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Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
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8:26 am - April Fool's
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This morning ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) 530nm330hz was running late, but came running back in the house to tell me that raccoons had had their way with our trash, and he didn't have time to clean it up. A little while later I went out to deal with it.
Alissa, apparently remembering a story I'd told her recently about how she locked me out of the house when she was 15 months, decided to play a trick on me. She didn't just decide to lock me out, though, she really put some thought into it. When I came back to the door after my task, I found the door closed and deadbolted, but sitting on the railing next to the door were my keys.
I unlocked the door and congratulated her on her trick. She's very proud of her April Fool's.
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| Monday, March 31st, 2008
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1:51 pm - Pesach cleaning and allergies make for a cranky me
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I spent all day yesterday sneezing and sniffling from a combination of tree and dust allergies. I am so happy that I tolerate pseudoephedrine well, I couldn't get by without it.
I am not quite done with week 2 (ABK) cleaning, it's a long list -- but I've completed the Worst Job of the Year. That is, cleaning out the kids' art boxes and recycling a good portion of it. We permit the kids to save anything they want in their art bins in the dining room, both the things we'll want to save forever and the ephemeral things that need a cooling-off period. Since the bins are kept in the dining room, they really need to be cleaned out before pesach. So today I emptied, sorted, shook out the bins and swept behind them, and put the keepers into long-term storage.
It's a necessary but daunting task that brings out happy emotions of reviewing the wonderful things they've done, and sad emotions of letting many things go. In T's case, a lot of the stuff he brings home is art he worked hard on, and writing or math exercises that I want to keep. He also brings home monstrously large things he's made out of construction paper, and some of these have to go. Alissa produces massive amounts of art, some of which is very thoughtfully crafted.
Now I have to hide the bags of recycling.
current mood:  melancholy
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| Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
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10:41 am - Finally, Grocery Shopping for the 21st Century
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This morning I found myself in Watertown and needing some groceries, so after hitting Russo's for produce, I went down the street to Stop & Shop (corner of Pleasant & North). I don't shop here often because my neighborhood Shaw's is more convenient, but I'm going to start doing so. It's a near-clone of the Brighton "Planet Stop & Shop" with the one drawback that the bakery is not heckshered. (That's probably for the best) I went there today because of its physical convenience and because it has an easier bottle return than my nearby Shaw's.
When I entered the store, I encountered something new, a display of handheld scanners. You scan your loyalty card, read the terms and conditions, and then take a scanner. The terms amount to: they won't sell your name blah blah, you agree not to loan out your card, and they reserve the right to double check your cart at the exit. There are bags at the scanner display so you can bag as you go, but I had my own reusables with me.
It was easy, sort of fun, and convenient using the scanner. The screen displays what you have just scanned, the price, quantity (you scan multiple times for duplicate items, a minor drawback) and any discount. At the bottom of the screen is a running total, and you have the option of deleting any items (although I didn't try to). I don't know how produce or other UPC-less items get scanned, since I had just bought my produce at Russo's. I imagine you just save them to the end and scan them at the checkout, which would partially defeat the purpose.
When I completed my shopping, I decided to use the self-checkout line. While these are a good idea, I have had lots of problems with them in the past and I don't think they really save time. There's the slowdown and potential embarrassment factor that the register has to announce loudly what you've just scanned and the price ("Condoms, $10.50. Whipped cream, $1.29") and the hassle of having to put each item carefully on the belt so it can be automatically weighed. Then if your bagging area fills up, the register makes you stop and take care of that.
This time, there was no hassle. I re-scanned my loyalty card at the checkout, and my scanner uploaded automatically. Then it was just pay and go. There is the option of scanning coupons before you pay but they won't let you scan the bottle return receipts, even though a UPC is printed on it. It was another minor drawback to redeem those at the customer service desk. I popped the scanner back in the display, and I was out the door in record time.
All in all, the ability to have a running total; bagging as you go, thereby eliminating the time-consuming and annoying need to unload the cart on the belt, explain how you want things bagged, and get it reloaded; and the rapid checkout were very, very cool. I'm probably willing to live with the minor problems, although this may only last until the first time I get my cart double-checked by a snotty employee.
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| Monday, March 24th, 2008
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9:42 am - I've got it!
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| Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
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5:41 pm - And so it begins
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Today I did almost all of my Week 1 tasks from my four-week list leading up to... you know. Week 1 is a complete cleaning of the second floor, including closets, medicine cabinets, and the kids' rooms. It should surprise no one to learn that Tani is his father's son -- I think they have magpie genes in there somewhere. Fortunately I had already done the kids' closets two weeks ago so cleaning the two kid rooms only took... um... 4 hours? Geez.
Naturally it goes much faster without "help" but it's also necessary to teach them how to clean and organize. Tani would much rather do the scrubbing kind of cleaning than the putting away, straightening, and throwing away kind; but I told him in a couple weeks he'll have plenty of that. Alissa is a master of the art of passive resistance, but I assigned 530nm330hz to help her in her room and they seemed to do okay without the conniptions I had with Tani.
Next week: Downstairs ABK (All but kitchen)
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| Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
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4:03 pm - The weather today, 3:15-4:00 pm
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| Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
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12:41 pm
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Alissa: I'm drawing a picture of your bones, Mama. This is your leg and foot! (draws for a while) Now I'm going to label it. N for knee... F for thigh*... K for cow**...
* She pronounced it "fie"
** If you haven't guessed yet, she meant "calf"
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| Thursday, February 7th, 2008
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10:20 am - Fun for all
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Today I am stuck home with a feverish child, condemned to hours of children's television while comforting her and finishing the sewing for Tani's siddur cover. I'm glad it's not Tani that's sick, or I couldn't work on it today (it's a strict surprise) and the deadline is tomorrow. (and yes, I'm ashamed of myself for being glad that it's Alissa that's sick and not Tani)
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| Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
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8:03 pm - Luckiest Kid in Boston
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Yesterday I got a call from Tani's school that he'd been sent to the nurse's office for suspected conjunctivitis. Tani has been prone since the age of two to eye infections/allergies that look a little like conjunctivitis, but really aren't the same. Nonetheless, I was fully aware that I wasn't going to be able to convince the school that he was fine, so I agreed to pick him up. As expected, one eye was discharging some goo, but there was no sign of redness. It was kind of a toss-up to me whether I should just home-treat as usual or take him in, but since he hadn't had one of these episodes in a year, I decided to take him in to the doctor's office.
( Read more about Tani and the Red Sox )
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| Friday, August 24th, 2007
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1:53 pm
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I have a good shabbat menu this week, so I'll post mine.
Tonight:
-chicken soup leftover from last night's Chicken in the Pot
-honey roast chicken stuffed with apples & onions (a collaboration between Tani and me)
-brown rice
-broccoli
-brownies and fruit
Tomorrow's lunch:
-green salad
-fajitas made with:
--chicken and beef marinated and grilled
--rice
--corn
--black bean salad (another Tani/Mama collaboration)
--guacamole
--steamed tortillas
-strawberry rhubarb pie
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10:08 am - Crossover
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It isn't often that my interests in science fiction and knitting have an intersection, but sometimes you see something like this.
There's lots of Harry Potter knitting, which is mostly pretty attractive even if it doesn't appeal to me, and there's a Princess Leia wig/hat pattern which is a hoot, but knitting something as hideous as Jayne's hat for the sake of fandom takes real dedication.
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| Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
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9:13 am - Ugh
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| Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
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10:15 am
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Me, lately:
Watched Serenity (whee!!), The Politician's Wife (whoo!), and Napoleon Dynamite (eh).
Finished Benjamin Franklin, read The Bad Quarto, Debts of Dishonor, Documents in the Case.
Cleaned the house. Did lots of laundry. Lots more to do.
Hosted my parents for three days (barbecue #1, and Tani's first Red Sox game), and a small gathering for friends entering JCDS (barbecue #2, in the rain).
Waiting for Sons of Heaven, Harry Potter, my yarn.
Working on a sweater for me, a sweater for Lis, baby sweaters for lots of babies-to-be.
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| Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
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11:11 am - Cool Things
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-Knitting a new piece with the yarn coming directly from the unraveling old piece. The yarn is all curly and there's such a circle-of-life, worm-of-Ouroboros quality to it. It's not so cool that even the new piece is ridiculously too short and had to be ripped out, but that's life. The whole point is that knitting causes serotonins to be released*, so I guess it's time to start a side project.
-Anxiously hovering over the UPS tracking page, updating it every half hour, until it says "delivered" so I open the door, and lo and behold! I love that, particularly when it's too dang cold to be checking the old-fashioned way.
-The simple joy of snow-deprived children when they discover a shoveled-together pile of the minuscule snowfall that is enough to have a snowball fight with.
-Having two children who can dress themselves (except on weekends), make an edible if not immaculate pbj, and play computer games to entertain themselves while Mama's having chills and fever.
*Should I practice catch and release with serotonins? To keep up their population?
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| Sunday, April 30th, 2006
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6:27 pm - Post 5-year-old's birthday party conversation
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My neighbor to me: What would you have done if it had rained?
Me: Shot myself.
Neighbor: (thinks for a minute) I'd have bought you the bullet.
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| Monday, February 20th, 2006
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4:48 pm - Vacation Week, Day 1
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This morning our vacation week got off to a special start, since some friends of ours thoughtfully had a baby boy last Monday, so we went to a bris! T hasn't been to one (that he remembers) but he knew all the gory details, and wanted to be where he could see everything. I held him up until my arms gave out and he actually enjoyed it.
After that we went to T's favorite place in the world - the Fire Engine Playground. It lived up to all expectations, and in addition to the play fire engine we saw 2 real ones go by. After we warmed up in Barnes & Noble we were off to the main attraction -- seeing Curious George at the Fenway Theater. This was both kids' first commercial movie experience and they were both extremely good and enjoyed it a lot. It was a very good kids' film, and even had laughs in it for me. Very predictable plot-wise, but that's expected.
After that we had lunch in Brookline, and saw gnomi at the Butcherie. One day down. Tomorrow: Children's Museum.
Highlight of the day: I told T it was Washington's Birthday, which led to much singing of "Happy Birthday" and later, he kept trying to convince me to buy cake/candy/cake decorating stuff in honor of Washington. :-) And he found 26 cents at Kupel's. We all had a great day!
Dinner tonight: chef's salad with Hod Lavan pre-cooked turkey.
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| Friday, February 17th, 2006
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2:42 pm - At the risk of being ridiculed
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I'll admit it, menu planning is not my strong suit. I keep a little card file with successful shabbat/party/holiday menus that I've made or had, and I tend to do my menu planning by mixing and matching these. This works fairly well for fancy meals but the system does tend to break down for everyday weekday meal ideas.
I've mentioned to a few people in the past the idea of exchanging menu ideas and recipes, and gotten looks like I had two heads. Well, in this forum I'm immune to looks and I can delete feedback I don't like ;-) so I'll ask. Who wants to share?
Tonight we are having chicken fajitas. Chicken breasts marinated in World Harbors Fajita sauce* and grilled on my George Foreman, with Near East spanish rice, guacamole made from Trader Joe's frozen avocados, steamed tortillas, sauteed peppers and onions.** I may add black beans and corn, because the kids like those. Possibly a salad.
For tomorrow we're going to a potluck for which I made gemelli with pesto.
*I've made steak fajitas this way with london broil, too.
**Have I mentioned that our oven has been broken since early January? They keep ordering the wrong parts.
current music: There's a Little Wheel A-Turnin' in my Heart
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| Thursday, February 16th, 2006
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2:48 pm - One Swan, Two Swan
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A couple weeks ago there was a swan on Bullough's Pond. We drive past the pond twice a day, dropping off and picking up T. at preschool. I pointed out the swan to the kids, and stopped the car. We got out and watched her for a while. For the next couple days she was still there but then we hadn't seen her again.
Today on the way home there were not one but two swans! Can this mean ducklings, goslings, and cygnets this year? Anyone know when swans start to nest?
Yay, it's almost spring!
Note: I am much happier now than I was 2 hours ago. I almost posted some really gross details of my day. Aren't you glad I didn't? :-)
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| Thursday, February 9th, 2006
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8:15 pm - Running hot and cold
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So for a while now in our house we've had a problem with the heat. In certain rooms the radiators barely worked at all, causing radiators in nearby rooms to work overtime to make up for it. More troubling, the boiler was requiring water to be added on a daily or almost-daily basis. When this boiler was first installed -- a mere nine years ago, our first winter in the house -- we were told it should only require more water once or twice a month. And so it was, for years. We knew that parts of the house were cold, so we replaced windows, added insulation, all the good stuff. It helped, but not enough.
In December we called the company that installed the boiler to fix the water problem. We'll call them Company A. Company A sent a guy, we'll call him Alpha. Alpha tinkered with it, replaced a few minor parts, flushed and cleaned things, and said it was ok to add water frequently in cold weather. This didn't sound right, but I figured we'd give it a try for a few days and see if there was improvement.
No go. It was just the same, and one day in early January we had no heat at all. I call Company A again, and next day they sent Alpha again. He tinkered some more and went on his merry way. Next day, I go to check it and it's leaking at both output valves. (I don't know if that's the right term, but whatever). So I call Company A quite ticked off, and they sent a guy we'll call Beta (within a few hours, to their credit). Beta replaced some valves, cleaned some things, put in a relief valve. OK.
Tuesday night, I go downstairs to - you guessed it! add water to the boiler, when I see there's a leak at the input valve. *&^^%$$# When 530nm330hz got home, he noticed that the pressure gauge was up to 10 psi. We decided to shut off the boiler at the cutoff switch. Wednesday morning we called Company B. They sent someone that same afternoon. He basically looked at our system in shock and amazement.
The radiators that have never worked properly are apparently set up for a forced hot water system - but our system is steam. They don't work well because basically the hot steam has a tough time getting past the pooled water in the pipes. Steam systems require that the pipes be very precisely angled to tilt back toward the boiler, so the condensation will run back to be re-heated. This is not the case in five rooms, including the two radiators installed as part of our renovation five years ago.
So Company B's guy scoffed at all the valves and modifications made by Company A. He said they were all wrong and replaced them. He temporarily patched up the non-working radiators. For a permanent fix they will require re-running the pipes. He came back today to fix a leak he'd discovered as well. When he left at 2 pm today I was delighted by the heat pouring out of radiators that have always been reluctant. Well, it's 8:30 now and it's 80 degrees in here although I've had the thermostat sent to 55 for 3 hours now. Apparently our thermostat is broken. I wonder if it's always been like this and we just didn't know because of the general wonkiness of the system.
It's always something, isn't it?
Edited to add: Company B is RP Holmes. So far, so good. The thermostat thing was a minor mistake, I'm not holding it against them.
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| Friday, February 3rd, 2006
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2:26 pm
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I've finally updated my web page after about five years. Not very exciting unless you want recipes.
I don't think we've told anyone yet - we're staying home for Passover. Don't read anything into this, it doesn't mean what it has meant in the past.
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