p.s.

maura @ 9:22 pm

I almost forgot: Anne sent a mightygrip suggestion! Thanks Anne!

smile while your head explodes

maura @ 7:35 pm

I am a crankier-than-usual consumer lately, and (lucky, lucky!) you get to hear me vent, interwebs.

First of all, sunscreen. So sunscreen is non-negotiable for me, since I am so pale as to practically fluoresce. Last year’s sunscreen was kind of icky and it’s nearly gone anyway, and it’s getting too warm for my SPF 45 moisturizer. So I headed over to Skin Deep to research this year’s offerings.

Holy cow, did you know that there’s this chemical called oxybenzone that’s no good for people? So no good, in fact, that the CDC just released a study on how no good it is. Why, pray tell, is it in many suncreens on the market? And lip balms too?

I got all crazed and ran around the house throwing out sunscreens + chapsticks last night, then printed out a list of safe sunscreens from Skin Deep. Jonathan went to the coop this morning but the sunscreens aren’t going to be in until tomorrow, drat.

Secondly, plastics! Namely bisphenol-a. You may have seen recent reports about cancer and endocrine disruption from bisphenol-a leaching into food + drink from hard plastic (often #7) containers. Longtime (snort) readers may remember that I came early to the Nalgene-haters party and chucked all of our plastic water bottles years ago, replacing them with metal.

But now I am annoyed anew, because apparently this BPA stuff is also in the plastic used to coat the inside of cans of food. And also because I’d thought it was only Nalgene, but really it’s ALL hard plastic (e.g. our water filter pitcher). And ALSO because at the bottom of the Times article some scientist says not to microwave anything in plastic because we just don’t know.

I take my lunch to work. I LIKE taking my lunch to work. It’s cheaper, tastier and healthier. But I tried taking lunch in a glass jar last year and the jar cracked + made a mess (thankfully a small crack + a small mess). This year, with the walking to work, I really have to use plastic to cart lunch back + forth.

I am SO TIRED of worrying that everything we use is toxic. Can there please just be some regulation, oh government regulatory agencies? Pretty please???

my feet are in the water, waiting for the tide to come

maura @ 4:15 pm

I never had a TV in my bedroom as a kid/teen/college student, and Jonathan and I have never had one in the bedroom either. I could never really figure out why anyone would want a TV in their bedroom, but then again while we do watch TV we are weirdy about it. We don’t have cable and the rabbit ears aren’t all that good so we tend to watch computerized TV (online or downloaded) and thus aren’t tivo-ers or channel-surfers. TV is very, very intentional in our house.

With the (now not-so-)new room setup Jonathan’s desk is across from the foot of the bed. One night last week we were getting ready to watch something and felt too tired + lazy to copy it over to the laptop and head into the living room, so we thought, why not just watch it on Jonathan’s computer?

And now I get it. So comfy! So cozy! I may never sit on the sofa again! Except for movie night, of course, because we can’t all eat dinner in the bed (too messy).

disconnecting analogs

maura @ 7:15 pm

I wish I had more time to read.

some things never change, some things stay the same

maura @ 8:24 pm

Yes, I signed Gus up to play soccer this spring. The first game was today, and last week I had this whole blag post worked up in my head on the way I was swinging back + forth between ambivalent + neurotic about the whole thing. The usual whining you’d expect from the small + uncoordinated nonsporty parent* of a small + uncoordinated nonsporty kid.

* And I’m the sportier parent!

But you know what? It went just fine. A pal from school is on his team. The name they chose for their team is Scorpions, which Gus suggested. He was happy to go, happy to play, and happy to have breakfast at a diner afterwards.

His team lost terribly, something like 10 to 1 (no one kept score). It was clear that 4/5ths of the other team had played soccer before, while approximately 0/5ths of the Scorpions had. Or maybe it’s just all of those hippie feel-good vibes he gets in his progressive school: he and his buddy didn’t seem to want to steal the ball from any of the kids on the other team, as if they were giving everyone a turn.

I think I’m actually looking forward to next weekend’s game. Thankfully it’s not at EIGHT (8!!!) AM, which is cruel + unusual punishment for a weekend morning. As our friend said, “NOTHING should start before SCHOOL starts!!!” Esp. nothing the morning after one has insomnia. I had 4 cups of coffee + 1 cup of tea today and still felt like I did when Gus was a baby and woke up every hour or so.

Just don’t call me a soccer mom!

it was undeniably clear to me i don’t know why

maura @ 8:45 pm

I know you’re all wondering how I’m making out with my organizer situation these days. And I think we have a winner!

No, it’s not an iphone.* Nor is it the old school at-a-glance day planner. It is…

* Purchase of said shiny gadget has not been completely ruled out, esp. after I was told (by my iphone enabler) that it’s only $20/mo. more on our cellphone contract to have one. Not that $240/yr is nothing, but it’s less than it could be (master of the obvious, c’est moi!). But nothing will happen on that front until after the new toys are introduced at MacWorld (because the old toys will be cheaper then, right?).

…index cards. Held together with a binder clip.

No lie! I have one card per week, M-W on one side and Th-Su on the other. Those are at the front of the pack. Appointments/tasks/painfully early soccer games (more on that soon) are noted under each day. Then I have one card each for lists: phone numbers, house tasks, me tasks, short term work tasks and long term work tasks. Those are at the back of the pack. When the week is over I draw a line through the old card and stick it in the middle of the pack. Right now I’ve only got cards through May 18, so the pack isn’t too unwieldy.

Jonathan says that this setup has a name: apparently it’s called the hipster pda. I cannot possibly call it that, though, because the whole “-ster” trend makes me nauseous. And why does it need a name, anyway?

OTOH, those #$%&ster folks did come up with some cool templates. J printed one with a 2008 calendar on it that’s very useful. So they’re not all bad.

P.S. I have a big crush on these shoes. Frivolous, yes; pricey, hell yeah. But useful for dressy bessy days at work, I think. Comments?

P.P.S. And you have to love the hilarious Zappos marketing-speak: “Never lose your preference for a youthful silhouette…” Oh heavens, I hope I never do!

stay on target

maura @ 8:45 pm

Tonight was movie night, and we watched Star Wars. Yes, my kid’s meanie parents FINALLY let him watch Star Wars! Can you believe we made him wait so long?

To attempt to make amends for our obvious parental deficiencies we spontaneously showered him with gifts: a teeny x-wing fighter from some long-gone playset (from Jonathan), and old school R2D2 and Chewbacca figures (from me). Because aren’t they better played with than collecting dust on a shelf in our bedroom? Then of course Gus kept asking throughout the whole movie if we had any other toys for him.

I’d forgotten about all of the new scenes. I know it’s not the only thing that makes me an old fart, but I don’t like ’em. They’re just discombobulating and distracting, all of that CGI amidst the spaceship models + prosthetic aliens. Down with computers!

Continuous questioning is the gold standard for movie watching around here, and tonight was no different. He was a little stressed out by the garbage masher. And he was confused about many characters names: lots of “Dark” Vader (predictable), and also Obi-Wan became “Toby,” which always got a giggle out of us old folks.

Indeed Gus was so into it that we’re breaking our kid-imposed movie night pattern of watching one cartoon (last week: Castle in the Sky), then one live-action film, etc. (they talk about patterns a lot in math these days so we are always hearing about them here). Next week it’ll be all Hoth, all the time, baby. Saddle up yr tauntaun!