Les Corriveaux by ~Curtana on deviantART

I'm pleased enough with this drawing that I'll inflict it on the rest of you, not just the players in my Diablotin game. I'm starting (barely) to get the hang of drawing with the tablet! (Though I couldn't be bothered to draw clothes this time, apparently...)

My sleep is really screwed up right now. I can't get to sleep until past 2 am most nights, although I'm going to bed by midnight. This means I'm consistently getting less than five hours of sleep a night, and so I usually wind up falling back asleep after the boys leave in the morning and not waking up again until 11am or so. Not good. Probably getting outside more and getting more exercise would help :/ I'm going to go to Canadian Tire today to try and find some decent lawn chairs, at least, so that I can sit out in the back yard and get a bit of sun. Working most days in the basement without windows isn't healthy for me.

In other news, I've emailed the only prof I've liked so far at Wayne to ask if she can become my advisor. My current advisor is in Europe until the fall, and I don't really think I can wait until then to talk to someone about wtf I should be doing in this program. And I suspect this prof might have some sympathy for my position that this program sucks.

When Suspicion of Teachers Ran Unchecked. (The archives part is midway through the first page, and concerns the issue of individuals named in records' right to privacy.)

Oh, Rowan Atkinson, how I love you.

Since we were away on Arthur's actual birthday, I'm doing his birthday round-up post belatedly this year. ladyiolanthe, the Playmobil sets were a big hit, and we all think the dragon is especially cool :) longpig, Starscream has arrived safely, and is very awesome - Arthur took him to bed with him last night ;)

It's actually possible that over the past year we didn't take a picture of Arthur every month, or at least not a good one ;) Apparently we are totally missing March 2009 - did we not take any pictures on that trip to Montreal? How is that possible? Nevertheless, I'll forge ahead and try to create a retrospective anyway :)

( Year in pictures )

Happy birthday to Arthur :)

We've arrived safely home from our trip to Gloucester. Because I am lazy, I'll recount my thoughts in +/- point form

+ Getting to see my grandmother, aunt, uncles, and cousins, whom I last saw in 2007: priceless.
- The house was crowded; although I love my grandmother's house, I think ultimately we would have been more comfortable renting a place (though of course that would cost $$$)
+ My eldest cousin's new wife is very awesome (I had only met her once, briefly, before this trip) and said cousin himself has also grown up into an excellent young man.
- Arthur loved them so very much, I expect to be fielding complaints about their absence for the forseeable future.
+ Arthur's birthday was fun, and he got many lovely presents.
- Including about six Transformers, which I am now expected to master and fix for him at all hours of the day and night. And whose limbs fall off. A lot. (Soundwave, I am looking in your direction.)
+ We had one gorgeous day at the beach.
- Only one, because the rest of the week was rainy and grim. Oh New England, they called you that for a reason.
+ On the other day with good weather, we went to my great-uncle's house for a graduation party for his granddaughter, a set of relatives I hadn't seen in 9-14 years. So that was interesting.
- Except for the mosquitos. I have a bite the size of a golf ball on my ankle. Ow.
+ We did get one night out to ourselves, and dinner at a semi-fancy restaurant.
- Other than that evening's break, I feel as though I've been coping with Arthur constantly for ten days, and am now all out of cope.
+ The hotel we stayed at in Buffalo on the way back was acceptable, verging on good.
- Unlike the motel we stayed at in Albany on the way down, which was NOT, ew.
+ Considering we spent about 28 hours in the car (plus the 4 hours to/from great-uncle's house and the 2.5 hours back and forth to Boston), Arthur was mostly pretty good during the drives.
- Except for the parts when he wasn't. One side-of-the-road total freak-out, one didn't-quite-make-it-to-the-rest-stop accident, several screaming fits when we couldn't reach something he'd dropped on the floor or fix a Transformer to his satisfaction, etc.
+ We are now home.
- There was apparently some sort of mystery leak in the basement while we were away, which has messed up a section of the flooring and soaked a wool rug. One is agog with excitement to find out what is responsible this time :p

I would, however, like to hug and kiss the mechanics who fixed the Corolla's bumper while we were away, because they also cleaned the car. All the junk was neatly gathered in a box in the back seat, the floors were vacuumed, and the inside surfaces wiped down. It has not looked so nice in ages, and I didn't have to do it! We should get in car accidents more often. Or not.*

*One final plus - the car accident we had on the way into Boston on Friday was minor and caused no damage to either party's car, apart from slightly bending our license plate.

Happy Captain Picard Day!





Or alternately, the Sims version...

Various photos and videos from the past month or so... Many more at flickr and youtube.



( Photos )

( Videos )

Man, this kind of makes me homesick for NB (although apparently all but one of the guys are from NS...) Possibly NWS if your boss understands Chiac.

I haven't made a proper update in a while, so I'll try to remedy that. In no particular order...

- We had a good visit with my dad while he was up. We went to the petting zoo/kiddie rides at Colasanti's, and to the Detroit Science Center, which Arthur absolutely adored. He got a marble run from the gift shop there, which both feeds into his obsession with Rube Goldberg machines and results in marbles running under the couch all the time and having to be retrieved. Fun!
- Steve and I went to see the guys from Spinal Tap in their 'Unwigged and Unplugged' tour. It was a great show, really well-done, and they did just about all the songs I was hoping they would. And the Fox Theater in Detroit is a gorgeous venue.
- Arthur is in a new classroom with a different teacher starting today, as his preschool has shifted/consolidated things for the summer, reducing them to two classes instead of the usual four (?). I hope he'll do all right.
- Arthur's current obsession is ... Transformers! We are required to call him Optimus Prime at his request.
- I'm taking one summer class, online, the required administration course. So far it hasn't been too onerous, at least, if not exactly thrilling. It ends sooner than I thought, basically at the end of July, so at least I'll have most of August off before starting up again the fall. Since I still can't decide if I'm doing archives or academic libraries, I registered for the intro courses for each stream in the fall term.
- We had a colleague of Steve's, her husband, and their two daughters (ages 6 and 4) over for dinner on Friday. I made beef and chicken skewers, rice pilaf and carrots. That went well, and Arthur had a great time playing with the girls. I hope we can do it again before too long. It really demonstrated that we need a bigger dinner table, though the kids didn't seem to mind eating at the coffee table instead. They passed up local strawberries, non-local blueberries, and real whipped cream for freezies and ran out to play in the yard after the meal ;)
- We went strawberry picking as well! Arthur complained a bit about thistles and twigs poking him, but he did help - he probably put almost as many as he ate into the baskets. Apparently this farm plants an early variety of strawberry that gives them about a week's lead on most other u-pick farms in the area. We picked about six litres, froze half, and are steadily working our way through the other half.
- I won the most recent round of lotr_lims, woo! The competition was very tough, and I was rather surprised to make it through to the final...
- I finally have a renewed prescription for my thyroid meds, after several months, so I hope that'll gradually improve my constant sleepiness and my mood (if it helped with weight too, I wouldn't complain). Question: if a doctor puts you on medication, then wants to run some blood tests after you've been on them a while to make sure levels are where they should be, and you obediently go for these tests, is it crazy to expect the doctor's office will phone you to let you know the results? Because apparently it was my fault for not getting in touch with them - if your test results are normal they don't bother to contact you. Now I just have to go through it all again - six weeks of meds, blood test, if tests are normal then I can get a three-month prescription. Meh. (Our doctor recently fired his staff because of their crappitude, but this policy seems to be formal rather than just a result of disorganization.)
- I'm not ashamed to admit that we've been bribing Arthur to stay in his own bed all night rather than coming in and waking us up. Having had very few nights of uninterrupted sleep in the past four years, I'm about at the breaking point on that subject. It's been hit and miss, but as of today, he's accumulated enough stickers for the super soaker he's been wanting, so I'll pop out to the store later and buy one :)

It's the final challenge of Round Seven of the lotr_lims at the moment, and I'm one of the final two contestants! Of course I can't tell you which icons are mine, but if you feel like voting, you can do so here.

Have now wasted half the morning reading through the TV Tropes page Nightmare Fuel. Of particular note, this anti-forest fire PSA is going well (if somewhat oddly sexily) until the very end:



But the Advertising page doesn't mention that Dentyne Ice commercial where a guy chews the gum and his head freezes in a horrible rictus and then falls off.



ETA: OMG, someone scanned a bunch of the images from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, which FREAKED ME OUT when I was a kid (though I read them voraciously anyway). Skim through the six pages of the thread for all the images, if you dare ;)

Steve spent a good portion of yesterday organizing the basement storage space, since we finally got a shelf to put in there. One of the things he found in the process was a book my dad brought when he came to visit last year, a home-made production entitled "Julie's Visit to Gloucester", written by my grandmother (presumably some parts were dictated by me) and illustrated by me. I think I was probably four, about to turn five, to judge by the calibre of the art. I can vaguely remember the trip, which was probably the first time I had been away from my parents for longer than a day or two.

(PS the best illustration is last, which will either give you the incentive to read through the entire thing, or skip to the end, one or the other.)

( What I Did on My Summer Vacation, c. 1983 )

(I'll spare you the transcription of the book my 6th grade class wrote called "Ordinary People - Extraordinary Lives: A Book About Dreams and Determination, Hopes, Goals, and Achievements. A Book About the Human Spirit." Oh god, the shame, it burns.)

Archie marries Veronica? o_O

"My name is Arthur Peter Tracey Chrisomalis, but my scientific name is homo sapiens."

Stuck in my head. Probably NWS. Also awesome.

My dad arrives this afternoon for a week's stay! I haven't seen any of my family since the last time he came to visit, in early October. I miss them a lot, and I'm already anticipating being depressed when he leaves, but I'm planning to enjoy myself while he's here at least.

The Recently Deflowered Girl, an early work by Edward Gorey.

(My Gorey icons aren't in the rotation atm, woe!)

Arthur, yesterday: I transformed my hot dog into a snail, and he will be my pet!

(He then refused to eat any more of his lunch, because it was 'his pet'.)

Arthur, this morning: Oh, where is my pet?
Me, with alarming thoughts of lost hot dog bits: I don't know. Where did you put it?
Arthur: Did I put it ... in my tummy?
Me: ... Did you?
Arthur: Yes!

Arthur: Make sure to be as possibly as you can!

Arthur: I can play Oblivion!
Me: No, you can't, you have to be a grown up to play it.
Arthur: I'm a grown up now! I grew.
Me: Well, you have grown a bit, but you're still pretty little.
Arthur, indignant: I'm not little, I'm a very big boy and I can play Oblivion!

Last night, Arthur was quite overtired and cranky, and I was trying to settle him down by singing to him and rocking him (which he usually objects to these days). I began singing The Morningtown Ride, and got this:

Arthur, very upset: No, that's a Wiggles song, not a house song!

I switched to Teddybears' Picnic, which was greeted by a rapturous sigh of "yes" and his eyes immediately closing. Aw.

I'm really glad to see M. Leblanc (and Bitch herself, in the comment thread) recant on their view of Linda Hirschman as a great feminist, due to her recent piece for Slate's new women's magazine, in which she ponders "the risks of liberation" and engages in some good ol'fashion slut-shaming - but the egregiousness of this recent piece is only the icing on the cake for me. When I started reading Bitch PhD, probably around the time of that original article (so, 2005 or early 2006 or so, shortly after Arthur was born), it really bothered me that these women, whom I respected and mostly agreed with, could be so far from my own opinion on this one subject. Because I could not even remotely grasp how it could be in keeping with present-day feminism to slag on women who choose to set aside their careers when their children are young. Hirschman's assumptions were off-base anyway (there hasn't been a huge wave of highly educated women permanently leaving the workforce) and her attitude of blaming individuals (rather than a system that typically doesn't give working mothers much flexibility, or that privileges 'male' work patterns, say) really bothered me. As commenter Cala says in the thread, "the fact that Hirshman's tone indicated that she was dismissive and contemptuous of women was a reliable guide to her having contempt and being dismissive of women who in her estimation, fall short".

Bitch's life has obviously changed a lot since she originally endorsed Hirshman's article, and those changes no doubt play a role in her change of view: as she says in the comments, "most people make compromises as life unfolds. But failing to *recognize* that, if you're making an argument about what people should do with their lives, is stupid. I do have regrets, on feminist and personal grounds; but if women's equality depends on expecting most women not to make mistakes, we're fucked." Anyway, I recommend the post, but especially the comments and debate on 'wasted' education, as fascinating reading.