March 7, 2008 | My name is Grumplestiltskin, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

We’ve been having huge problems with our broadband service, lately, possibly because all cable companies are run by soul-sucking incompetents, or possibly because my personal electro-magnetic field has thus far managed to disrupt my internet service, on occasion, everywhere I have ever lived. It matters not, I suppose.

And so there have been countless calls to Charter to report the agonizing slowness of our connection speed, and all of the fabulously unrelated questions we get asked when we make those calls. Because, you know, whether or not I have a lot of MUSIC ON MY COMPUTER, that would affect my connection speed, apparently. Also, I have taken to lying and saying that we’ve unhooked our router and have one computer directly hooked into the cable modem, just so that we can skip the part where we spend twenty minutes with them trying to convince me the router is broken. (Hint: It isn’t.) (more…)

February 18, 2008 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

It cracks me up to no end that y’all are so concerned in the comments of this post that perhaps I haven’t fully investigated whether the kids’ school has an issue with weirdly-colored hair. I just want to point out—and I say this with love in my heart, truly—that when it comes to school, I am perhaps one of the most rule-abiding folks you’d ever hope to meet. Some might even say that I’m hopelessly square in this regard, and to those people I would just like to say “Put a sock in it, and go clean your room.”

I mean, yes, I will absolutely go to bat for my kids if there’s something that needs addressing, but in general I am only too happy to abide by whatever guidelines the school sets out. That includes (but is not limited to): cruelly forcing my children to do their own homework, not packing soda or candy in lunches even though other children break this rule all the tiiiiiime, Moooooooom!, sending in a note to alert teachers of changes in pick-up/bus arrangements, and making the kids wear real shoes and not flip-flops. (more…)

February 17, 2008 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

I’m doing a bit of research this weekend, pretty readers. I thought perhaps you’d like to participate.

IF you had a young lady on your hands for whom getting her ears pierced was more or less the pinnacle of all things good and meaningful, and IF you had already laid down the law stating that such piercing would not be happening either A) until middle school or B) until said child could manage to comport herself in such a way that you no longer felt compelled to comment that she would lose her own head if it wasn’t attached, and IF said child had a rather large—say, double-digit—birthday coming up, and IF you were completely unwilling to bend on the ear piercing thing but suddenly had an inspiration and blurted out without thinking “HEY, HOW ABOUT YOU HAVE A SLEEPOVER AND WE DYE YOUR HAIR CRAZY COLORS!”, and IF you had already obtained the BFF’s mom’s permission to do so, and IF you then realized “Oh, crap, I may have just stepped in it,” well, then, WHAT PRODUCT would you be looking for which would be safe to use on small girls and would sufficiently color their hair SEMI-PERMANENTLY in various rainbow hues?

Just wondering.

February 14, 2008 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

I’m a big believer in a little bit of special all the time, rather than a whole lot of special just once in a while. It’s just how I am. Not that I’ll turn down the occasional grandiose gesture, you understand, but I am not a Special Occasion person.

I’m a Little Details person. Usually.

Needless to say, every now and then I trip myself up. I get a wild hair—I decide I Must Do Something Special—and nine times out of ten it results in an unmitigated disaster. Give you a kiss every morning? Sure! Do your laundry? Okay! Make your dinner? Absolutely! Plan something extra special? Um, please don’t get your hopes up. (more…)

February 10, 2008 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

I recently had a discussion via email with a friend who ever-so-gently pointed out that when I don’t either blog about things or communicate them to friends in another (more direct) manner, they don’t know what’s going on with me.

I scoffed, because I’ve long made it a habit to only befriend people who are PSYCHIC. It cuts down on the effort I have to make, you know.

Well, okay, not really. What I HAVE done, actually, is put my head down and stuffed my fingers in my ears and loudly “LA LA LA LA LA LA”ed my way through some things happening around here because there comes a times when my wee little brain simply cannot process some facets of my life in a way that is at all productive. That is, after all, why I married Otto—so that at least ONE of us would be sane. Most of the time. (more…)

February 2, 2008 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

Today we went on a wild, day-long adventure, which included going panning for gold. As we stood clustered around a trough, each swishing around our pans, Monkey jabbered a mile a minute and Chickadee complained a couple of times that the water was too cold, but in the end, each of us had successfully isolated a few flakes of gold, which was then placed into a vial we could keep.

The children were ecstatic. For about ten seconds. We then had to wait a bit before it was our turn to go on a tour of the mine, and for a moment I actually GOT SMART and went and bought the kids a snack to head off any potential problems. They munched happily and by the time it was our turn to tour, they were fine.

In fact, they were stellar. (more…)

January 29, 2008 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

I think I’ve mentioned before that at some point I became overwhelmed with this weird THING that compelled me to sign up for a committee in the name of bettering our schools.

(Oh… right. I think that THING may be “a sense of parental and civic responsibility,” but on the other hand, maybe it’s just a mild case of Athlete’s Foot, because it’s sort of itchy.)

On the one hand, I know it’s tiresome to keep up with the “OMG! WTF is the matter with the schools here?” routine, because I’ve done it before, for one thing, and also, HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE? On the other hand, every time I sort of comfort myself with the sense that really, things are improving ’round here and wow, look at the neat stuff the kids are bringing home, something else happens and I find myself saying “OMG! WTF is the matter with the schools here??” (more…)

January 25, 2008 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

… is Friday’s moron.

I’m going to have that embroidered on a sampler, and I’m going to mount it here on the wall of my office. Oh yes. Yes, I shall.

Oh Mondays, I am brilliant. It’s a new day! A new week! And THIS WEEK, I shall triumph. I will be on top of my game. Work will melt away under my fingertips, the children will be delightful and charming, the house will be clean, and late at night I will sidle up to my husband and whisper something a little more sexy than, “I am so tired right now I could cry, if only I had the energy.”

On Mondays, all things are possible.

By Friday, I’m just a mewling puddle of uselessness. (more…)

January 15, 2008 | About, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

Dudes. DUDES. Your affection for my dad warms the cockles of my shriveled, blackened heart. And I’m not the only one. Why, first Otto weighed in with boundless love:

Geez, your dad’s more popular than our wedding….

[Ed. note: Nope, the posts about our wedding still have more comments, but not by much!]

And then, of course, my father wasn’t kidding about sending the post out to everyone he knows. He emailed the link far and wide, which resulted in the entry being visited by people who normally never read me, like my brother. Who then suggested that what Dad really wants is a chicken, because they poop less.

Dad himself wanted to thank you all, too: (more…)

January 11, 2008 | Health is overrated, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

It is possible to be a Stanford-educated professional-type adult, to spend half the morning pondering—once again—how it’s really time to figure out how to incorporate an exercise routine into your life, because you’re too sedentary, after all, plus those pesky ten pounds don’t seem to be losing themselves (go figure), and to simultaneously vow, as well, to start eating better, YOU REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME, because you’re getting older and it’s important, sheesh, woman, it’s time to make your health a priority…

… and to then look up a sinful chocolate cake recipe online because you’re joining friends for dinner and told them you’d make dessert and hey, everyone loves chocolate cake!