Haiku Thursday (PM)

All the dumb things - Afternoon edition

When you went away 

For quiet time, come back to 

Heaps of work - so dumb

When you have to work

Clean, a bunch of boring stuff

That's so dumb. That's life

Haiku Thursday (AM)

All the dumb things

When you're awake at

Night, wondering when the babe

Will wake up. That's dumb. 

When you get a cold

The week before going back

To work. That's so dumb!

Appreciate it now! (AM)

Chickpea has been doing me the excellent favour of looking after Newbie one day a week while I do some volunteer work. Yeah, I'm a pretty fucking great person.

It is really nice of her to do it, take time out her week on the regular like that. On the flip side she does get to hang out with the cutest effing 18-month-old living today, so really who is doing who the favour?

The other day she was over in the morning and I was getting ready to leave, performing my morning ablutions and what have you.  I have pretty great light in my bathroom, which is an excellent feature for a bathroom to have; it means time spent in there is pleasant and that performing grooming tasks that require good light is much easier. It also means that standing in front of the mirror in the morning you get a pretty good look at yourself. So as I left the bathroom I said to Chickpea, "God, I wish I'd appreciated my skin when I was younger." To which she yelled, "Appreciate it now!"

Of course. Of course! Lately when I look in the mirror and feel dejected at the natural aging that my skin has undergone and that is evident for all the world to see, all I think is, "Ugh, here it is. The signs of aging. And it's only going to get worse. If only I knew what I had when my skin was younger and better." What a total idiot! It's only going to get worse. Now is the time I should know what I have! Yes, I should have known then, but I also should know now! This is as good as my skin will ever look again, probably. Unless I get rich and can afford some great skin care regime. But even then, that will only help if I get rich pretty soon cause even some fancy skin care isn't going to take many years of my face. I know that.

Having an older sister is great, because they go through all the things before you and can give you excellent advice! Sure, I felt pretty stupid for not realising that I should be appreciating all the benefits of relative youth that I was lamenting not appreciating before, but mostly I just felt glad for her sage advice. And I barely even resented it when she didn't give me my change after buying vietnamese salad rolls later that day.

Still what I do with that advice, I don't really know. I guess I should just stop feeling bad about my mild wrinkles and feel happy that they're still pretty mild. Yeah, that's it. At least with age and wrinkles, wisdom comes too.

Hot (PM)

Forget you, patriarchy. And forget you, Country Road with your $50 hot water bottle jumpers. Honestly. $50 is the same amount of money I spent on the pram I bought on eBay, which came with a wooly sleeping bag which is like a hot water bottle cover for your baby. As if,  CR. As if. 

But pictures of Paul Newman and texts from J in praise of hotties are always welcome here. 

'Here' being the space in front of my eyeballs. 

J's frequent texts about how much she loves her hottie have certainly got me in the mood for a hottie of my own, so much so that when Internet window shopping the other day I felt very tempted to buy this:

Nothing like shopping in a currency you don't understand to make you want to spend money. 

I didn't, of course. But I was tempted. 

Just a little something (PM)

For some reason I can't see J's YouTube on my phone, which is a bummer because I truly love to laugh. 

Here's a little something I saw the other day that made me chuckle.

Topical too! 

Take me out to the ball game (AM)

On Sunday, Appleheart and I went to the ball game—the New York Mets vs the Chicago Cubs.
We decided to see the Mets because eveyone always goes and sees the Yankees, which makes the Mets kind of like the underdogs. Also, John Stewart barracks for the Mets and Appleheard is a real John Stewart fan boy. Also, their mascot is great—a guy with baseball for a head called Mr Met.

I know nothing about baseball.  It seems that watching A League of Their Own a lot as a kid does not prepare you for this game.

It's played on a field that looks like the wifi symbol.

There are 9 innings. It's a pretty slow game. It feels like it should be fast and full of razzle dazzle, but it is kind of slow. I mean, it's slower than cricket. Every time a batter hits a ball he has to run. Even if he (or she, in A League of Their Own) knows (s)he is not doing to make it. So people knew they're going to be out when they start running.  What's exciting about that? Nothing, if you ask me.

In between innings they try a few things out to spruce up the game. At one point, they gave an American flag to a guy who served in Iraq. At another point, Mr Met came out and threw a bunch of tshirts into the crowd. At another point, they got three kids out of the crowd to play a round of Simon Says with the Dunkin Donuts mascot, a giant cup called Cuppy. No kidding.

It's like they know the game isn't interesting enough on its own.

Half way through the game only one home run had been scored. Even nerdy teenagers probably get more home runs than than in this day and age. I didn't, but others would. For sure.

In the end, the Cubs won with a score  of 2 home runs to the Mets 0. Apparently the home team has won every time these two  teams have played this year, until today. More evidence to support my sneaking suspicion that my barracking for a team constitutes the kiss of death.

Regardless, it was actually a super fun day. I've got some photos of it to share with you all, but they' are on Appleheart's camera and he is having a nap right now. You know how sitting in the sun all day can really take it out of you. I'll try to update the post with photos later. 

Stress factors (AM)

You know how when you have one thing in your life that is making you feel a bit stressed it is ok, but as soon as you add one measly little thing to that suddenly everything feels super stressful? Ugh. Why is that? If you add one stressful thing to another your stress level should grow accordingly.

But it doesn't. It grows stupidly disproportionately.

Also, when minorly stressful things happen to you out of context they seem much more stressful. Say, for example, when you check your work email when you are not at work (like an idiot) and you see an email from someone and perhaps they are accusing you of something and even though you know they are the idiot and you have done nothing wrong it seems really stressful; but if you just saw that email at work you'd barely bat an eyelid? You know? No me neither.

Anyway every time I feel a bit stressed I think, "From now on I am taking all possible steps to avoid future stress!" And I always fail. So here is a (non-definitive) list of things I am never going to do:

Check work emails on non-work days.
Try and force Baby to eat vegetables.
Put my foot in it.
Job applications.
Plan dinner parties when anything else is going on in my life.
Make an excessive number of social engagements.
Cook multi-faceted dinners.
Drink insufficient water.
Do any of the above when LB has an assignment due.
Do any of the above when I need to go to the toilet.
Do any of the above when I am hungry.
Do any of the above when it is cold.