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the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
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DEPRIVED CHILD MIGHT AS WELL BE LIVING IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND For obscure reasons, Nora came home yesterday with a small drug-size baggie of Lucky Charms. I guess this is related to St Patrick's Day somehow, or else they are selling leprechaun food instead of crack on the playground these days. She had some crazy story about how they used them in math group for sampling and predictions and bar charts, and about the forcible takeover of the school by General Mills, but I wasn't really listening. Nora was sitting at the table with me for the school-day debriefing, snacking on her meager bag of dry Lucky Charms, and remarking on how they were BUT AT LEAST SHE GOT SOME NATURE SKILLZ I spent part of my weekend watching Nora dissect owl pellets for her kindergarten science project. The kid loves dead things. It's, uh, heartwarming. She maintained laser-like focus (accompanied by a gleeful running monologue) for an astonishingly long time, and would have done more if I had not made her stop for lunch (wash your hands OH GOD GO WASH YOUR HANDS). She carefully matched up each bone with charts we got from the internet, and after a little research about the owls of eastern Oregon* we concluded that the carcasses were probably voles. Which is going to be my new username in just about every future situation, by the way. Probably Voles. *Owl pellets were donated from an awesome lady way out there. Where they have forests. NADA Y NADA 1. My new most hated verbal tic, right up there with the misuse of literally (Idiot Girl: Oh my god you guys I literally died!) (Me [not out loud]: I literally wish you would!) has got to be the strangled phrase "it goes to show." I used to work with someone who said this all the time, and she NEVER followed up with what, exactly, it went to show. Someone would complain about something and she'd sigh sympathetically and say, "It just goes to show." As if that were a complete sentence or meant anything at all. It just goes to show what? That everything sucks? That you are the most boring person on earth who can only talk in clich�s? She also wore crazy patterned sweaters designed by the criminally insane and was unable to witness anyone eating without remarking on their food in some way, so going-to-show was not necessarily the most annoying thing about her. But it was close. 2. I ate a whole bag of microwave popcorn for lunch. I am on this new diet that is all about fake butter, salt, radiation, and whatever deadly cancer-causing chemicals are in the magical popping bag. Actually the truth is that I rarely eat popcorn, but I needed salt badly and the popcorn was probably marginally better for me than a whole box of Wheat Thins, which was the backup plan. Where is a salt lick when you need one? After the popcorn feast I really needed to brush my teeth because there were all these little shell bits in my lower jaw, but stupidly I had not left enough time and had to go to a meeting. Huge mistake, because the shell bits just became more obsessively omnipresent the longer I sat in the conference room, almost like I had a double row of teeth, and I found myself meditatively opening and closing my mouth like a shark instead of listening to the agenda. Everything okay, Mimi? 3. This will sound strange, but I need to meet a nice pitbull. Now I am not a dog person under the best of circumstances, but I am not usually afraid of dogs unless they are snarly snappy drooling hellbeasts. But there is something about pitbulls that frightens me on sight, they have those huge chest muscles and small heads and of course their reputation, deserved or not, precedes them. Several people in my neighborhood have pitbulls. The people do not look like thugs and the pitbulls do not look like baby-chewers, so why do I tense up when they walk by on their leashes? Maybe I need to make some dog-owner friends, because I don't like having irrational prejudices. Except for my thing against Belgians. That is going to stay. 4. Calling all children's librarians! Nora is tearing through books, and she is at that awkward stage where she is a good reader but gets fatigued sometimes, and where she is capable of longer books but would prefer there to be at least SOME illustrations. The gap between "easy readers" and "long chapter books with serious-ass vocabulary" seems to be wide. What am I missing? She loves cheesy series books like Dinosaur Cove, she loves Ivy and Bean, she's read My Father's Dragon, she likes Cam Jansen and Nate the Great although I personally am sick of mysteries---why are there so many kid mystery books? No Magic Tree House please, I am allergic, it's a long story. Anything else? 5. More of my using Wikipedia as a prognosticator, online bibliomancy, whatever: this morning I hit "Random Article" as usual and this is what I got. Black metal makes me laugh so hard. Talk about taking yourself seriously, despite being involved in a ridiculous endeavor. Sort of like bloggers! Oh no she did not just say that. BURN THE WITCH. ---mimi smartypants is drowned if she sinks, condemned if she floats. |
