…a little Matrix Ping Pong.

Do you know why I’ve got no class? (Okay, besides the burping like a toad frog.) I’ve got no class because my academic advisor forgot to mention that I had to carry a minimum of six credits to qualify for financial aid. Oops!

Oh, and since it’s past the deadline to sign up for classes, and I can’t pony up the $500 it would take to cover the math course I’m enrolled in – plus book – I will now have to drop it entirely. Now I will have to wait for the New Year to get going in school. Oopsie!

That sound you hear? It’s my teeth being ground to stumps with frustration.

Update: You know, I got to thinking about it… Never in a million years would I have thought I could get so steamed over not getting to do math. That’s a new one for me.

I could just eat him up. CHOMP!

It’s time to celebrate! Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. We fully observe ITLAPD in our household…all except for the Princess who grinches out at even the faintest “Ar!” Killjoy.

Here are Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket to assist us in the finer points of pirate dialog.

I know I have whined about how much I missed spicy food. I moaned and groaned when I thought of the Greek peppers and chilis and wasabi I had to do without. (Having to abstain from Rick’s salsa  was day-by-day torture, I tell you.) And having to give up tomatoes was also a strain, seeing as how I could survive on pizza alone for months at a time.

But, oh man, I don’t think I was ready for Moo to wean. At 21 months old, she nursed for seven full months longer than either of the Bigs, but still I was not ready. Okay, I was ready for her to not do jumping jacks while latched on, but I am still so sad that that part of life is done.

I want to go back. I want those snuggly hours nuzzling together late at night. I want to laugh at her glazed, blissful face as her tummy gets full. I want that soft, fuzzy head nuzzled in the crook of my arm.

I don’t want another baby. I want a time machine.

Still on the fence about who to vote for? Well, then, wasn’t it nice of the folks at ABC News to set up the Match-O-Matic II to help with these sticky situations?

My outcome was very predictable, but it was worth it to see the other guy’s skyward ejection.

Or three.

I can not resist a good library sale. Heck, I can’t resist a mediocre one. Usually the one in our town is fair to middling, but this time around they were playing dirty pool and had a special few lined up by the entrance that pleaded with me to come home. What else could I do?

There was this, a 1908 book of advice to her 25 year old son as he prepared to marry. Even now, a century later, I can imagine him rolling his eyes.

There was this crumbling 1917 edition of Kipling’s The Seven Seas, a book of poetry about the sailing life. It made Mr. MG smile, even if he doesn’t particularly care for Kipling. Or poetry.

I love cookbooks. The Storyland Cookbook has cotton candy sweet illustrations and simple, straightforward recipes. And the font makes me really happy.

Once we got past the prize table, we swept the kids’ section. At ten cents a book, (and the next day when we went back, everything was half price) I figure grab anything remotely interesting and donate whatever doesn’t stick. We got some odd looks, but it didn’t slow us down.

On to the adult books. No! Not those kind of adult books! Just regular books for grown-ups.  Whatever.

 
This one was a bargain. In 1952, blenders must have been enough of a novelty that a whole cookbook was needed to get people familiar with this new-fangled contraption. It has everything from entrees to deserts, dips to breads, and embraces the taste trends of its era: spices in teeny quantities and lots of gelatin molds with strange contents. But my favorite thing about this book? There is at least one recipe that requires booze in every single section. Even the one titled Non-Alcoholic Drinks.

Then the coup de gras! Waiting on a table, untouched by passers-by, a Nancy Pearl librarian action figure! (With super-shushing action!) Autographed and in the box! Two bucks! Woo-hoo! I have wanted one for years, and now she is mine.

Piles of new books, and a librarian to go with them. Mmmmmm.

What a fun day!

After spending all my young adulthood moving around, I have finally lived somewhere long enough to have allergies again. Hay fever I could live with, but I’ve gotten to the point where certain foods are giving me hives (in my mouth! yay! fun!) and I break out like crazy whenever I help saddle up at riding lessons. Off to the allergist I go.

I left all three kids and drove to the next town an hour away. That alone was almost too much. But then I got to spend two hours getting poked and injected with various things to see if I’m allergic to them.

The up side? I am not allergic to dairy, as I previously suspected. Or to molds. But everything else is a problem. (I got an epi-pen on the off chance someone tries to slip me some avocado. Olé!) Horses. Cats. Dust mites. And every tree, grass, and weed known to mankind, which is kind of inconvenient when you live in the gorgeous, green Pac Northwest.

Upon my return home – itchy, welty, and covered in sharpie where the nurse scrawled all over my arms – the Bear stood back and said, “Mama…you look really…unwell.” And the baby outright rejected me.

If you need me, I will be the one over there in the corner, scratching and throwing myself my very own pity party.

If you haven’t already fallen in love with the Beethoven’s Wig CDs, then you must not have heard them. They are definitely one of the funniest ways for kids (and grownups!) to get familiar with classical music.

The first half of the CD is clever, hilarious lyrics set to classical standards and the second half is the music alone. I’ve heard a lot of gimmicks to try to pique children’s interest in the classics, but this is the only one I find myself singing along with.

The fourth in the series has just been released and it looks to be a keeper. To give you an idea of how very funny this music is, here is a video of the title song off the first album. (I wish there was a video of “For Elise,” which is one of my personal favorites…)

The Bear has gone from being terrified of bugs (as in screaming bloody murder when there was a gnat in the bathroom) to being really interested anything creepy, crawly, fluttering, or flying – seemingly overnight. That is the only reason I can think of that he would get the terrarium with his Wallyworld gift card instead of the Ramone low rider car wash. It can hold bugs or it can hold tadpoles/frogs. But tadpoles can’t ship until November, so for now it has to be bugs.

I never realized before how few BIG bugs live around here. Don’t get me wrong – that’s a plus in my book. But it makes for an empty terrarium and a little boy who makes himself a royal pain in the tukas, what with the moping and whining over the car wash he could have bought.

We caught some sow bugs (aka pill bugs that don’t roll up) but they must be pretty durned skinny because they escaped out the air holes in the night and probably became a cat’s midnight snack.

Then I opened up my shower one night and discovered a gigantic, super-huge, stupendous brown spider of unreal proportions. Seriously, it was big. 2 1/2 inches from back foot to front. Ping! I knew I had found a great occupant for the bug box. And after some strategising, I got it scooped up and plunked in the little hatch. I could present it with flair at breakfast the next morning.

The Bear was so impressed. By morning it had spun a web and waited in the corner, plotting revenge waiting for it’s prey.

“What kind of spider is it, Mama?” Well, let’s look it up…

Yikes! It was a big, honkin’ Hobo spider! Can you say necrotic arachnidism?!

Suffice it to say that the latest resident of the critter condo ended in a swirling, watery grave. The Bear will have to wait just a tad longer for permanent occupant. And I am going to have a thorough search of our shower before getting in from now on.