Do the Yak

Funny how running out of toilet paper brings out the poet in some people. * * * Things I noticed about the kids this morning: 1. Sarah was sleeping with just the top sheet over her (never a comforter, even in winter), curled up on her front with her butt in the air and knees almost to her chin. This position was extremely cute when she was a baby in a one-piece sleeper and it still is. I hated to wake her, especially since she hates waking up. Starting at about three months, she's fallen asleep quickly and slept soundly for at least 10 hours at night -- lucky us.Which reminds me of something that happened around the time she had just started to sit up on her own. One night I heard her on the baby monitor uncharacteristically fussing after we'd put her in her crib -- not outright crying, but still. Finally she was quiet. An hour or two later I went in to check on her and found her sound asleep sitting up in her crib, leaning over with her forehead resting on the crib bars...

My good friend from J-school, John Godges, just published a book called "Oh Beautiful" that he wrote about his family's experiences as immigrants and as Catholics growing up in America. I read it in manuscript (the first book I ever read entirely in PDF form, actually) and it was really good. I mean, REALLY good. I was afraid when I agreed to read it that I was going to have to grope for something nice to say about it so as not to hurt his feelings if it sucked, but this was not a problem. John is an excellent interviewer, writer, and thinker of deep thoughts about all sorts of interesting stuff. Go to his website and you can learn more about the book and even read an excerpt -- and of course buy it if you're so inclined, which would be nice for John even though I won't see one penny of the avalanche of proceeds that the blog post will generate. Being raised by strict atheists, I didn't know much about Catholicism before I read the book. Actually that...

Over the weekend the following things happened: I thoroughly cleaned the inside of my car, (including the disgusting floor mat, which I put in the "bulky items" cycle of the wash with a heap of Tide and Oxy-Clean); I swept the garage floor; and Ben made the inside of the fridge sparkle. No more nasty science experiments, and you can actually look at the shelves and bottom of the fruit and veggie drawers without having a sudden urge to take a long hot shower. These are things that have been on the to-do list for a long time, yet I didn't feel any particular sense of satisfaction while doing them. Mostly it was very boring. BUT! Now my heart soars like a hawk when I open the fridge or look at my impossibly clean floor mats in the car, which now also smells better. It really makes a difference after six years of sippy-cup spills, ground-in Cheez-Its, pulverized crayon, sand, salt and snot. I jut feel sorry fort the washing machine, which just gave up several years of its lif...

I was shocked to realize I hadn't posted during the entire month of August. What a twat, right? The random title of this post refers to the impending Hurricane Earl, which is supposed to brush Mass. tonight. A bit of wind and rain is all we're expecting in the Leafy Suburbs, however. Not like the last one that made landfall, Bob, on Aug. 19, 1991 (my 30th birthday, actually). It was a Monday; I had been visiting my mother in England and flew back Sunday afternoon with no inkling of the impending excitement. Monday morning I awoke to no wind but a torrential downpour and went to work at the paper to covering the storm and its effects, which mainly involved a lot of tree damage and downed power lines. The wind soon picked up quite a bit. The day's highlights included watching big long waves roll backwards out from land into Long Island Sound, and then trying to interview some hardy soul who had stayed in his oceanfront cottage. I knocked on the door and asked if he would ta...

A blog post by Peter Bregman linked to two really interesting other pieces: an interactive graphic showing how different portions of the population spend their time each day , and a New Yorker article by Atul Gawande asking some pretty profound questions about what we -- and health care providers -- ought to do when death is clearly approaching . I think about this latter topic probably more than I should, but maybe that's understandable since my father and Ben's parents are all in their 80s and having had the experience of my mother's death in a hospice in 2002. When I read these things about all this denial by doctors pussy-footing around and patients who can't accept the inevitability of death and prepare appropriately, I think, jeez, I could do better than that, I would face the truth and concentrate on quality of life, yadda yadda. But maybe I'm kidding myself. Especially with young children, I might fight to the end for a few more minutes with them. The thin...

A while back, I posted a link to this Snuggie parody  that was so funny I snorted at work. Imagine my delight when I found this sequel . But I'm a traditionalist. I'll stick to my plain red Snuggie, thank you very much. (UPDATE, June 2022 — I cleaned out a closet full of literally moth-eaten blankets and the Snuggie had to go. I was today years old when I figured out that I can just turn the damn heat up in winter.)

The other day I was rushing off to work and I grabbed a pile of bills on the counter that needed paying. But Ben stopped me and said there were important things he needed to explain about some of them. In other words, they weren't all your basic log-on-to-BillPay-and be-done-with-it kinds of things. There were phone calls that had to be made to enlighten various entities about the torturous history of our health insurance, like when this policy in my name changed to that policy in Ben's name on such-and-such a date, and so the doctor's office resubmitted a claim to the wrong insurance company and SNZZZZzzzzzzz... SO. BORING. Which reminded me of these two great posts on Steam Me Up, Kid, where she described trying vainly to take in the workings of her furnace and how to jump-start a car. So fucking hilarious. I sent them to Ben and now he sort of realizes when my eyes get all glassy during one of these conversations. I don't even care that it reinforces negative stere...