hi fi lo fi sci fi my fi

maura @ 6:31 pm

I must sheepishly admit that getting that ipod is about the best thing that could have happened to my workout life. I used to think that as long as the gym played music that was over 120 bpm, everything was fine in workoutland. Sure, I don’t love the mindless dance music they play enough to run right out and buy it, but it was fine, really. But you know, I was wrong! Because it turns out that listening to music that I actually own and enjoy not only makes the exercise time fly by, it makes me elliptical machine-icize faster, to boot. Who knew?

There has been a bit of a learning curve for me in loading songs onto the ipod. First I threw a bunch of albums on there, because I’m a complete record* kind of gal. I even put some stuff on there I’d been meaning to listen to but hadn’t gotten around to yet. But see, we have an ipod shuffle; there’s no display, and thus no way to read what song is playing. So that was totally dumb — I ended up having to skip song after song after song to get to one I actually wanted to ellipticize to.

* Who still says record, even in this day and age. Because I sit around all day in my petticoats, listening to my gramaphone. (Yes, I do know that the gramaphone played cylinders, not discs. But it’s such a fun word! Say it with me: GRA-ma-phone.)

Now I’ve finally gotten with the shuffle program and am putting individual songs on it, which works much better. Voxtrot, New Order, Spice Girls, Komeda, that Language of Flowers song that sounds like Lush, and also some Lush, among others. I’ve made exceptions for two records: Pixies Doolittle and Bunnygrunt Jen Fi, because nearly those whole dang records are good for exermacizing.

This ipod may also be the first thing to make me seriously consider getting one of those newfangled vinyl-to-mp3 converters. Because I think that I need to be able to listen to Private Idaho at the gym, too.

i wanna understand you

maura @ 9:34 pm

Aiieee…so busy! So very busy that I volunteered to go on Gus’s field trip to go ice skating tomorrow, only to remember JUST after I said I’d go that ice skating with 80 (eighty!) 5 yr olds would probably not be quite as much fun as ice skating with one 5 yr old. Oh well, it’s supposed to be negative 4 zillion degrees tomorrow with 9 jillion degree wind chill, so maybe it will be cancelled.

Two quick things:

1. As you know, I am clothesline-obsessed. What could be more fun than these Camper clothesline shoes???

Frankly, I am also kind of obsessed with Camper shoes. They are ridiculously expensive, but very fun in a casual browsing online way. I did get a pair from ebay for cheap, some nice basic black flats. But my alternate rich self who’s not nearly so clumsy would love these crazy math dominatrix heels. And my alternate rich self who has more fun clothes would look fabulous in some smurfy blue flats.

2. For a few days there we thought that Apple the mealworm was a goner, since we hadn’t seen him move for a while. Luckily Gus is too obsessed with his new video game to track Apple’s activity as closely as he used to. We were just getting ready to book Apple passage on the toilet funeral barge when we took a closer look in the bug jar today and, lo and behold, Apple has entered the pupal stage!

You know, Apple as a mealworm was really not so bad. We got used to his wiggly segmented body and six freaky little legs. But Apple as a pupa, not so much. The pupal stage of the darkling beetle is much more primal yucky bug-type stuff. I’m making a yucky face right now even typing it — click on the link at your own risk.

insanity is our hospitality

maura @ 10:53 pm

Is it weird to have clothesline envy? If you have to ask, the answer is probably yes. Gus’s school is in an old neighborhood full of townhouses and brownstones that is still close enough to the Western European immigrant experience* to have big poles at the edge of each backyard lot, with pulleys attaching a clothesline to the windowsill of each floor. Every time I do drop off or pickup I see the clotheslines and think: LUCKY DUCKS.

* Though it is far enough away that only a few of the clotheslines are ever in use.

I want a clothesline! The increasing crunchiness of me over the past few years has resulted in many new activities, like washing ziploc bags, using old washcloths to clean rather than paper towels, and, recently, clothes-dryer avoidance. Dryers use a ton of electricity. It’s expensive!** Plus we don’t have a dryer that vents to the outside world, which means OPRESSIVE heat in the summer if we run it. Even in the winter, though, I fear the minute particles of lint that are not being trapped by our elaborate indoor dryer venting + lint trapping mechanism and are flying around our apartment, just waiting to get us. Or at the very least to settle on the vents in the bathroom and make them fuzzy, which looks gross.

** We recently switched to the wind power option that our local electric dictators offer, which is a little more expensive than the old-fashioned non-green (brown?) way.

The problem is that there’s a limited amount of space in which to hang clothes to dry in our 2BR apt. We do have a drying rack that can handle most of one load of laundry and folds for storage. And I hang some things on hangers from the shower rod. I’m also not 100% airdrying yet — towels are just too stiff and scratchy, and sheets are too big.

One of my neighbors is also an airdryer. Her apartment is directly across from ours and we’ve jokingly talked about stringing a clothesline on pulleys between us. People would likely flip out to see our underwear strung over the courtyard in the center of the building. But the bigger problem is that she lives two floors above us, so I think that gravity would pull all of the laundry down to our house. Kind of inconvenient.

update from the front

maura @ 9:29 pm

It’s day 3 of Midwinter Break, and we are all hanging in there. We’ve been to the dentist, the Hall of Science, and the Nintendo store (where they did NOT have Super Mario Sunshine in stock). Tomorrow it’s off to the Franklin Institute to walk through the giant heart, then to my mom’s, where Gus will ignore us in favor of the rays of grandpaternal love shining down on him (yes!).

In (probably) unrelated news, Gus’s sleep has completely tanked over the past few days, due to growing pains? Stuffy nose? Bad dreams? Who the hell knows. We are all walking around here like zombies from the eXtreme tiredness. We’re such wimps — I can’t believe we even survived those newborn days so many years (5!) ago.

Here’s a little vacation humor for all the other midwinter break-afflicted souls out there. After a week this busy, I can’t wait for the Pre-Spring Breather!

it just takes patience and an ear for what sounds right

maura @ 9:45 pm

Gus had two (2!) birthday parties to attend this weekend, because he has way more of a social life than we do. Yesterday’s was run by a science teacher from a school near us who’s got a nice little side business offering fun science afterschool, parties, and a summer camp. We’ve signed Gus up for 2 weeks of the summer camp this coming August so it was nice to get a preview. Apparently* Gus LOVED it, phew!

* J worked yesterday’s party and I did today’s. Often we both go, but we are a little strapped for time right now because Gus has this ENTIRE week off school. And like spazzes we kind of blanked on it, and thus are now scrambling to fill the time. Midwinter break, my butt, didn’t they just have a whole week off at the holidays?!

At the party they did crazy experiments like making a rocket with alka seltzer and fake snow. The science dude has lots of small animals like gerbils and a snake and some mealworms and maybe lizards. Gus even got to hold the snake, which made a big impression. Apparently the science dude said that anyone who wanted a mealworm could take one home as a pet. Guess which kid remembered that and asked for one at the end of the party? Go on, guess.

The first thing Gus said when he walked in the door was “Mommy, I have a pet!” Then he holds up the ziploc bag with a mealworm inside. Longtime (har) readers may remember the wormy-thing-that-we-thought-was-a-maggot-but-actually-wasn’t of ought-five. This bug is longer, and will supposedly transform into a beetle in 3 weeks. Yes, a beetle!

We’ve explained to Gus that after the magical transformation takes place, Apple** will really be more comfortable living outside (as opposed to his current home in Gus’s small plastic bug cup with attached magnifying glass), where he can stretch his newly lengthened legs. I’m a little nervous about the whole pupal-to-adult event, I must admit. The eventual beetle will have wings — what if it ends up flying around the house? That crosses my pet-to-bug barrier; I may just have to kill it.

** Its name is Apple. Because it drinks juice from apple slices (and eats oatmeal). You know, just like Gwyneth Paltrow’s kid.

Clearly Gus is destined to be a great entomologist someday. Make us proud, bug boy!

wanna grow, up to be, be a debaser

maura @ 7:26 pm

Yesterday we joined the podpeople: our new swell (orange!) ipod shuffle arrived in the mail. All day long I’ve been misquoting Sally in my head: “welcome to the twenty-first century.” Given how few people I see in the subway without little white wires snaking out of each ear, I’m sure that we are nearly the last souls in the metropolitan area to succumb to the ipod’s shiny tiny allure. Metaphorically shiny, of course, as the ipod is actually matte.

Today I took the ipod for a test drive to the gym. (Fitting, since the gym was the purchasing impetus: I’d complained over the weekend that no music playing = harder to work out, and Jonathan got a wild hair and ordered that lil’ pod right up.) And it went okay, though that I could still hear the thumping gym dance music over the Pixies. I’m paranoid about hearing loss so maybe I had the volume too low. Actually, I really hate those little earbud headphones, they kind of freak me out with their in-your-earness. Though these are more comfortable than others I’ve tried, and they didn’t even get as sweaty as I thought they would.

Really, the size of the thing is incredible. It’s about 2 by 2 inches, and a quarter-inch thick. It clips onto whatever you want, kind of like an expensive, musical binder clip. About three seconds after taking it out of the box I squeezed the clip to open it and the thing shot right out of my hand (thankfully landing on the table). And I hadn’t even recently applied hand lotion to my winter-chapped mitts! Hope that’s not a common occurance.

Bottom line: two thumbs up, because listening to Doolittle makes the workout time fly by.

the girl with the sun in her head

maura @ 8:33 pm

Last week I went on a field trip to the UN Library. Man, the UN buildings are so, so, so cool. I could just move right into the Woodrow Wilson Reading Room, with its swoopy wood-paneled ceiling and it’s incredibly gorgeous mod card catalog furniture for the old League of Nations cards. Plus they have a Chagall stained glass, of the beautiful bluish sort that the Art Institute also has. Of course I didn’t bring my camera, duh.

The buildings are scheduled to be renovated any minute now. I know it must be difficult to work in a ca. early 60s building: it’s much less energy-efficient, and probably things break a lot. But it would be such a shame if renovation = modernization because the whole place is just incredible. The promise of the future that we internalized from the 60s was flying cars and robot maids, and of course I’m still bitter about that. But it’ll all be okay as long as they don’t de-mod the UN.

While the UN renovates the library will move to a temporary location in Queens. I’m envisioning a library ferry traveling back and forth across the East River, bringing Ban Ki-moon all the books he could require!

What was also made abundantly clear to me during this visit is the extent of the waterfront development that’s going on in Queens and Brooklyn. My god, it’s just insane! I have already said this at least twice today (when discussing the huge ugly building going up down the block with some visiting former neighbors), but isn’t there a finite number of people in this city willing to pay a million dollars for a 2 bedroom condo? And if there isn’t, shouldn’t there be?

candy is dandy

maura @ 8:16 pm

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so now’s a good time to wipe the glue and doilies and red glitter from your fingers and visit my sweetie’s pet project: the candy hearts generator.

New For 2007!
Do you HATE Valentine’s Day with a passion? Stick it to Hallmark: try a goth heart (click the link on the lower right of the page).

Sweet.

last time that we had this conversation i decided we should be friends

maura @ 9:02 pm

Dammit, Winter, I am seriously about to break up with you and give all my season love to Autumn! It is negative 8 bazillion degrees out there with a negative 20 jillion degree wind chill, and no end in sight. Gus was all bundled up in snow pants this morning, but JEEBUS my thighs were about to shatter and slide right off my body by the time we walked the 4 blocks from the bus stop to school.

Here are the reasons why you suck, winter of 2006-2007:

1. All that 40 degrees and rain nonsense of December and early January. Forty degrees and rain does NO one ANY good whatsoever. It’s cold and wet and dreary and very much NOT snow (which we all know is cold and wet and fun!)

2. Now it is FINALLY cold enough to really be winter, but there is still NO SNOW. Except for tantalizingly small amounts like 1.5 inches on a Monday morning, prompting Gus to hopefully ask if there would be sledding after school? No, sweetie, I’m sorry, no sledding because THIS WINTER SUCKS! Thanks a lot, winter, for making my kid cry.

3. Blargh, I am too angry to think of any other reasons.

the song went on forever

maura @ 7:13 pm

Michael Pollan had another big long food article in the Times magazine last weekend. We read Omnivore’s Dilemma, are pretty much in on board with the gospel of Alice Waters, and shop at the food coop and farmer’s market, and try to eat local. We’re not vegetarian*, but we do eat much much less meat than we used to and many more vegetables. So, you know, we’re down with the first sentence of the article: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”**

* HELL no! Before I die I would like my last meals to be the braised rabbit with oil cured olives and polenta from al di la, and the shack burger from Shake Shack, thank you very much.

** Except for Gus, who would subsist entirely on a diet of bread, cheese, meat, and sweets if we let him. He seriously has not touched a vegetable in longer than I can remember. But that’s a whole other post, by golly, and a rabbit*** hole I don’t want to fall into.

*** Mmmm…rabbit.

But the thing I’m realizing recently is that one can only truly follow the ways of the PollanWaters (har) if one resides in California or some other such year-round growing place. Here in the Northeast, it is damn hard to find locally grown green leafy veggies this time of year. I loves me some greens: spinach, chard, beet, arugula, watercress, radish, collard, kale, mustard, cabbage…yum. There’s nothing better than a little chard sauteed in olive oil with a little garlic.

So we buy the greens imported from Cali. I guess we could relocate to more ethically satisfy our greens habit, but I’m just not into moving to a tectonically active area. Until we retire, that is, and then it will probably be New Zealand or Iceland anyway.

Plus, man, those PollanWaters must have their own personal greens-washing slaves or something. Here we do not, and it makes me kind of grumpy to have to spend half an hour washing greens. We used to buy the prewashed bagged kind but the last time we did I opened the bag and a large, gorgeous leaf of spinach was pierced by a FEATHER. From a BIRD! So grody, so depressing, such a waste of money. We didn’t stop to check if the rest of the bird was in there somewhere, just chucked it in the garbage.