Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

Nothing to say except my head hurts so bad that my eyes are watering. Just took drugs. Hopefully better soon.

So we finally went to see Star Wars: Attack of the Clones last night. I really enjoyed it. Much better than I anticipated. Although everyone else seems to hate Hayden Christensen, I didn’t mind him at all. I don’t think he gave an Oscar caliber performance or anything, but I see where the actor was going with the character. In trying to show conflict between raging emotions and the effort to maintain the calm Jedi exterior, he went for the subdued, almost whipped-dog approach rather than play it over the top. Yeah, he was a little whiny, but at least there was no mention of going to “Toshi station to pick up some power converrrrrrrrrterrrrrrrrrs!”

I really don’t have that much to say, other than I’ve been playing Neverwinter Nights for the past oh, 4 hours or so. I missed it that much.

Idiotically I stopped taking my pills when it looked like the panic attacks were done. Well they weren’t. They’re back full freaking force and I sincerely hope that it’s not going to take 5 months of drugs to make them stop again. For those of you playing at home, I’ve got this nasty case of post partum depression that manifests itself as panic attacks. It’s happened with both kids. Any sort of situation where I feel that I don’t have complete and utter control is able to make me panicky. You can bet I’m a lovely passenger.

The two year old is staying with her grandparents for a couple of days for a visit. She told her grandma today that she “wanted her mama”. Pack your bags, cause we’re going on a guilt trip! Yeeeeeeeeeehaw!

Yes, I’m alive.

We’ve been in Houston for the past few days at the La Leche League regional conference. It was nice, although hard to hear the speakers while chasing around the baby. I’m seriously considering applying to be a LLL Leader, though.

Damn, it’s hard being away from the computer for 3 days.

We were watching Devil’s Advocate once and my husband remarked, ‘Damn, those Spanish people can clap fast.” He didn’t realize that they alternate claps between 2 people (or groups of people).

My secret vices:
Barry Manilow
Neil Diamond
The Carpenters
Garth Brooks
singing along with the Gladiator soundtrack really loud

Kick it, Rockapella!

I would, of course, never admit to liking Manilow, Diamond, or Carpenters as a child. Is my memory faulty in thinking that I really did like them back then, or is it just that I’ve become a Muzak mama in my old age and I’m projecting my current taste on my past self?

I do remember being 10 or so, right when Pong first came out, and going to stay at a dude ranch with my family and some friends. There was a jukebox there at the rec room and a group of kids would play Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” over and over, and I remember liking that. On the other hand, right after Karen Carpenter died the airwaves were inundated with her music and I remarked to a friend how much I hated how Karen said “know”. She says it kind of like “knoo”. My friend remarked that she wasn’t going to be saying it much from now on, ha ha. Yeah, we were a regular laff riot, teenagers who were never going to get old or dead.

Youth is wasted on the young.

I just found out that the iBrotha killed himself last Friday. I’m really stunned, and I don’t know what to say about it right now. Rest in peace, Rodney.

I’m probably going to be a little out of pocket for the next few days. I got my copy of Neverwinter Nights and hub got my computer working, so I’m going to be busy playing. Poor little old me.

I spent this afternoon putzing around all by myself. What a hoot – I went to something like 7 pawn shops because a jeweler guy told me yesterday that he knew a woman who went to a pawn shop in Austin and picked up a gem that turned out to be a blue diamond that they were selling as aquamarine or something. I got all excited and expected to find something immediately. I didn’t. I did find a very nice first edition copy of Silence of the Lambs, though. $2.00, and they sell for around $20 on eBay.

You have $3500 to spend on any piece of jewelry you want. What do you buy?

At least I’m feeling a little more human now.

We went to Dallas yesterday to visit a friend. She’s not from Dallas, she’s from Ohio, but was in town for a convention. Since it’s a hell of a lot closer than driving to Ohio, we went up to see her while she was in the same state.

And we took the 9 month old and the 2.5 year old.

If you have children, you are shaking your head at this point and saying “What were they thinking? That’s crazy-talk.” And you’re right.

We had stayed in another location of Staybridge Suites once and it was really nice, what with the high speed internet access and kitchen and stuff. I booked us a room at the one in Dallas and we had high hopes. Well, when we checked in they told us that the net access was temporarily down and they were working on it. That was fine, we had dinner plans and they would have plenty of time to work on it while we were out. It never got fixed. And our phone was broken so we couldn’t call out.

We headed over to Pappadeaux and had a really excellent meal and the kids were fine and it was loud enough that if they hollered, nobody could really hear them. Then we headed over to downtown Dallas to see the skyline, since it’s one of my favorites, especially at night. I love the skyscraper that has the green neon all down the sides. While we were there we decided to look for the Grassy Knoll�.

(pause blogging for a moment while I go upstairs to make some dinner for the 2.5 year old and the fridge breaks and one of the shelves falls and a bottle of Frank’s Hot sauce shatters on the floor and I use the F-word about 50 times)

If you’ve ever been to Dallas, I’m sure you were as underwhelmed as I at the JFK memorial. I took to calling it the Non-ument. It’s this granite slab in the ground surrounded by concrete slabs, and it is singularly ugly. We were woefully unprepared for the foray and didn’t know where the School Book Depository building or anything was. We stumbled across it by blind luck, then decided to go back to the hotel.

Still, the kids were doing well, no major blowups. The little one crashed out. It was only a matter of time. The 2.5 year old had not taken a nap all day, and she refused to go to bed. Nuclear wasteland ensued. Around 2 AM she went postal, complete with snot, spit, tears, blubbering, hysterics, screaming, the works. Past experience has shown that people staying in hotels do not appreciate wailing kids at 2 in the morning. She spent the next hour and a half crying. At 3:30, once things had calmed down, I climbed into bed and proceeded not to be able to sleep. I kinda sorta vaguely drifted off a little bit and then the little one woke up at 5:30, hungry. She went back to sleep and woke up at 6:30, hungry. She fell asleep and all was well.

Until 8 AM when the hotel fire alarm went off.

We canceled our visit to my cousin’s house and headed home. The kids were positively filthy from the carpet in the hotel room. It looked like they had been playing in a coal bin. And they refused to nap during the 3.5 hour drive.

Next time we go out of town, we’re dosing them with Benadryl.