I haven’t seen the opossums since I had to chase one out from under the car with a broom a few weeks ago. We found them today, curled up and sound asleep by the basement window. The view from the basement is even more funny, it is like being at the zoo. I hope they can climb out of the egress opening when they wake up…
and because you know you wanted a close up…
O has some nice ear infections going on in both ears. In a desperate attempt to help him deal with the pain, I followed one of the many remedies involving onions I’d heard about (Cut an onion in half, heat it up, hold it next to the ear. Weird, I know, but he actually really enjoyed it and fell asleep with an onion and towel on his head).
Later in the day he was yelling at XM - “Don’t look at it! Don’t look at the onion!” I figured it was just him being kind of strange due to his illness, being possessive of his onion or something equally odd. Then I remembered that he had asked me a couple other times that day to cover the onion back up so he couldn’t see it.
I asked him why she couldn’t look at the onion. He said “because you said that an onion will hurt your eyes.”
I have just released an update to RhapsodyScrobbler, the program I wrote that integrates Rhapsody with last.fm (and won second prize for it). It includes the following changes:
You can get it here: http://www.atlansky.com/dev/rhapsodyscrobbler.html
Though it seems like we are throwing out money like candy at a parade, the addition is coming along pretty well now. The roof and gutters are done, almost all the windows are in, siding and trim is going up, walls are getting insulated and covered, and the electrical is getting run.
We have a porta-potty out by the street for the construction crew. Normally they lock it when they aren’t here. Saturday as we were all eating lunch I saw a woman walk by and go in to the bathroom. I said, “hey, someone just went into the porta-potty!” Nobody else saw her go in, so we all sat there and waited. And waited. And waited. I swear, she was in there 10-15 minutes. It didn’t take long for everyone to start doubting me. I joked, “maybe it is a portal to another land.” D replied, “yeah, its a portal potty.” She eventually came out, newspaper in hand, and continued walking down the street.
The upstairs is going to be a really interesting space. In order to keep the roof pitched to match the rest of the house, one side of the room is only 3 feet high. Fortunately we’ll be able to keep the ceiling vaulted, so it rises pretty high to the peak, and then slopes very gently towards the back. In this photo you can see the short wall (which is facing south), the skylight, and to the very left is one of the closet areas.
This is also from upstairs, looking west towards the staircase. There will be a low wall so you have to make an effort to go falling down the stairs, and we have this nice set of windows to break up the huge wall.
A view of the street side…I put in white squares where the windows will eventually be. Straight up above them is the 3 foot tall wall that is upstairs.
This is an outside view of the west side taken from the backyard…it looks like the siding is coming along nicely. Those are the windows you could see from upstairs, and the staircase runs along that wall under the 3 small windows.
Same shot, closer up and at an angle so you can see the half moon…maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get a chance to take out the telescope tonight.
Finally, a pretty poor image of the inside. This window is the big one you can see from the backyard photos…
We set out the other day to buy a few chocolates for the kids for Valentines Day. After a lovely walk to our neighborhood Fred Meyer, we eliminated the candy that was too expensive, too lame, or covered with cartoon characters. From there we then had to read the ingredients lists, watching out for gelatin (a personal choice) and anything containing gluten (an allergy for XM). That left us holding a box of Russell Stover Chocolates. Not the most awesome chocolate in the world, but certainly a tasty enough treat for a kid. What kid doesn’t love a heart shaped box of chocolates?
So what was the problem then? The entire box was wrapped in red cellophane and sealed. There was so much cellophane on it that where it folded and overlapped on the back of the box, you couldn’t see the ingredients or nutritional information. We eventually asked a Fred Meyer employee if there was anything we could do about it, and he unwrapped one for us so we could read it. Lo and behold, no gelatin and no gluten.
With the cellophane covering all the pertinent information for the product, Russell Stover was not only violating FDA standards, but probably lost business, or really pissed people off that bought their product only to discover later it contained something inside that they can’t eat. A simple sticker on the cellophane would solve a whole lot of problems.
I wrote them a letter. They had a pretty lame automated response, telling me that my comments won’t be overlooked and offering me links to buy chocolate from them. Oh brother. I decided to fill out a little form at the FDA’s website as well, since Russel Stover’s non-response kind of ticked me off. I doubt anything will come of it, but at least I made my voice heard.
Where’s the love, Russell Stover? You make me think you are only in it for the money…
I’m really excited for what is shaping up to be an Indy filled summer. No, not the silly car race…I’m talking Indiana Jones. I can’t wait to play the forthcoming Lego Indiana Jones video game with O. We/he had a lot of fun mastering both Lego Star Wars games, and I can picture many a hot summer day spent down in the cool dark basement working together through the levels if Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull comes out in May, and I’m just hoping it doesn’t suck. Check out the trailer. (I used to have it embedded, but it was screwing up the loading).
Last night was our first school performance! The school had a Chinese New Year Celebration, and all the grades sang and did skits. O’s Kindergarten class dressed in Chinese outfits and sang their little hearts out. I have to admit, I imagined a group of 30 Kindergarteners to have about 10 that actually sang and did the dance, another 10 that just mumbled, and 10 that goofed off. These kids were great! They sang so loud and proud and did all their routines. O had a blast! We asked him if he was nervous or scared, and he said no. He said that a few days before some kids were scared, and he said to them “Why would you be scared? Your parents will be there!” Sometimes your heart just can’t hold enough love…
Owen in his outfit…
Owen proudly displaying his red dot…we still don’t know why they had them…
His class (he is in the back on the right)…
the big man himself…
I wish Chinese New Year was in August. We have a birthday that falls right before Thanksgiving, kicking off two months of holidays and birthdays that occur on a weekly basis, ending in mid-January. By the time CNY rolls around, I’m sick of it all.
I really want Chinese New Year to reach the importance level of the “other” holidays…I want to not have to look up the details every year and pick and choose which ones we can fit into our schedule. I want to put our crafts carefully away for next year, not recycle them and re-do them year after year. In twelve years I want to pull out the rats that the kids made and remember what it was like when they were three and six and would sit for hours coloring at the table.
We found coloring pages online and plastered them around the house. We made lanterns out of paper, and firecrackers out of toilet paper rolls (O wrote ‘hua’, the character for fire, on his firecrackers). We wrote good luck characters on red paper and hung them alongside the valentine heart O made at school. We had a round red plate filled with oranges and candy. It really made our house so bright and festive.
We attended the Chinese New Year Celebration put on by Families with Children from China last night. We were really hoping the food would be better than last year, but alas, it was still a horrible tasteless pile of yuck. Fortunately we were able to procure some soy sauce, adding both moisture and flavour. There were a lot of kids doing dances and singing, and the Lion Dancers were there as well, which is always really entertaining. When they were done XM said she wanted to pet the lions, but when we got to where they were sitting she panicked, and I had to wave D over take her so I could take a picture of O with them.
At one point a family came up to us with their daughter (she was around 8 or 9 or 10) and wanted to take her picture with Xiao Miao because her name is also Xiao Miao! They said she was the first one they had ever found with the same name. It was pretty cute.
O has a CNY performance for school to do, and then I guess our festivities will wrap up. Then on to Easter! Thank goodness Fred Meyer already has the Easter candy out, I was feeling really put out by the lack of Cadbury Cream Eggs in my life. God forbid we not be able to buy them before Valentine’s Day has even passed. (/sarcasm)
Not feelin’ the love this Valentine’s Day? Check out these Bittersweets - conversation hearts with a twist. They come in a mouth-watering and accurate sounding variety of flavours: Banana Chalk, Grape Dust, Nappy-Critic, You Call This Lime?, Pink Sand and Fossilized Antacid.
Plus, you can’t beat the tagline: Supplies are limited. But the pain that Accompanies them may not be.
It is an election year people, so click away from the lolcats and head over to the lolpresidents.
Not funny enough for you? Go here and mock the bad punctuation of others. Go on, you “know” you want to.
