I Speak With the Tongue of a Thousand White-Hot Lies!

What the bloody hell did you do, LJ?

Between my total inability to deal with Twitter, my migraine pretty much every other time I go on Facebook, the total confusion that is Tumblr conversation, and my learning curve for my just-acquired DropBox account* ...

(shakes cane)

In other news, the beauty and ease of use of my iPhone is making me really want to replace the Nook with the small iPad. Which probably also goes toward proving how damn old I am.

I refuse to get on Pinterest for at least another week. REFUSE.


*I am leaving Google behind ... murky TOS, I like syncing one calendar between Scott and I; really, I just need them for the gmail.

Oh, Orson Scott Card. Really? Really?

I have so many, many thoughts here. The first one being how sad and angry it makes me when the author of a book that made me love science fiction (that'd be Ender's Game) turns out to be a giant, rampaging homophobe (this is not new, but it makes me sad and angry over and over).

Hey, guess what? Gay people aren't evil! And while there are some things I can shrug off and be like, "Oh, well, sometimes people are jerks," this isn't one of those things. Those are actual people you're demonizing, there, Mr. Card, and (let me repeat) they aren't evil.

Then--who said Hamlet needed to be rewritten in general?!* On top of that, it looks like a badly-written, homophobic mash-up of A Thousand Acres and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Which, you know, the whole world has been waiting for ... right.

Really, I'm offended as a person and also as a lit geek.

As for the rest of my thoughts, the review I linked to above pretty much covers it.

Ugh.

*ETA: Not re-imagining, or playing with, or noodling round the edges of--I'm talking about re-writing--fundamentally changing, for example, how a character behaves/speaks/reacts, or how the story ends, or any number of things. From the review, it seems that Card is rewriting large portions of the actual text while also "re-imagining" it. Which is not the same thing that Tom Stoppard or Jane Smiley did, as examples.

The Zweeble is now set up for pre-K, and thus my thoughts turn to 2012, when he'll be starting just plain old k. (That is, unless Judgment Day goes down tonight or the Mayan calendar kills us all next May.)

In our little corner of the world, the way it works is that the county is divided into sections. Those sections are divided into sub-sections. Now, I'm not sure what good the sub-sections do, because--okay, parents research and decide what schools in their section they would like their kid to attend. Then, during the sign-up period, they give the list of their top three (ranked by preference) to the proper authorities, and then the lists are assigned a random number and then they're assigned to schools using some sort of arcane system that I only half-understood, but that involves whether or not the kid has a sibling in the school already and how close you live to it.

This is supposed to replace the whole "school assignment based on street address" method they used to use, but since location factors in, I'm not sure how that works.

(I'm not being sarcastic--I really don't quite get what's going on there. Of course, trying to read it while a squirmy kid is asking you to please watch Ben 10, this is a good part, is not conducive to comprehension.)

Anyway, there are also all these things to consider--the system we have down here of grading schools, the whole IB thing that I don't know a whole lot about (what happened to AP? And, wait, IB elementary school?), a whole plethora of other stuff I just glanced at. Plus there's the fact the web sites are all sort of cluttered and eye-bleedingly bright, and I ended this whole preliminary investigation with a headache.

(I'm wondering if you can do elementary school tours.)

In the end, I think it would be simpler to just send him to college next year ...

I finally got some bras that fit.

As advised by Tiffany, I measured and used a bunch of different calculators. Of course, then I got completely confused because they were all telling me different things, but I found a website that explained sister sizing and it all made sense again.

The Women's Fashion Industry: Making You Feel Stupid (And Probably Fat) for 1,000 Years!

So the Zweeble and I went to Target. There's a side story here about his anguish that one of his Bakugon is broken, but like I want to go near that morass of pain again ... long story short, he wanted something and has been behaving at home and school, I needed something, so off we went.

I informed him that I was willing to get him his toy first, but he had to agree to be patient and not repeat "I wanna go home" over and over while I got what I was looking for. He agreed that that sounded like a deal. I prepared to hold that over his head all day.

Well, let me tell you, my son not only behaved, he actually attempted to help me pick out bras. (He also seemed to enjoy saying the word "bras" over and over, loudly.) And he chose some nice ones--seriously, they were cute--but I'm not in the market for a purple lace thing that looks like half a corset, nor do I need a red bra. I was sorely tempted by the polka dots, though.

He was even helpful in the dressing room. I've found that, much like my dad's German shepherd back in the day, the Zweeble is happiest when he has a job. So he became Guardian of the Dressing Room Number Card Thing, and he volunteered to keep the clothes hangers organized. When we approached the dressing room lady (which we did, repeatedly), he would tell her what number we needed ("We need another three. We need a four."), and then he'd run the number back to her when we emerged. She found him adorable.

He and I started running out of patience for this trying-on thing at the same time (I only got two rounds of "I want to go home," but they were phrased politely and not repeated), and luckily by then I had a handle on what size I needed and had found a decent bra.

And because he was so good, he got M&Ms. Because, seriously, this was super awesome good in a boring-ass situation. Chocolate was required.

In related news, the Superfluous Bag is actually in between the other two bags I use, but it's still a little big for every day. But whatever--it's nice and I like it and the strap is short enough that it doesn't get in my way when I am hauling the kid around. I wish it had a cell phone pocket, but that's about its only flaw.

And the iPod speakers in the kitchen are teh awesome. Best thing I've bought in ages, seriously. They have helped me enforce the family dinner at the table ("You can listen to Dr. Seuss, now sit") long enough that it's more of a habit and they're not required, they have kept my sanity intact as Z. plays on the computer and the game repeats itself over and over and over, and now the clock on the stove is accurate because we can set it by the clock radio.

So, yes. Solid purchases, all. Hoorah.

I got caught up on things tonight by sacrificing sleep. As per usual.

Tomorrow the Dish dude comes out to install our new DVR. Here is how I am made of win: when Scott called to authorize the upgrade, the woman on the other end of the phone told him the labor cost would be $95 because we didn't have a warranty. When I had called to set up the upgrade, I was told the install fee would be $15. I double-checked, even.

So I'm on my way to my therapy appointment and Scott calls and tells me this, and after a long day with a demonic child ... well, I was ticked.

But I was ticked, running early, and had my Blackberry.

I pulled into a convenient parking lot, got the email from my husband with the numbers I needed, and called the dish people to ask why, exactly, I was quoted $15 and he was quoted $95? And when I was told that we didn't have the service agreement, I said, "So because six years ago when I became your customer, I was not told I would need a service agreement for upgrades, I have to pay $95 in order for someone to switch out my box?" Because, seriously, it's not like they're installing the dish on the roof. It's there already, we're just getting more stuff off it. "I would like to speak to a supervisor."

So now I was on hold, telling myself to be polite, and expecting nothing more than to lodge a really articulate complaint and hie my ass to DirecTV as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

The young lady came back on the line and proceeded to tell me that, after looking at our file and seeing that we've been customers for six years with excellent payment history, and explaining all this to her supervisor, they were going to waive $80 of the installation fee so that we'd get it done for $15.

I thanked her, got her name again, and told her bluntly that she'd managed to keep me as their customer.

Because, really, folks, you don't want me to start thinking the math through, here, and adding up the cost of DVDs, Netflix, and faster internet for streaming TV off the web. Because I think that option may be cheaper, but I am lazy. You want to keep me lazy.

So, yeah, look at me with the channeling of my aggravation into productive outcomes. Now we'll see what my bill looks like in two weeks--I may need the Zweeble to be the uber-toddler again.

Today I have:

1. let the Zweeble play in the kitchen sink (literally, he was in it) and mopped up the resulting mess

2. ordered Scott's Xmas gift, for my grandmother (she needed me to order it so we could get the discount)

3. found out, with Z's help, where all the bloody ghost ants have been coming from: they'd made a nest in the plastic covering for a Pokemon DS game. Mostly the nest was between the plastic box part and the plastic sheet holding the cover, which made for some very disturbing crunching as I took the box out of the cabinet next to the couch.

Usually, finding the nest means the end of the bugs for a while. But I'm going to get some ant bait and childproofing locks, just in case.

(You live in Florida, you get bugs. We had bugs even when were had a contract with Truly Nolen. There's no serious winter here to kill them off, just dry spells and rainy spells that send them inside. Spider season seems to be over, now it's ghost ant season.)

I'm all itchy now.

4. gotten a phone call from Scott, saying that the next time I order his Xmas gift on line, I might want to either tell him to not check our shared e-mail for a while, or use a different e-mail address. You know, like the gmail account I got specifically for this sort of thing.

[insert long, oedipal version of my favorite bad word]

On the plus side, he found this hilarious and this is the gift of which he said, "Someone's getting me X, right?" (I say X because it ought to be a surprise for somebody, yes?) So really, the story to go along with it is the real gift. That's right, dealio, I did it on purpose to make your Chirstmas bright. Because I love you. Yup, I was an airhead for love.

It's one of those days when I start considering learning to make meat pies.

Just open a few windows, et voila!

The Drama Button.**

The Sad Trombone

Instant Rimshot

**also handy for re-enacting the tag from the time travel episode of Phineas and Ferb, dealio ... "Dinosaurs--duh dah duh! Dinosaurs--duh dah duh!"

The entire family chipped in to get the Zweeb a play set for the yard with swings, slide, climbing wall, steering wheel--just about everything he loves at the playground in the back yard.

Installation started yesterday and continues today. It looks good so far. I did not realize I would lose two days to this thing, though, and I actually need to go out and take care of some things for work tomorrow, so I'm hoping the guy can finish, like, now.

I have a new toy--everyone chipped in and got me a Blackberry for Christmas. Not a touch-screen, sadly--I am on the wrong cell plan for that--but a Curve. I think it's probably way more device than I need, but it has a really nice calendar feature on it, it's got the qwerty keyboard, and it syncs with the iBook. And I can get e-mail on it. Last night I had to put it down and make Scott swear he wouldn't let me touch it unless it rang, because I was feeling the obsession coming on.

The things that are bugging me? I can't make it ring more than once for a call, so I keep missing calls. I can't find things. Help is either super helpful or vague to the point of insanity.

But I'll adjust, or I'll figure it out. Now I am organized and said organization takes up less space. Speaking of which, I got a new bag for work--I got very tired of trying to jam everything into my old work bag and having it barely fit--and now I have too much space. I have to remind myself that at the end of term, when I'm lugging portfolios and text books and would really like to have my laptop with me, it will be awesome.

Oooh, the swings are up! And the slide! Only the rock wall, steering wheel, and roof left!