the official mauraweb! world cup theme

maura @ 8:41 pm

I’m currently suffering from an advanced case of library hubris, having vastly overestimated the amount of free time I’d have now that I’m finished with school. Or maybe I thought there’d be more hours in the days for leisurely reading on our recent vacation (hello, 5 kids in 1 house, who was I kidding?). Whatever the reason, the fact remains that I have 5 books checked out of the library (4 fiction/1 non), plus a nonfiction book borrowed from a neighbor for nearly 6 mos. (the shame!), PLUS I still haven’t read the new Harry Potter (double shame!!). Luckily no one else seems to be wanting the books I’ve got checked out from the library right now, so I’ve been renewing them on the library website every few days.

Part of the problem is certainly that I’m spending less time on public transportation these days (and will spend even less once Gus starts riding the school bus home next week, woot!). And it’s not like I’m sitting around the house eating bonbons — I’ve got stuff to do (really!). At least I’ve been able to keep up with the paper and magazines.

To abruptly change the topic, I think we finally need to get Gus a haircut. It’s been growing long all summer, a combination of our inability to make the time to get to the haircutters and desire to have some sun protection on his neck and face (since I could never be sure he was putting sunscreen on himself at camp). Plus, it looked really cute. Last week the hair in his eyes was REALLY bothering him so we even did something I swore I’d never do: just trimmed the bangs a little. Jonathan did a very nice job and now it is cuter than ever.

Which makes it even harder to think that we need to say goodbye to the lovely locks. But it’s getting to be more of a pain to wash it and especially dry it, because he complains when we rub his head with a towel. And one lone, persistent dreadlock has formed on the back of his head. Sometimes I comb it out, but the next day it comes right back. So a haircut is probably the best course of action for all of our sakes. This time I have to remember to take a picture first (it’ll last longer!).

and you know everything that i know

maura @ 8:42 pm

We’re just back today from our crazy summer beach house week, this year with 18% more family members (and 40% more bedrooms!). It was really lovely. The weather was fabulous (much, much, MUCH better than last year, when it rained nearly the entire week). We had lots of iconic beach experiences: wave jumping, mini golfing, hermit crab hunting, bumper car driving, water ice eating. Gus is the eldest of the 5 offspring of me + my sibs, and he enjoyed his role as their lord + master.

Now it’s T-minus two (2!) days until the start of FIRST (!!!) grade. Gus’s school sent us the required supplies list 3 weeks ago. Do you think we here at mauraweb! acted on it then? If you answered “No,” you’re right! So Gus and I will be spending all afternoon tomorrow flinging ourselves at many of Brooklyn’s fine shopping establishments in search of notebooks, folders, colored pencils, baby wipes, paper towels, liquid soap, and other essentials of elementary education. Good times!

and the big ones just eat all the little ones

maura @ 9:36 pm

Woah, hi interwebs! How’s it going? Enjoying your late August end of summer (at least here in the northern hemisphere) goodness?

Not a whole lot to report from mauraweb!land. In between pounding reload on all the job websites I’ve been taking it sort of easy: a little library internshipping, a smidge of freelancing, some errand running and home organizing. That last one resulted in an ebay selling frenzy, so tomorrow I have to go to the post office and ship off a bunch of our old stuff that, amazingly, people wanted to buy. Yay for the interwebs!

Gus is wrapping up summer of camp part II: science camp. He’s having a ball: on the very first day they each got to dissect a fish with a toothpick! And yesterday he brought home the standard baking soda + vinegar volcano. Age 5 3/4 is apparently the age of insistent, high volume, authoritative explanations on everything, and science camp has provided him with LOTS of material. The one (small) down side is that it’s a lot less run-around-outdoorsy than his last camp, so he’s not as tired at the end of the day as we’d gotten used to.

We’re having a weird cold + wet snap here and it hardly seems like summer — both yesterday and today I wore a WOOL SWEATER. I hate summer, but last weekend Gus + I had planned to go to the floating pool, and it was kind of a bummer that it was too cold to go. So we went to the Bronx Zoo instead. Right now there is one little nursling gorilla and four crazy kid gorillas and they were all completely riveting to watch, swinging on vines and riding on the grownups’ backs and generally acting like Gus, only hairier.

I need new music on my ipod for the gym. And why is the latest Shins record not as good as the first two?

Weeds is back, and it’s heavy.

Okay, I seem to be rambling. What can I say: it’s August, what do you expect?

interplanetary robot armies

maura @ 10:13 pm

Lately it’s been kind of a dystopian future film fest in our house. Probably the whole thing started when I read Neil Postman’s book Technopoly for my first summer class. He was a media critic at NYU; the book details his criticism of the way Americans unthinkingly idolize new techologies. I had some quibbles with his argument (my agnostic self recoiled at his repeated insistence that spirituality = religion), but basically I liked the book — it was interesting and thought-provoking.

Then last month I read Rainbow’s End, by Vernor Vinge, who is not dead. While the main plot wasn’t really resolved in a satisfactory way, I still liked this novel. Jonathan recommended it to me because there’s a big subplot about libraries destroying books to digitize them. But even more interesting to me was the description of the future world. Wireless computers are integrated into clothing — they call ’em wearables. And most people go around with the internet layered onto reality. Their lifestyle and experience is fully techologically mediated, which I find both scary and fascinating.

But I digress. First we watched Blade Runner. So great. Who doesn’t love Harrison Ford eating noodles? You know you can see the model of the Tyrell Corporation building at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, right? (And some kickass playable old cabinet video games, too.)

Then we moved on to The Matrix. Still holds up after all these years. And so pretty to look at. What’s not to like? And why did they have to go and make all those crappy sequels? Duh.

Next it was Starship Troopers, a hilarious romp starring all your faves: Casper the friendly ghost, Mrs. Charlie Sheen, Doogie Howser M.D., that chick who was Brandon’s girlfriend on 90210, and Jr. Busey. Bugs in Space! Goofy + violent. I still wish they’d figured out a way to make the powered spacesuits from the book translate into the movie (though as Jonathan pointed out, the helmets would have hidden the actors’ pretty widdle faces).

Last night we watched Children of Men. You know, that recent movie with Clive Owen about the future world of infertility. It was good, if very very very depressing. And scary. Not because of the infertility but the dystopian future unrest. For some reason it just seemed too realistic, too close to current events. So count yourself warned, esp. if you sometimes have trouble reading the news from abroad in the papers.

One thing all these future movies have in common is the ubiquity of TV. TV is everywhere — in every room of your house, in public spaces, on some spaceship cruising slowly overhead. And it is always always ALWAYS on! Usually blaring some horrible news. Boy howdy, I will NOT be able to deal with the future if there is that much TV. I’m gonna order me up some of these, stat! Want me to get you one, too?

notify ground crews

maura @ 8:57 pm

It’s been so quiet around here that you may be wondering if we were hit by a tornado. We were not! Luckily the twister touched down south of us.

However, the storm’s wrath didn’t completely spare us. That morning we had train reservations to visit my dad in the great green north. After the storm practically all the subways flooded, and of course there were no taxis to speak of. We ended up having to speedwalk with all of our stuff for a mile to get to a subway that was running. Poor Gus was a trooper, though I did have to piggyback him the last few blocks. Did I mention that it was stiflingly hot and humid, too?

We got to Penn Station with a minute to spare, and Gus and I ran to the gate while Jonathan printed the tickets from the machines. I semi-hysterically pleaded with the conductor to hold the train for us, which they did (phew — there is only one train/day to the great green north!).

I have to admit that I am kind of over the train. We got in to my dad’s 1.5 hrs late, and were THREE hours late getting home last night. And the scheduled train time is 9 hrs to begin with! You know I hate driving and I’ve historically been a huge Amtrak booster but this trip was kind of ridiculous. It’s a shame, too, because the route is really pretty and it’s so nice to be able to get up and walk around. But I think next time we will have to take the car.

Gus had a fantastic rural time with his grandparents: speeding down the alpine slide, romping with the menagerie (2 kittens, 3 cats and 2 dogs), riding on the tractor, swimming + frog hunting in the pond, and even going on a few short hikes.

Hiking! It’s an exciting development. Jonathan and I enjoy a (wimpy + easy) hike, and I’ve been wondering how to get Gus interested in something that’s essentially just a long walk, often uphill. Many days our two-block trip home from the bus stop after school has a seemingly endless loop of “I’m SO tired! CARRY me!” as a soundtrack.

And the answer is: hiking poles! When you give a kid two pointy metal sticks, he won’t (well, okay, barely) complain at all on a hike. Of course, he’ll also swing them around dangerously and whack them into all manner of foliage. While walking sloooooowly. Yes, hiking with kids is not the same as hiking with grownups. But it’s a start.

when i say radical you say red

maura @ 10:31 pm

Here at mauraweb! we’re deep into Gus’s very first foray into summer camp. Transitions are not always the easiest around here so we were bracing for a rough start in early July. But it was surprisingly simple! We stacked the deck a bit — there were lots of other kids there he already knew. And he loooooved the teenage counselors — they totally cracked him up. It’s just a straight up summer camp experience: silly songs, arts + crafts, sports, and running around the park.

At the end of each week they all got “achievement certificates” (har):

Week 1: Most friendly camper and helpful
(Typical not-at-home behavior.)

Week 2: Best “story-teller” award
(I’ll say!)

Week 3: Most excited sports player
(Surprising! Though he was REALLY into karate [read: running around hitting pads held by counselors] when I went to Family Day.)

Week 4: Best behaved line walker
(Again, never happens when I am with him, so I’m glad it happens somewhere!)

And some stats:

# of days of camp thus far: 20
# of days Gus has missed: 0
# of kids at camp from his old preschool: 8
# of kids from his new elementary school: 2
# of camp t-shirts we got on the first day: 5
# we have now: 4
# of days it took for the bottle of sunscreen to explode in his backpack: 3
# of days it took him to lose the stick sunscreen we got to replace the exploded bottle: 17
# of days he had cookies + juice for snack (which his mean mommy would never feed him on a daily basis!): 20
# of days he was so exhausted he was asleep before 8pm: 20

Yay for camp!

with a loud noise

maura @ 8:37 pm

Finished.

sure you’re weedy, and kinda shy

maura @ 8:58 pm

Lately I have been somewhat angsty about TV. It’s summer so of course there is (almost*) nothing to watch. Which is kind of a drag. I don’t want to watch TV every night, but a few nights a week it’s nice to have some visual entertainment of an hour or less, to relax the brain and provide something to look at while folding laundry. And since we don’t have cable we can’t really channel surf, which is one of the main reasons we got rid of cable anyway.

* Except for Flight of the Conchords, which is completely hilarious! And Weeds is starting up again in a matter of days, yay! Of course, these are half hour long short seasoned cable shows, so they’ll be over in practically an eyeblink.

Somehow over the course of last TV season we seem to have acquired a lot of shows. Veronica Mars ended,** so that freed up a little space. And Battlestar Galactica*** has that weird season that runs at weird times, and won’t start again til January or something? So maybe that doesn’t count. Or maybe Flight of the Conchords + Weeds + BSG = one normal show.

** Which was sad, except not as much as it could have been since the season was not so good. Except for the finale! If the whole season had been as good as the finale I’d be much sadder. Even so, to quote a friend, “she’s no Buffy.”

*** Last season of BSG was sort of confusing and lackluster, too, despite the extended guest starrage of Lucy Lawless. Hopefully things will get better.

And we watch House, too, though apparently the kids really did quit during the season finale. Which is fine since we like the grown ups better.

And The Office, how could we not watch it? Yay Kelly!

Then there’s Lost. You may remember that we were breaking up with Lost. We tried, honest! But then Entertainment Weekly kept running these stories that were all “OMG the new episodes are so good, the best thing on TV!” so of course we had to watch. Then they were mostly lame (who cares about Juliet?), except the finale was strangely compelling with their forward to the future thing. So our jury is still out.

THEN, after all TV was over for the season, what did we do? We power watched the whole season of Heroes in like three weeks. It was good, but the least we could have done is stretched it out to help with the mid-summer TV doldrums. Duh.

don’t cover my footsteps

maura @ 9:39 pm

So there’s this place, which shall remain unnamed, that I currently need to visit a few times per week. It is not an airport. But it seems to be extrapolating threat level orange from airports to itself. Which seems odd to me because really, aren’t airports the most miserable places in the world? Why would anyplace strive to be more like an airport?

Let me explain. You see, this place has a rule about cellphones: you can’t use them. Fine, lots of places have that rule, no big deal. But does that mean that when they search your bag at the entrance they will throw your cellphone in the garbage? No! It just means that they will yell at you if you use your cellphone there. (Cellphones annoy me so I am all over this rule, actually.)

This place has another rule: no food or drink. Used to be the rule was enforced identically to the abovementioned cellphone rule. But recently there’s been some sort of sea change and the guards are now making people throw out their food and drink upon entry!

This is a problem for me. I tend to bring my lunch when I’m going to be out for the whole day. And hydration is very important to me. You never know when you will be stuck on a subway or something similar — it’s good to have some water and a snack just in case.

So recently I’ve been obsessed with figuring out a way to stash my lunch + water bottle invisibly. There’s a thin pocket on the back of my bag (perfect for a magazine), so this morning I packed only flat things* for lunch: a sandwich, a granola bar (instead of a container of trail mix), and a bunch of grapes off the vine in a plastic bag, arranged into one layer. I took a smaller-than-usual water bottle, wrapped it into my sweater (it gets cold in this place, too) and stuck it waaaaay at the bottom of the bag, under my visor and pencil case and hat and sunscreen.

* Which reminded me of that part in Microserfs when that guy was frantically coding in his office for days and his friends slipped flat foods (cheese squares, etc.) under his door for sustenance.

And it worked! For today, at least. Really I have spent entirely too much time recently strategizing about this issue. Send your favorite flat food ideas to me now, before I get a cavity from eating only dried fruits!

loiter the whole day through

maura @ 9:00 pm

Man these summer classes are short. In less than 2 weeks it’ll all be over. Intense. Last week I powered through a bunch of assignments, plus did some time interning and freelancing. Yay for accomplishment! Yay for coffee!

Except that the house needs cleaning, again. Sigh. I love to clean, but even I sometimes wish for the self-cleaning abode. But if we could set the apartment to autoclean, how ever would I be able to kick Jonathan’s ass at Chore Wars? The name says it all, dude. Say it 3 times fast with me: chore wars, chore wars, chore wars.

Of course, everything has its downside. I wonder if we could maybe get Gus hooked on this game, how sweet would that be?