my soft spot

just a mom who plays hockey and knits

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Perhaps someone else can explain it

I hadn't seen my iPod in about 6 weeks. I had some idea I'd put it in a Good Hiding Place, but after I looked behind all the books in my bookcase, I had no other brainstorms. Mystified. But thinking it'll turn up eventually.

Today, I was starving at work. My Greek yogurt and applesauce clearly did not do the trick. So I looked around what I had and finally in my file drawer. Spotted the box of instant oatmeal. "Ah," I said. "That will be perfect." Reached in the box for a packet, and... voila. There was my iPod.

Great place to hide it, at least from me.

Now if only my cell phone will reappear...

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Weekend update

Friday
Friday was a little rushed at first, marred by a little sadness, ended with mild panic, but overall very good.

Some friends (well, two exes and a former roommate) and their spouses and I had decided to make a recurring dinner date recently. I offered to host the October date (well, my first gf nominated me, as she is wont to do), and we set it for the 24th. I pointed out that I was only going to bake a frozen lasagna, so it wouldn't be anything fancy, really.

But as the day got closer, I decided to serve on my china. I don't get it out that often and I'm very fond of it. I got a phone call as I was getting things out, and rather than wait until the phone call was over, I continued to pull plates and bowls out of the cupboard. The plates came out ok, but the bowls were a little slippery due to my using coffee-basket filters between each to prevent scratching, and I dropped a stack of them, breaking three in a row. My caller, a senior lady from church, said, "Oh dear, that's my fault," and when I insisted I'm just clumsy, she demurred, "Oh no, dear, I'm sure not." Well, she's wrong, but I was still so sad to have broken three bowls in all. I sifted through the wreckage and saved pieces to one that can be glued. Ugh.

But I had managed to get off work a little early, turn the oven on and throw the lasagna in (115-125 minutes baking time, wow!), pick up G, get his cape on him ("Halloween dress-up night" at the Parents Night Out that nght), and get him to the PNO fairly well on time. Raced back home, arriving just 15 minutes before friends were to arrive, with a sink full of dirty dishes (I am hoping to have the dishwasher fixed this week), and the floors not swept. Well, the dishes got done but the floors not, and the "7 sharp" start of the dinner slipped a little, but it all went just fine. We had a good time and I got them out the door at 10 so that I could get going to pick up G by 10:30, no problem. Got in my car, turned the key, and...

Problem. Car didn't turn over. And as I tried again and again, the lights on the display got dimmer and dimmer. I leapt out of my car and waved at my friend--who waved back as she drove off. AGH! You are not supposed to be late for PNO, $1 per minute late, etc.

I went back inside, thought and thought, and called my boss who lives about 1 mile away. He was up, willing, and showed up in his Exp!orer with his delightful, funny wife along for the ride. I was waiting with the booster so we didn't have to install/reinstall a carseat. We rushed off and were only 10 minutes late, and the kind program directors, having been notified ahead of time, didn't charge me for being late. Phew.

My boss said he was busy in the morning but that he'd show up at 9 to take me to buy a new battery. I kept wondering if it was the battery after all. But I went to bed instead of dealing with it then. Too tired.

Saturday
I got up at 7 and called my insurance company's Roadside Assistance right away, thinking they'd be less busy first thing in the morning. The guy showed up less than the predicted 20 minutes later, carried a little handheld battery-with-gauge over, and jumped my car, no problem. Showed me on the gauge that it definitely was the battery and not the starter or other problem. I locked the car with my extra key and left it running till G woke up. I explained what I was going to do and he was comfortable with my leaving him for the time it took to buy and install a battery. I brought rubber gloves and my ratchet set and ended up borrowing a crescent wrench, but was quite pleased to manage to install the battery myself. The woman at Kragen was mildly surprised, saying that most women buy a battery and take it away to be installed. (One benefit to installing it in their parking lot is how easy it is to take the spent battery back for your $10 refund, and not have to worry about disposing of it elsewhere.) Started it up with a little trepidation, and zoom. No problems. Even the weird off-tempo turn signals started clicking in good rhythm.

I got back home and called my boss. Left a message, hanging up as the doorbell rang. It was my boss, a little earlier than he had thought. He seemed a little disappointed that I'd been able to completely handle it!

G and I had some breakfast and headed out to my office to print out bid sheets for the silent auction at our church's Halloween party that night. After being a little later than I thought, I showed up at church to lay out the auction items and distribute the sheets. I was told in confidence that my senior ladies of the Auction Committee were a little nervous that I wasn't there. (I had figured they'd start laying things out without me, as I'd called ahead to let them know.) We got everything laid out and arranged in about an hour, and I was quite pleased. We ended up making about $1500 on the auction items. (My knit things were both bid on, but didn't even make the amount of the cost of the yarn. I think I'm done knitting for that auction. I'll make $25 pumpkin breads next year. Sigh.)

Went home to curl my hair, which I'd dyed "Cinnaberry" Red on Thursday night, in preparation for my role as Mrs. Weasley, which a full third of the people had not even heard of. One person did guess it right away, which was very cool. I used the rest of the can of spray orange hair color on G and made him a wand that had flickering sparks coming out of the end (he tired of that in about 15 minutes). He did make a cute Ron Weasley.

We had a great time at the Halloween party, even with losing his friend W for about 15 minutes (he was dueling with another boy in the hallway). I won two great things (a beautiful framed mirror and a set of lamps) for hardly anything, and my methods for getting folks' auction items paid for and out the door went smoothly, despite my inability to add under pressure (must bring a calculator next year).

We were home by 10, even with cleaning up.

Sunday
In a disturbing culmination of events, I had early handbell-choir practice at church, was teaching Sunday School, and G was an acolyte that morning. Fortunately, we were actually early and remembered everything we needed, including G's cross that he's supposed to wear as an acolyte. The practice was good; long enough to actually get the music together, and the performance went well because of it. I was very lax about the Sunday-school lesson this time, but we had some good discussions (the answer to "what do you love about our church/what would you change" largely revolved around the food, so I pointed out that everyone could encourage his/her parent(s) to sign up for Fellowship hour to get good food there).

We went home, and relaxed while we watched Spongebob until it was time to leave for our church's Bay Association meeting. Our minister bailed that afternoon, as her partner wasn't well and she felt she should stay home with their baby. We carpooled with the other delegate from our church, getting lost no fewer than 7 times on the way to the dinner. We were slightly later than I'd hoped (5:15 instead of 5), but the dinner was later (some folks got served at 7; G was a grouchy monster by the time he finally got his food). Fortunately, our moderator started the business meeting before all the food was served so we could get that out of the way.

It turned out that our Association is looking for a new corresponding secretary. I had been thinking, through the meeting, that I'd love to have a larger role in the Association, especially after finding out how much fun it is to have responsibility as the Auction Coordinator at the Halloween party. Fortunately for me, the ex-corresponding secretary is a good friend (Hi R!) and was very excited at my interest in the position. It looks like it'll turn out well.

We headed out after the dessert, and not a minute too soon for my little one: I had to get him up early on Monday to drop him off at Y-Kids so I could go to a workshop in Pleasanton on School Safety. The workshop was so-so, but spending a day with his teacher (and some others from his school) was great. I adore her.

A very good weekend.

Turning it around

At G's special camp this summer, they had lots of catch phrases, including "Turn it around." This meant taking a negative attitude and turning it positive--if you're annoyed or crabby, finding a cheerful, optimistic attitude and putting it on. It really seemed to work for these kids, including G.

This morning, I was given a program written by the big boss. The program had a problem: it was crashing on Windows but not on Linux. The error message was really unusual ("stack overflow" on entering a function, for you programming types). I tried a bunch of things, feeling more and more desperate and random, and my thoughts turned to my latest friend who was laid off recently. Her family is very concerned and it was quite a shock to hear that she was laid off. She seemed like such a capable, powerful, and important part of that company. They offered to transfer her across the nation, and when she turned it down, it was buh-bye. Ugh. Awful.

So as I'm working on my problem, I started thinking that maybe it was a test. Maybe we were looking at downsizing (for the second time in the company's 32-year history) and this was a little "Let's see if she knows her stuff" kind of test. The bug was a nasty one, crashing our memory profiling program. I finally made some overall changes and it works, and my boss approved that (phew).

Then, this afternoon, he shouldered me with a new set of responsibilities (read: problems) and started off with, "Because you're good at this..." which usually means, Look out!, but this time, I really needed to hear this. And no pink slips at this point. Oy.

Well, being good at 'this' is always good to hear. I'm keeping my looking-for-work friends in my thoughts, too. Best of luck, friends.

Monday, October 20, 2008

10 Things I Hate About My Memory

Honestly, if I rent this movie one more time, thinking "Oh, I haven't seen that yet," someone's gonna die. How do I not remember I've seen it three times now? I mean, it's good the first time...

We had a pretty good weekend. Finally one that was long enough for me; it was G who fell asleep sobbing, "Is it Sunday? I need one more day! Can I stay home from school tomorrow?"

Friday
I had a bunch of folks over from the 'moms' list, to meet a lister from out of town. I worked really hard to get the house semipresentable (but neglected to deal with the pile of junk on the porch; oops), and my friend Supee showed up early/on time and did some more well-appreciated straightening. I pondered adding the second leaf to the table, but you have to use the legs to support them, and I just could not deal. We had only enough chairs for the adult butts that were coming, but it worked out OK in the end. It was great to see everyone, and folks at work are very appreciative of the leftover dessert today.

Saturday
I got us off to martial arts/the dog park nearly on time, and Lucy had another great day at the dog park. It was Great Dane Day, which seems to come once a month, so I got to get my big-dog fix from all these graceful giants. I hadn't realized they "only" get up to about 140-150 pounds on average. I thought they were closer to Mastiff weight (180-200, I think). The owners were all crazy about their dogs. If I'm ever willing to deal with the short lifespan, I'd be so happy to own one.

Lucy got some good running in, mostly chasing a GR named Jake, who was chasing a ball when he wasn't distracted by Lucy. She did some growly but appropriate dog play and got thoroughly tuckered out, including some swimming (complete with the splashing as she did the first time! She did get better, though).

There were several dogs in supporting roller thingies that day. I hadn't seen that many ever but I saw three, I think, including a male pug who has a tumor in his spine. He dragged his feet and had little dog shoes, probably because of the abrasion. Poor lamb, but he seemed quite content to be there and moving around.

After I picked up G from martial arts, we went to this Fall's Color, where I was surprised not to be so tempted. I was sure I'd be stricken with the urge to buy tons of spinning fiber. (I was also surprised to see lots of yarn... somehow, I'd envisioned it to be just for spinning fiber.) I picked up some black/silver wool/silk that I hope I don't mess up, but that's it.

At home, I made some Halloween cards, mostly as invitations to G's friends to our church's Halloween party this Saturday night. Last year, they came to our house and we walked to the church together. This year, I'm in charge of the silent auction (just found out Sunday; I'd signed up to be on the committee, and was away the last 2 Sundays, so she put me in charge, ha!), but I'll delegate last-minute things to my committee. I knit two things and made a fabric book for it and am considering making some kind of candy (English toffee, maybe?).

G played a lot of Nintendo DS. I'm going to institute a new policy where he has to take a break every hour. This was too much.

Sunday
Got to church too late to sing, dagnabit. I'm going to work harder on this next Sunday, as I really do want to sing there. But we were early, so it was nice to settle in (and find out I was leading the Auction team!).

After church, we gathered up the invitations, the stamps (borrowed from a friend to make the cards), and movies to go back to the video store, and headed out. We delivered one invitation to his best school friend, then went to the Friends of the Library book sale. Drove around for easily half an hour trying to find the Officers Club on the naval base... I had been sure it was out on the edge, with a beautiful view of the bay. Not so. It's nestled almost in the middle of the base. Lovely benches and woodwork, but no view at all. G and I gathered more and more books, with him lugging around a bagful and me trying to cope with my ever-growing armful. In the end, we managed to pack them all into a box and paid just $5 for the box. (And we'll be weeding out 1 book per book purchased to make room for them.) G got a wacky book about How To Be A Space Alien, where they quiz you on what you would choose on Earth to look 'normal.' He read it for the rest of the day.

I did the first big load of dishes from Friday (I have to call the dishwasher repair guy; I'm sick of handwashing dishes) and was hoping to get some cooking done, but didn't get there. Didn't even get menus written out, which I'm hoping will help us (esp. me) eat more healthfully. I did manage to achieve my goal of two veggies at dinner (edamame and green beans), and G forgot that he doesn't like fish and ate the baked sole I made him and had seconds and thirds. All of this was from the freezer, as part of my attempt to use the food we already have on hand.

Last night, I watched Wings of Desire, which I'd found on the 99cent shelf at our video store (the selection changes every week). It's been a while since I've watched an art film, or one in another language (the last one was Pan's Labyrinth). This one is both, and took a fair amount of concentration. I did like it in the end, but wasn't crazy about it. Peter Falk (!) really was great. The director did interesting things with color for the film. 4 out of 5 stars.

Onward and upward!

Thursday, October 02, 2008

The Frantic Weekend that Worked

Saturday was a day doomed to failure. Initially, I had blocked out time to attend a CPR review at our local pool, as mine is out of date. That was about 10-1. I have no idea what G was going to do during that time. Read?

After that ended ("1 or 1:30"), we were going to jet out to Rockridge BART and take a bus up to Cal to attend the end of the Lair of the Bear barbecue/reunion. That ended at 2:30, and we would grab the bus again, and be late to a "Faithful Families" barbecue at our minister's house, which was to be the first get-together of the season for a families-with-young-kids group that would meet monthly. Then, at 7PM, meet up with a friend from out of town and others from an email list I'm on.

Are you out of breath yet?

Here's how it really went down: I never did call to reserve space in the CPR class, so I gave up on that and took G to his regular martial arts class at 10. We were late, but I dropped him off and went to Trader Joe's to do some refrigeration-unnecessary shopping (cereal and crackers) and headed back to do a little more knitting while he finished his workout. From there, we drove to North Berkeley BART (we were early enough not to worry about the parking lot being full, plus Saturday parking is free, yay!) and BARTed up to Berkeley. We moseyed up through campus, G amusing me by holding his free "Cal" sign up high and chanting, "Go Bears! We hate Stanford!" all the way.

We arrived at the barbecue just as it started, and lo and behold! they had plastic cups of a particular frosty beverage I know and love, but which is usually not seen on this "alcohol-free" campus. Ah, Budw!eser, how do I love thee? A cold beer on a hot day is a thing of beauty. We got some burgers and settled down to enjoy them. G enjoyed a bean-bag toss game while I wandered around and talked to people I recognized. We also gathered some outdated Lair-wear that they were selling for "whatever you want to donate." I'm sleeping in a nightshirt for the first time in forever. (It says "Bear Naked," which is amusing, since when you're wearing it, you're not.)

We waited until the end to see if my dad would show up and say hi ("we might be able to get over there," he says on the phone; um, don't kill yourself for an opportunity to see your grandchild, dad), but no dad, and no call on my cell. Whatever. G begs to be able to go in Strawberry Creek, which is disturbingly opaque. Fine, but just for a few minutes. We meander back down the campus (didja all know Cal is sloped downhill?), talking about anything and everything, pausing to rub the Bear's nose for luck once again. (Must have worked; they beat Colorado State!)

We spend a bit of time in Games of Berkeley, a great shop, and I pick up "Set" for my niece. (I find out later that they own it--so why do I have a note on my fridge to buy it for her for Christmas? Dang it.) G picks up another Klutz book, this one on knots. Seems useful to me, so I spring for it.

We head back to Alameda and, despite leaving the barbecue at 2:30, don't arrive till 4PM. (I think we meander and shop quite slowly.)

The barbecue is lowkey but we get some good planning done for the year. I agree to set up a Yahoo! Group for it, so we can have emails and a calendar. G does surprisingly well playing with the age-diverse group of kids, all girls. We help clean up and head over to the restaurant.

We were not terribly hungry by the time we arrived there, but it was so great to see my friend from New York and lots of other local friends. G plays with the two young kids (again, surprisingly well). I wonder at their choice of "Hide and Go Seek" in a restaurant, but they enjoy it while we all get to talk.

After heading back from the parking lot for G's knots book that he left in the front of the restaurant, we go home to collapse.

We sleep well but wake up late, rushing to get to church by 9:30AM for bell choir rehearsal. After rehearsal, I make copies and plans for teaching Sunday School and get G ready to be an acolyte for the service. (When it rains...!) Everything goes off without a hitch, except for G going back into the service to "carry the light of God out into the world," when they light their flame-thingies and extinguish the candles, but that's not my responsibility, so oh, well.

There were several options for things to go to that afternoon, but we nixed all of them and hung out, except for a few errands, ending with some Jamba Juices for each of us at our new JJ joint.

At the end of the weekend, I kinda wanted yet one more day. But when don't I want that?

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Even stumblers can change the world

Just got off the phone with our PTA president. I'm counting fundraiser money at lunchtime today. She asked if I was coming to the meeting tonight. Meeting? Turns out it's already time for another PTA meeting. G had such a good time last time, he said he definitely wants to come to every one of these.

She also mentioned that they were going to provide pizza at the meeting. "I need to call Domino's; they're providing free pizza for us about every other month."

Domino's?

I stammered through an explanation of why using Domino's is a bad idea, second-guessing myself the whole while--I know this gal's environmentally aware, as that has come up before, but am not sure at all if she's politically in line with me. "Um, they're anti-choice!" Is that even a word? I think I made it up. Then I went on to say that they are majorly funding the Proposition 8 campaign. She didn't even know about Proposition 8. Huh? I guess I've just been surrounded by it and it never occurred to me that folks wouldn't know about it. So I stumbled and stammered through an explanation of Prop 8 and what it would mean, and I'm so happy to say she totally backpedaled and decided never to use Domino's again. Phew!

I pointed out that Little Caesar's always has pepperoni pizzas for $5 a pop, and offered to pick some up, on me. She demurred, pointing out that the PTA has money, and folks to pick pizzas up. Please don't tell me LC has bad politics, too!

Well, at least we won't be patronizing Domino's at our school. Phew!

From the mouths of babes

G caught a little bit of Desperate Housewives (Season 1) last night, esp. the scene where Bree's son is talking to the priest about his being gay. Bree (and her church) are of the opinion that being gay is a sin, and that Andrew will not go to heaven.

So G asked me what was going on. I explained that some churches think men who are gay won't go to heaven.

G says slowly, "How could loving someone be a bad thing?"

You said it, babe.

(Then he went on to say that he thinks he's gay, with a tiny grin, since he is so very fond of his friend William. I said maybe, but he has plenty of time to figure that out.)