At least that’s how Miss Caroline indicates to us that she’s ready to light the Hanukkah candles, when she sees them lined up in the menorah ready to go. And she still says “Happy birthday!” after the candles are lit, but she’s not even two. It’s cute.
Karen took Caroline to see Santa Claus today (yes, we’re a multi-culti household). Great picture of her crying on Santa’s lap. Too bad we don’t have the digital image…
Aah, that timeless children’s classic “Brown Spots on the Wall.”
This week, brought to you by Miss Caroline. Skeeved Karen out immensely, since she had to deal with it directly. During a nap on Monday, Caroline decided to stick her hands into her diaper and rub poo everywhere. Yes, that is truly gross. And if I wasn’t at work, I would have cleaned it up (despite what Karen might tell you).
But on a more positive note, she can count to 10 and has finally started saying her name. The joys of parenting. 
Or, how “skinny jeans,” Alice Cooper, and Grover got me in trouble.
Darling Wife (who has a Tumblr site of her own) mentioned the other day that she couldn’t wear “skinny jeans” because she looked like an aging rock star. I replied, “You mean like Alice Cooper?”
She shot me one of those laser-like looks that could bore a hole clean through my skull. And then she said she was posting that on Facebook (which I still don’t use; and she told me that she wouldn’t friend me anyway if I was on there).
Karen’s next comment: “Am I too skinny?”
“You mean the Grover arms?” I figure if I’m going down, I might as well go down hard and have some fun doing it. And, Karen has commented before that she thinks she has Grover arms. So I think that made it onto Facebook as well.
I guess I’m lucky that hardly anybody reads this; otherwise, I might get myself in trouble. Unless people find out on Karen’s Facebook page…
The big TV is finally fixed. Things are back to what passes for normal around here, now that I’ve reconnected the cable boxes in the right places. No more having to coax Daisy to come upstairs and sit on the bed while we watch TV; she can just stay sleeping on the couch.
I think. I was wearing a Duke sweatshirt the other night and she was looking at the letters. I spelled it out and said “Duke.” And then she said “Duke,” all happy with herself. I smiled. She smiled. It was fun! Then she did it again for Karen, who rolled her eyes. Can’t please everybody…
A little sarcastic rant before starting work, to get this off my chest.
I left the house a minute or two late this morning, and expected to miss the 57 bus. Sure enough, about a block and a half away, I saw it go by. Not that big a deal. Then another 57 bus goes by, barely a minute later, and I’m still a half block from the stop. Grrr.
So I turn the corner to head for the 29 bus (and go for the bus-subway combo). I’m not even 50 feet in that direction when the 29 goes by. I’ve missed three buses in less than five minutes. Unreal.
I wait at the 29 stop, since I only have to cross the street (Tasker) to get the 57 if it comes first. The 29 arrives first, so I get on; there’s no 57 in sight. I guess this is a good thing. I sit and take out my magazine to read, since that’s the only way for me to handle commuting in the morning – I just can’t sit there and stare into space.
About three blocks later, we get stuck behind a trash truck. Which is odd, since trash pickup in this part of the city is not on Mondays. We creep through the next two or three blocks. The bus finally gets going and the driver hits a parked car in the 900 block of Tasker. I think she tore the sideview mirror off. I’m not sure, since I can’t see from where I’m sitting. I assume the bus will be there a while, so I get off and start walking.
At 12th Street, that bus passes me. Then the next 29 bus was almost directly behind it (thanks to our being slowed by the trash truck).
Into the subway, where as I’m walking into the station, the northbound train (which I need) is pulling out. Oh joy! Another five minutes or so goes by before the next train. An uneventful train ride (it’s hard to hit something in the tunnels).
Then dodging through the idiots coming in from Jersey who don’t know how to walk in the city. Some things never change.
Aaahhh. That feels a little better. Now time to get to work.
Karen and I were sitting watching a little TV last night (DVR’ed episode 2 of AMC’s The Prisoner) when about 10 minutes or so into the episode (and right around 10:00pm) there’s a loud pop! from the TV, the picture goes all sepia tone, and the fan gets really loud. Loud enough to bother the dog. I switch off the TV, thinking that maybe it’s a temporary thing. I wait about a minute or so and turn it back on. No picture, no sound, and the fan is still really loud. And now I can’t turn the TV off. I’m worried that it’s going to burst into flames, since I had no idea what went wrong. I’m trying to reach behind and next to the TV to unplug it, but can’t remember which plug is for the TV (it’s one of those set it and forget it type of things). I finally find the right plug and then can’t get my arm back far enough to unplug it. This is becoming more farcical by the minute.
Now it’s time to find that five extended service contract I got when I bought all this gear 3 1/2 years ago. From Tweeter, which is now out of business. Good thing the contract is honored by a third party. After about 25 minutes of looking, I finally find it (it somwhow made its way into the refiling pile). I call the number, and it’s disconnected. This is not good. I look up the company online and find another number. And somebody answered the phone at 10:30pm! Success! They outsource the repairs to local companies. The repair tech will be coming tomorrow. But any parts will have to be ordered, at a 7-10 business day delay.
It’s relatively rough, since Caroline is such a big Sesame Street fan, and it’s a good distraction for a few minutes if something needs to be done around the house.
Karen posted something about it on her Facebook page (sorry, direct inbound links aren’t allowed), and one of her friends commented “Just put a little bacon on it. Bacon makes EVERYTHING better.” Too bad we didn’t have any bacon.
Going into a race with low expectations is nice; that way, there’s no disappointment afterwards. I had only one goal for this uniquely Philly race (at 8.4 miles, the distance itself is somewhat unique): finish in under one hour. I hit 59:50 – just made it.
But tactically, it was once of the worst races I have run in a long time, if ever. I started out too fast (pretty much usual for me; mile 1 in 6:06), but I felt comfortable and had some people nearby that I thought I could stay with. Then Headphone Woman came by. A relevant aside: two weeks ago at the Bridge Run, she went flying by me a little after mile 5. This time, I thought I could stay with her, even though we hadn’t hit mile 2 yet. I suggested we run together, to try to catch the woman ahead of us who was, at the time, the first female. This was the big mistake: I really couldn’t hang. I stayed on for about 1.5 miles and then couldn’t hold the pace any longer.
Some people passed me in ones and twos. The depressing moment was when a group of six guys went by me like I was standing still. The challenging part of this event is that it is completely run on the path, and we have to dodge all the other people using it. Around mile 6, we hit the boathouses and the regatta that was going on. The combination of spectators, rowers, and shells made for some interesting dodging.
I just focused on finishing in under one hour, which seemed to be slipping away. I could keep track of the quarter mile splits thanks to the numbers painted on the path. But I had slowed considerably; I was maintaining about a 7:20 pace. Hitting the start of Boathouse Row, entering the last quarter mile or so, I knew it would be close. When I finally saw the clock, I knew I had it in under an hour.
I need to not be so stupid next time, especially when I’m not ready to run that fast.
I was at the office on Sunday, and ran a few errands at lunch. As I was walking, I was behind this woman wearing a “trendy” outfit: calf-high boots, black leggings, and a sweater that almost covered her butt. She was a little concerned about not being covered, as she kept pulling the sweater down. Then I guess she heard me, as she became rather self-conscious about it, trying to pull the sweater down more. She then stopped to do a little window shopping.
Apparently, my not looking like Brad Pitt caused her to stop.
Darlin’, if you don’t want everyone to look at you and your butt, you should look in the mirror before you leave the house.
This has been a long day. Got up at 4:45am; needed to shower and leave at 5:45 to be at the hospital by 6:15. We got to surgery admission right around 6:15. We had to wait about 10 minutes, then they took us to an examining room. Where we waited for about two hours, although they did some initial work (check vitals, administer the “giggle juice” (pre-anesthetic), etc.)
A picture of Caroline, pre-surgery:
She was in surgery for about an hour. The doctor came out and told us that everything went fine. We had to wait about another 10 minutes before we were called back to recovery, where Caroline was crying her head off. She doesn’t normally do that. It took a while for her to calm down. The nurses said it was a combination of the anesthetic drugs she had and that she was coming off them at different times. Add in some disorientation and pain, and you get lots of crying. She slept for about half an hour and Karen decided that we should bring her home. After a final vital sign check, we left and got home around 12:30pm.
Here’s a picture, post-surgery:
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