i couldn’t show you but i hope to one day

maura @ 10:42 pm

A bunch of little things recently have gotten me thinking about bones. All of my (2 or 3) regular readers probably know that I used to be an archaeologist and that my research focus was animal bones. But you might not know why. Of course, you might not care why either, but it’s my blag and I can blag what I want to blag, dammit! (And also I can type “blag” as often as I want to.) (And use lots and lots of parentheses.)

So, bones. When I was little I wanted to be a doctor. From what I recall it seems like a mostly undifferentiated desire, “doctor” as category. And my dad’s a doctor, so that’s probably a big factor.

In my later childhood (what the kids these days call tweens) this general thinking coalesced into a specific interest in bones, and I decided I was going to be an orthopedic surgeon. I’m not sure when, exactly, this coalescence happened, but it’s likely roundabouts age 10 because in 5th grade I had a friend who had a problem with low calcium levels in her body and thus would break at least one bone every few months or so.

Now, leaving aside for the moment the shudder of horror that typing that sentence produced in me now that I am a grownup and a parent (eek! can you imagine? her poor, poor parents), when I was 10 this scenario was pretty dang cool. She practically always had a cast (like Nona Mecklenberg!), and kids would want to sign the cast, and I was the shy type so this seemed real neat to me.

So I did what any envious kid would do: I courted potentially bone-breaking accidents. I “fell” down the stairs. I rollerskated fast in the street. Of course none of it worked: I ended up with a few sprained ankles + wrists, that’s it. I did manage to convince my dad to take me for an xray or two, just in case.

When I got to high school I became obsessed with being “arty” (and all the mid-80s mope-rock that comes with it), and the doctor thing faded into the background. But it’s funny to think that I came back to bones later. Even now when we go to the AMNH and see the animal skeletons I have a hard time restraining myself from naming the different bones to Gus. Luckily he’s too young to blow me off quite yet.

i am the girl with the velveteen pearl

maura @ 3:36 pm

Hi internets! Sorry to have been ignoring you recently. As usual I’ve got no real good reasons, just a pile of semi-lame ones. I’m nearly at the end of my first summer session and schoolwork has been intense. Gus is nearly at the end of kindergarten (!!!) which means lots of half days and field trips. I’ve got my typical things-will-change-soon malaise, anticipating the real start of summer when Gus will go to camp for the first time and I will have the very last class of my whole degree.

Today Gus is home sick from school — he’s been spiking fevers off and on since yesterday afternoon. But I think he’s feeling better: right now he + Jonathan are using the computer’s camera to take pictures of Gus’s head using weird effects. I have to admit that I don’t mind the fever illnesses nearly as much as others.* Having a fever completely takes the piss out of him, and there are worse ways to spend time than snuggling on the sofa watching the Complete Works of Pixar with your 5 1/2 yr old.

* Barfing. There’s nothing good about barfing. And pinkeye is just awful: he can’t be around other kids but usually isn’t sick enough to want to lie around on the sofa all day.

And that’s about all I have to say. I’m still ruminating on a post about grades and competition, but I’m too tired after last night’s fever watch to do it now.

I leave you with the state of things in our house.

i was only reading a pamphlet

maura @ 8:36 pm

Wait, I was supposed to share my spazzy feelings about method shower spray, right? Right! Okay, so about 4 1/2 yrs ago we embraced our inner stinky hippies and joined the Food Coop. Soon after that I started to think that it was probably a bad thing that the awful toxic fumes from our bathroom cleaner made me want to pass out, and that maybe a clean bathroom wasn’t worth killing brain cells.

So I never cleaned the bathroom again. The end.

Just kidding! Of course I cleaned the bathroom again! A clean bathroom is a wonderful thing!

Anyway, while I love the eco-friendly lavender-scented nontoxic bathroom cleaner we get at the Food Coop, the truth is that it doesn’t really bleach away all grubbiness from the tub + tile. Probably because there is no bleach in it! Hence the nontoxicity.

The real problem is our grout. See, a few years ago it became clear that the shower tile needed regrouting. I’m a little handy around the house (just a bit). I enjoy caulking. And the interwebs told me that grouting was really not that much more complex than caulking. DIY, here I come!

Except that grouting is really NOT like caulking. Not even at all. It is much much much harder, messier, more time intensive, and did I mention more difficult? And the grout, how it is not at all neat, nor easy to scrub off the tiles? The end result was that I wasted 5 hrs of a Saturday with my mom watching Gus while I did a shitty job of regrouting our tile.

So the grout is too low, and it’s hard to clean. Like scrubbing-each-individual-grout-line-with-a-toothbrush hard. I love to clean, but nobody loves to scrub grout with a toothbrush, it’s like a prison punishment or something. Grim.

I’d been wishing for a nontoxic spray-on bathroom cleaner for a while, but they don’t sell any at the Food Coop and I am usually too lazy to go anywhere else because I hate shopping. Then a few months ago we were at a big box store and walked by a display of method shower spray.

I snapped it right up, though I was immediately suspicious of its pleasing, eye-catching bottle and label design. Nothing eco is designed this well! Also, the ingredients include water and some other known stuff, as well as surfectant. What is this surfectant, exactly, and how do we know it is eco? But there was an outlandish claim on the bottle: spray this on your shower and you will NEVER HAVE TO CLEAN IT AGAIN. I couldn’t resist, I had to buy it.

And you know what? I don’t care if surfectant is a code word for weapons grade uranium and puppies’ blood, it WORKS! It totally cleans the shower without scrubbing. The grout still looks like crap, but at least now it’s CLEAN crap. Huzzah!

this is the story of a water drop

maura @ 3:33 pm

Here at mauraweb! we’re not just getting older, we’re also getting better. (Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves.) Yesterday was my birthday! Our friends + neighbors came over + we ordered tasty Mexican dinner. There was prosecco and sangria. The boys made delicious chocolate cupcakes w/vanilla buttercream frosting. I took a small afternoon nap. Lovely presents of books and music and foodstuffs were bestowed upon me. Friends and family called from timezones both near and far. And Anne dedicated the Sunday News to me, which makes me feel like a rockstar. A rockstar full of burritos and cupcakes, mmmmmm.

Today it is not my birthday, and it is pouring rain. It’s also about 20 degrees cooler than it has been recently, which is a welcome change. We went from snow in April to a chilly mid-May to temps over 80 degrees every day for the past 2 weeks. And I’m sad to say that few days ago we finally turned on the air conditioner. I’m sorry Al Gore, really I am, but we all get exceedlingly cranky when it is too hot! Soon we will have ceiling fans installed, and will bask in the light of Al Gore’s approval once again.

Over the weekend we also made a few small attempts to buy a Nintendo Wii, to no avail. We’ve always planned to buy one someday but recently started thinking it’d be nice to have during our beach vacation with my family in August. Inevitably one week of family togetherness produces a few tough moments, and why exchange harsh words when you can just open up a can of Wii Tennis whup-ass on your relatives? Sounds like a plan to me!

The Wii came out last xmas, but apparently there is still a supply and demand issue. I don’t know whether Nintendo is doing this intentionally but it is very annoying! Poking around online reveals that no one has just the console for sale, but plenty of retailers will sell you a package w/games, accessories, etc. I’m not automatically opposed to the package concept, but I am when the package consists of games we don’t want (the Wii comes w/5 games), controllers we don’t need (we have a GameCube already), and Nintendo’s play money (Wii points). AND when the price is nearly 200% of the cost of the console itself! Lame.

Not that it matters, as our Nintendo displeasure is ever-fleeting. Nintendo, we could never hate you, not when Gus is still playing Wind Waker over 6 months after we finished it. Good thing, too, as we will not be letting him play Twilight Princess even when we do get a Wii. No sir, not ’til you’re 12, son.