low foot clearance

just how old do you think i am?

2010-02-28T06:19:36Z

me: are you the only one wearing a uniform these days?
paul: practically.
paul: i liked james' shirt yesterday.
paul: it said green day and it had the military on it.
paul: do you even know what green day is?
me: a band.
paul: [silence]
me. was i not supposed to know that?

flooding my inbox

2010-02-26T20:07:59Z

can i just say that whoever invented "reply to all" SHOULD BE TAKEN OUTSIDE AND SHOT?

peeking behind the veil

2010-02-26T19:42:16Z

what passes for strength of will and strong convictions might actually be apathy or inertia (or forgetfulness).

for example, you should see the looks i get when i tell people that my decade-plus commitment to meatless eating was initially fueled by curiosity and then continued out of habit.

somewhere, pigs are flying

2010-02-25T15:49:42Z

certain people at work are taking an interest in my welfare and are expressing concern about my late hours. amazing.

setting up an ethnic identity

2010-02-24T16:06:15Z

my almost 2-year-old daughter loves shoes and identifies herself as "baby."

funny how she's already a stereotypical filipina.

not the greatest news

2010-02-21T10:35:06Z

i am a little alarmed to discover that the federal "age discrimination in employment act" protects employees 40 years and older from harassment and discrimination. um, how am i just five scant years away from being a protected group based on AGE? should i start touching up my gray?

in-home care

2010-02-21T08:40:45Z

cam, paul, nola and i have been sick for what feels like years.

paul has been in and out of school. cam has spent quite a few days working from home. (my mother guilted me for going to work while nola was ill.)

everyone coughs, snuffles and swallows painfully.

i had pinkeye!

these past few days have been particularly galling because cam and i seem to have gotten worse (although it's been okay today) instead of better. i'm losing my voice for the second time in two weeks, and the illness is completely different from what it was then. nose, please stop dripping.

must we run through the entire gamut of potential colds/flu before this winter is over?

gray, part two

2010-02-21T07:58:28Z

speaking of "questionable," why on earth would nordstrom consider a sandal with a lucite heel a good "wear to work" option? it may be a "chunky" lucite heel, but lucite is still lucite. a "stripper with poor balance" shoe doesn't strike me as properly business casual.

consider gray as an option

2010-02-21T07:51:40Z

am in the middle of completing a mandatory workplace harassment prevention training seminar (online, thankfully) for work. i'm learning that i'm pretty trigger-happy when it comes to defining harassment. yikes. i need to remember that not everything can be labeled appropriate or inappropriate from the get-go -- "questionable" is a valid categorization.

pissy

2010-02-17T03:38:03Z

nola has been in the foulest mood lately. she throws tantrums at the slightest provocation, she hits paul, she screams and cries all the time. i don't know if it's because she's sick or if THIS is what her terrible twos are going look like. i am... terrified.

idiotbox

2010-02-13T07:28:21Z

after sitting patiently though parts of "pride and prejudice" and "girls just want to have fun," cam showed an interest in watching "i'm gonna git you sucka." what could i say? so that's what he's watching.

it's hasn't been the greatest night for tv. we resorted to channel-flipping:
me: [stopping to read a description of "oz"]
cam: 2010?
me: [changing the channel] oh no, it's old.
cam: yeah.
me: it's ryan o'reilly.
cam: oh really?
me: you can't make a wiggles joke while we're watching oz!
cam: isn't it appropriate?
me: [pause]
cam: oh, different oz.

how many stages are there in a conference call?

2010-02-09T16:17:23Z

seconds after a conference call ends, the phone rings. it's one of the participants.

x: i started to zone out at the end -- did i miss anything?
me: no.
x: good.
x: when i heard "think outside the box," i thought, "oh, we've reached the platitude stage so we must be wrapping up."

so true.

chip off the old block

2010-02-07T05:32:20Z

cam: why do you get to make all the decisions?
me: because he whines the loudest.
cam: [laughter]
paul: [seriously] I make all of the decisions because I whine the loudest.
me: that's right.
paul: whine is a homophone.
paul: there's whine, which is to throw a fit, and there's wine, which you drink.

i crown paul the newest little robot in the house.

foam sweet home

2010-02-03T04:07:08Z

the children are yelling hellos at each other while climbing all over their new foam home. (no, we didn't pay that price, it showed up on kids woot for about half that, i think.) the house is super-cute, but the kids are even cuter.

no speech therapy

2010-01-31T15:39:38Z

nola is very talkative. when paul was her age, he communicated mostly by signs, so this is new to us. (of course, now paul won't stop talking, so this means we have multiple children with mouths that. never. close.)

she calls her grandfather "beepa."

she likes to count: "one two three four five six five six five six"

our favorite sentence (a little garbled, but still understandable): "help, i'm stuck!"

she likes to laugh like the count: "ha ha ha."

she likes to sing "tinkle tinkle," much to the delight of her grandparents. she also likes to sing the theme song for "yayoo" (caillou).

wook (look), uh-oh, mulk (milk), wahr (water) and mommy/daddy/paul still pretty much make up the bulk of her conversation, but it's a lot of fun trying to deciper the rest of her warbling.