of shoes to cheer me up and give me that fresh outlook on life. It's true that lately I haven't felt able to indulge in my favorite type of therapy (or any other type), so it's not surprising that my irritability has been worse than usual. Building. Growing out of control, in fact. It's doubly depressing to be both depressed and unable to afford an antidote.

Let's just say that I lost my head this week. I was feeling confident, pumped up, and on top of the world a couple weeks ago. I was so gung-ho about my job and developing my career, I couldn't wait to get out of the gate. Then there was the whole "you're not ready for prime-time" chat, with its revelations that failure is inevitable. I fell flat on my face and haven't managed to get up yet. I've lost interest in my job again, and I just can't afford to do that. Somehow I've got to manage to fake it, especially for the next little while until my "troublemaker" brand fades a bit. But I can't seem to pull out of it.

I've been good for so long, not even replacing the packet of jewelry that got stolen in Vegas last fall. (Now that my foot is mangled and my body's lost its proper shape, jewelry was all I had left.) I've been so good, denying myself at every turn. But this weekend, I decided I'd had it. My boys run around singing Broadway show tunes and "Puttin' on the Ritz" all day. They're so talented and so interested. And besides, dammit, I wanted a piano!

So I bought one. Ahhhh... that feels better.

Dooce or Be Dooced

Tell you what, I'm taking a risk here, but I don't care. I have a couple of things I want to get off my chest about my recent experiences with our management, and if they want to fire me, I'll have my lawyers call them (or possibly eat them) for lunch.

Here are some things that are bugging me this week:

1. That our large group now has only one boss (let's call her PHB) running the show; she's way up in the stratosphere, everyone else is on a relatively equal level
2. That she's running it from halfway across the country and consequently knows nothing about what any of us peons do from day to day
3. That PHB thinks she knows better than the people who do work with me what I'm capable of
4. PHB asked me my greatest fear and then saw to it that that fear was fulfilled (maybe we should call her Dr. Lecter)
5. PHB can change our job descriptions at the drop of a hat, then see to it that we get demoted if we don't measure up (this is insider information as a warning to any of my coworkers who might read my blog: Look OUT!)
6. Demotion might not mean anything anyway, since our titles are now meaningless-- not to mention useless on a resume. Catch-22.
7. With apologies to Monty Python, this whole "every serf is equal" idea is just bogus; it's a pain for the junior worker bees who now have to run to catch up, and now that my job means nothing more than anyone else's, I feel like I've lost the past 6 years of experience and any appreciation therefor.
8. That the job I got passed over for doesn't involve as much responsibility, work, and, well, pains in the behind as the job I have now. Yet, "they" (PHB and her devoted henchwoman) claim I'm "not ready" to do that level of job. Did I mention "What.Ever."? See #3.
9. The current workload for all of us "equal peons" (see also: communism) is impossible to accomplish effectively, so failure is inevitable.
10. PHB takes our concerns about the impossible workload as a complete unwillingness to work at all and tells us to stop being such slackers.
11. In one meeting last week, PHB asked what the difference is between client-side and server-side programming. It worries me that she's the one in charge.
12. When she was in town last week, she showed up just as a lunch meeting was ending, asked why we haven't written ourselves up for awards, then spent the next several minutes berating us for having low self-esteem. We laughed so hard we cried and pounded the table. The fact that she was serious just made it funnier. In a tragic way. AND she used this as an example of how we're always trying to get out of doing more work.
13. WHAT THE @&$(#@& DOES SHE DO ALL DAY BESIDES MICROMANAGE AND INSULT PEOPLE?!
14. The staff is leaving the sinking ship, and she doesn't seem to care.
15. [Updated: My newly resigned boss is a total rock-star of this particular world, but as soon as she's out of the building, the PHB and company are dissing her for... are you ready? Not saying "No" to new work often enough!]

The thing I hated the most about my former "um, friend" Richard was his telling me in all seriousness, "You're special... and so's everyone else." This situation reminds me so much of that one, I feel twice as angry as I might have otherwise.

And just on an "Isn't that cute?" note, one of my coworkers (who is, yes, quitting any minute now) used the phrase "stab PHB in the eye" so many times last week that I lost count.

I just want to be the first to say,

"The Empress has no clothes!"

Go ahead: Dooce me, baby.

Oh, goody...

I get to keep my job, plus some. And all for the same salary I had before. With-- get this-- no upward career path!

But they didn't make me cry. Not yet...

Oh damn.

Waiting for the Hammer to Fall...

Tick... tick... tick....

Any minute now, I'll find out...

Pianist Envy

I've had a lifelong love affair with pianos. Maybe in hopes of raising up a new Mozart, someone gave me this little gem when I was just old enough to stand:

(I still have that picture, but not the piano, more's the pity.)

I never really understood at this age why my playing didn't sound as good as my mom's. But she let me join her whenever she didn't have students over.

We never had much, but we always had music in our house. The year I was 6, my dad bought my mom a Baldwin and managed to sneak it into the house as a surprise. It was the best present EVER!

(The fashions in the 70s, however...)

You can't see it in this picture, but we didn't have any other furniture in our living room. We had cheap (ugly!) cotton sheets in our window. Our Christmas ornaments (and clothes) were all homemade. But we had a piano. My musical mother decided within a week to trade this one in on a model with better sound, and she's had that Baldwin Hamilton upright ever since. And it still sounds wonderful.

She managed to give me about one piano lesson before throwing up her hands in despair. Undaunted, I got out her old Schirmer manuals and taught myself the rest. Not the best way to learn, but it worked. I'd lie awake every night and listen to her play "Claire de Lune" and "Moonlight Sonata"; it was the most lovely, peaceful, relaxing feeling. Eventually, I learned to play those songs pretty well myself. But then I left home and since then, I haven't had a piano.

Now, what made me think of all this right now? My husband, ever anxious to make his wife happy, has been on a piano spree lately. Just investigating the market, gasping and collapsing upon hearing how much they cost, etc. But not giving up on the idea. (He's really cute when he's obsessive.) And it just so happened that we were out shopping for orthopedic chairs yesterday right across the street from a HUGE piano store. So we figured, why not check it out? I could give him an idea what I'd want (so as to avoid the situation my parents had all those million years ago), and he could get an idea of what pianos even look like, what a good model would cost, and maybe he'd give it up. (HA!)

So we went in. Our children ran amuck. I fingered the keyboards and whimpered. And the sales guy tried to tell us that electronic pianos are just as tasty as the real thing. What. Ever. As I moved into the "used" section, one piano caught my eye. It didn't have a price tag on, and it looked for all the world like... my mom's old Baldwin Hamilton upright. Same honey-colored wood, same smoothness of keys, everything... The sales guy looked a bit confused. He didn't seem to know where it had come from, but eventually told us that he hadn't had a chance to inspect and tune it yet, and that it would probably run about $2400.

Now, $2400 isn't nearly as much as most of the others cost; there was a grand out front (not even full-size) that was priced at $35,000. But this one might as well have cost a million. I wanted it, though. I really wanted that piano. I still want it. My boys are getting old enough that they could start playing-- and probably should. I suspect the youngest will be really good at it eventually.

But now I have to ask myself: What else can I do without? We cut our expenses to the bone when my husband quit working to stay home with the kids. As of August, he's going to be in school full-time, which means we pay for daycare till we bleed, and there's no more wiggle room in our budget. Oh yes, and room room. We don't have any of that, either. So maybe I should stop whining for a few years until The Man is out of school and into the workforce. I just hate for my kids to miss out on what I had.

Music.

Hair on Fire

I keep meaning to post an update, summarize what's going on in our lives this past week or so, you know, but there's just too much. So let me just spew a few items.

First, my doctor has begun supplying me with BIG bottles of Percocet, and I do need it. My company will buy me a spiffy orthopedic chair if I get a prescription for it, so I need to pick one out and tell my doc what to write. He's awesome, and his strings aren't even visible except in really bright light.

Punkin Baby had the time of his young life on his second birthday. Blue's Clues pawprint cake, of course. Lots of Little People. And balloons, which he held in his mouth while jumping up and down. Don't ask; I don't get it either! With the money Auntie sent him, our little man went shopping-- very big-- and bought (wait for it) a sword, of course. OK, you knew he would. Of course, Pirate Boy became insanely jealous and was awarded a (different but also spiffy) swashbuckling sword as an early birthday present by parents who were tired of yelling, "Will you PUT DOWN that SWORD, for the last time!"

Other quotes flying around our house lately: "No throwing dinosaurs, please..." (I forget when I'm on the phone that not everyone has kids.) As well as:

Hubby, on getting Punkin Boy up from his nap: "Hey, buddy, need a diaper change?"
Punkin Baby (eyes wide, head nodding): "HOLY COW!" (I'm thinking that means "duh!" in toddler-speak.)

These are mainly the small items. Big items include:

1. I've had about a million interviews in the past week for a great job (my former boss's) that they aren't really going to give me because I "need room for a career path"-- so I'll just get all the work and none of the pay, even if I don't technically get the job. Especially if I don't. Sounds complicated, but it's pretty standard. Gack.
2. We found a really great school for our kids, which they can't get into because it's such a great (and therefore popular) school. Yep.
3. We have to find a new daycare for our youngest; the one we were going to put him into turns out to be a hive of scum and villainy and recently let a toddler choke to death while supposedly being supervised. Um, no thanks.
4. #1 Son has become a victim of bullying and other violence at his school. Totally uncool. But unless he's brave enough to talk to his principal about it, the school can't (or won't) do anything about it. And if he does? Catch-22.

Have I mentioned that my back is killing me?

On the Brink

In the bizarre borderlands of "the waiting place." Our family is on the edge of some really good possibilities right now. We've done all we can so far, and in the next few days we could be in a very, very good place indeed. Good job for me, good school for the kids, enough money to do what we need to and get the husband through school. Very good. Or not. It's up to other people now; all we can do is wait and have faith.

Accepting donations of prayers, good wishes, positive vibes, and other mystical devices in our favor. Thanks.

-The Management