Dinosaur Mom Chronicles

Can't Keep A Thought In My Head

2009-11-07T22:32:00.002-05:00

The real problem is not that I can't keep a thought in my head, it's that I can't concentrate on one thought at a time. Here are the contents of my head tonight, at least the ones that are anyone's beeswax:

1. This has all the makings of a classic Demotivator poster. I think I'll post it on my office Yammer account Monday and see if anyone comes up with a winning caption.

2. This was a pointless cover article in a major news magazine. I suspected it was pointless when I skimmed it online, but after reading the whole thing aloud to Riley Dino (at his request, tonight at bedtime) I can now confirm its emptiness. Time, why are you using my subscription dollars this way? True, the phrase "Foggy Bottom body language" is a keeper; true, Joe Klein made an interesting comment about tensions between the State Department and the White House on political appointments. But the article takes an awful lot of words to make what amounts to no point at all.

And Now A Word From My Sponsors

2009-11-04T22:09:00.002-05:00

My sons' interest in dinosaurs when they were little(r) awakened my slumbering interest in the natural sciences AND gave me a conceit for a blog. Thus I have adopted the dinosaur as my totem. Accordingly, let me commend Dinosaur Comics and its associated merchandise to your attention. These guys don't know me from an Albertosaurus, but their stuff is cool.

Honesty

2009-11-03T21:23:00.002-05:00

Bedtime chez Dinosaurov. Riley Dino and Mouse are each jealous of the time I give the other for conversation and snuggles. BoyMan has ceded this ground to his younger siblings because he is Too Big For All That and, besides, he falls asleep earlier than they do most nights anyway. He likes being on the same floor of the Nest as Babushka because it's quiet and he doesn't have to listen to their giggling; I think he's slept past 9 AM once in his entire 12 years, unlike the younger two.

Riley (stroking the flab on my upper arms tenderly): Mommy, tell me more about the Cold War?

Me: No, boy. Detach from the Mother Unit. I have to check on Mouse. (I go into Mouse's room and find her sulking on the floor in her robe in the doorway.) Mouse, get in bed. What are you doing?

Mouse: Why do you spend more time talking to him than to me?

Me: He asks me more interesting questions.

Mouse (thinks a second, then): What is Catholic-ism? (As I begin my explanation, she stretches in satisfaction and curls into her pillow triumphant.)

I get up from Mouse's bed and make it as far as my own doorway before I hear both kids calling for me. Mouse wants her back scratched and Riley wants a glass of water.

Mouse: Mommy, that feels so good!

Riley: Thank you for the water, Mom. (Pauses.) Yay, I didn't have to do any work!

That's All, Folks

2009-11-03T19:51:00.000-05:00

BoyMan attempts to describe Foghorn Leghorn: "Who's that big cartoon chicken who's all buff and stuff?"

Water Babies

2009-11-01T15:47:00.001-05:00

Hiding from my mother-in-law's ill-humor, I have taken Riley Dino and Nephew Junior to the Swim Center for an afternoon of aquatic fun. They started with the Splashdown, a giant flume, then they switched to the diving board (Riley clowning and flapping down the board, Nephew rolling himself neatly into a perfect cannonball), and now (after a short break in which Riley fell on the concrete deck and whacked the back of his head) they are swinging on a rope into the deep end of the pool. I am sitting in the waiting area with a notebook and a copy of "O, Pioneers!" ogling the pool managers and watching the boys crack each other up as they wait for another shot at the rope.

Mouse is enjoying a long-awaited playdate with a school friend at the friend's house.

BoyMan is enjoying the absence of his siblings at home where Dino Spouse is reading his latest take of books about Stalin, Lenin, and Hitler. Jone as I might on my husband's mind powers, I must admit that he reads a lot more in English than I read in Russian.

I presume that Babushka is in her lair. She was less overtly hostile toward me this afternoon than she was this morning, but I think it best to stay out of her way to avoid a repeat of last week's meltdown. I hope she is not in howling pain like she was last week - thank God she sees the doctor tomorrow.

The pool staff are flirting with each other. Ah youth. O, pioneers!

So It Begins

2009-10-31T21:05:00.002-04:00

Halloween kicks off the Fall-Winter holiday season on my personal calendar, so I can't help but see it as an indicator of how the holidays that follow it will go. This year the kids all had costumes they liked, the weather was good, the candy was plentiful, and I managed to put up seasonal flair. Hell, I even carved three jack-o-lanterns. Good ones.

You see where this is headed, right?

"Katya, are you sure the children should go for candy this year with the Swine Flu around?" asked my mother-in-law.

"We'll make them wash their hands when they come home," I countered. It was already 4 PM and the candy and pumpkins were ready. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

Glare. "I'll remind you later," she threatened as she returned to her lair. Later as in when the children are all on their influenza death-beds, to be sure.

QED, You Sped

2009-10-28T22:19:00.002-04:00

I love xkcd so, so much. I had to post this because (a) I remember having similar sleep-dep hallucinations during lectures in college, (b) I am about that tired today, and (c) "QED, bitches!" has just become my new mantra.

Let Me Say This About That

2009-10-27T23:32:00.002-04:00

My employer (aka Ur Takses, or The Ministry of Silly Walks) doesn't let us download strange new applications off the internet on to its computer networks. That's fine and all, but it just occurred to me that the incidence of social notworking would probably go down in my organization if they'd just let us put the frickin' Tweetdecks on our desktops. That way no one would be lured by the evil Facebook quizzes. On the other hand, if I had a Tweetdeck thingie that also dings every time one of my favorite time-sucks (Jezebel, Wonkette, and Cute Overload) is updated, I would probably deserve to be fired for all the time I'd be wasting.

(If Tweetdeck already has that capability, do me a favor and don't tell me. Thanks.)

Dream Life

2009-10-24T11:28:00.001-04:00

This has been a week of messed up dreams with subtexts of such intermeshed bureaucratic, domestic, and erotic provenance that I cannot find a single word (bureau-erotic? domesticratic?) to describe them adequately. Last night I was in a space that kept morphing between a commuter bus, an outdoor bonfire, a hospital corridor of a hospital corridor, a corridor of my organization's headquarters and a waiting room, where people were discussing the fact that my recently promoted assistant was actually responsible for a 19th century Baptist mission to Rhodesia and was on an African unit of currency ... Anyway, I was flirting with a fellow passenger while Dino Spouse dozed in the seat in front of me. (This is the least credible element of the dream; while I freely cop to a flirtatious nature, Dino Spouse and I do not flirt with others in each other's company because we know it will end badly.) We entered a grocery store, whereupon my erstwhile swain began to press his suit far more aggressively than I liked. In desperation, I broke away with my shopping cart and called Dino Spouse to my aid. He was willing to help, but he was delayed by consumer difficulties (in the background of our phone conversation I could hear him debating with a cashier about the cost of cereals and the location of the 2% milk). I woke up shaking with anxiety - why? Because I couldn't remember what I had been supposed to buy at the grocery store, of course.

The night before, I was trying to participate in a camp for adults who had been home-schooled as children that was being run by a home-schooling mom I met a couple of weeks ago at Catechist training while renewing the zombie-proofing of my compound for survivors of the zombie apocalypse. My decontamination pool was a mess, I couldn't use the AV equipment properly at the camp, my best girlfriend at the camp was moody, and I was nervous about the declaration of love I received from the camp director's son. On the bright side, I did come up with a new, ecologically sustainable way of filtering the decontamination pool.

Werk Iz Hard, LOL

2009-10-23T18:27:00.001-04:00

Im in ur takses, watchin otherz werk. This isn't a commentary on the federal workplace or the value middle managers like yours truly add therein. I am literally escorting uncleared technicians while they do their unclassified magic in the secret squirrel areas of my building. This is how I celebrate my promotion, which takes effect next week and comes with a pay raise and a more impressive title than the one I now have. Nothing expresses bureaucratic puissance like standing in the hallway with no apparent purpose, I always say.

Inches

2009-10-16T16:35:00.002-04:00

Readers of recent posts will note that I am (a) of heroic and ample proportions and (b) annoyed by the challenges of shopping for clothes. Inspired by Jessie X's post on the sizing of women's clothes, I am calling for change. Women's clothing should be sized by the same standards used in sizing men's clothes. I am sick of pants and sleeves that are too short, gaps in my blouse buttons, and arm seams that start in the middle of my shoulders. Life is too short to spend trying on clothes. Who's with me?

Picaresque Account, Continued

2009-10-16T13:17:00.001-04:00

My wanderings through the ancestral homeland continue. The bank was finally pursuaded to release my money after I spoke to two customer service representatives and a manager in my best She Who Must Be Obeyed voice upon my arrival in Detroit. (I am not sure whether my increased success rate in using the Bene Gesserit Voice reflects my increased professional maturity and self-confidence or the continuing atrophy of my conscience. Whatever, it works more than it used to.) So I was able to get a rental car and even buy food for some of my friends. The rental car has satellite radio, which sends me into transports of ecstasy every time I get in the driver's seat. "Soultown" alone makes me rethink my bias against paying for radio. Sure, the satellite radio made me miss the breaking news of Balloon Boy yesterday, but maybe that's just another argument in favor of making the investment.

Wednesday night and Thursday I saw my best friends from Ypsilanti elementary, middle, and high school years. I saw my main middle crush and a representive of the band of brainiac boys who were my main academic competition and occasional crushes of my high school years here. I got woefully lost in Ann Arbor and bought some pants. My cousin cancelled out on karaoke in Lansing, but by then I was stuffed with two days of restaurant feeding and tired from smiling so much.

Hotwire picked the same hotels for me on this trip that it picked for me on our midwestern progress in Summer 2008. That's working out okay overall, but I am astonished by the extent to which my Lansing hotel resembles a provincial Russian hotel (except for the presence of climate control, towels, and hot water). The agenda for today is retail (need a coat, though the insulated vest thingie I got yesterday is very helpful, and paper products for tailgate) and the kick-off of my dorm reunion, aka Slothfest 2009.

Observation: the difference between dysfunction and family crazy in the homeland and same in the east is that in the midwest, crazy travels at a constant rate of speed and at a safe following distance and NEVER passes on the right.

Picaresque Account

2009-10-14T13:02:00.002-04:00

For the first time in my life, I missed a flight, this morning. Somehow I got my arrival and departure times for my flight to Detroit mixed up and - there I was. I shower Southwest with love for getting me on to the next flight without making me pay for my stupidity. Now I am waiting in Baltimore for boarding to start.

Speaking of stupid, I am flying to Michigan with no change of pants and no jacket. My college friends may not want to stand downwind of me by Saturday. I will buy provisions after my arrival, more specifically after my bank cashes the $400 or so in checks I deposited this morning. Uh, bank? You aren't shy about sucking away my cash, what earthly justification can you have for holding it out of my grasp? I do hope the rental car payment goes through when I arrive, otherwise I will be calling some of my high school friends for an airport pick-up or trying to find a metropolitan bus.

Consumer Vexation

2009-10-13T19:19:00.000-04:00

Dear Wal-Mart:

Fat people come in many heights. Many of us used to be skinny people, but our weight gain did not affect our heights as we expanded.

So why, Wal-Mart? Why do I magically grow shorter in your eyes once I cross over the fat barrier? Why can't I get any long inseam jeans to cover my ample hiney when you have long inseam jeans for skinny people? You used to have tall fat jeans, I remember. Why do you not have them when I need some frickin clean jeans to wear on my trip tomorrow and my only jeans are dirty and I can't wash them because the blanking washer is in my bleeping mother-in-law's blanking suite and it's past her bedtime?

This might be my punishment for shopping Wal-Mart.

Community Outrage

2009-10-11T10:57:00.002-04:00

Some time this summer (I think), ~~the county~~ the Columbia Association put in a very nice ~~playground~~ Tot Lot behind the Jeffers Hill swimming pool and community center. My kids and Nephew Junior love this playground. Unfortunately, some blankity blanking bleep bleep seems to have torched a big part of it. Dinosaur Mom correspondent on-the-scene Nephew Junior reports that the coolest part of the playground (with the funky merry-go-round and the climbing wall) caught fire shortly before Jeffers Hill Elementary dismissed on the afternoon of Friday, October 9. This morning, kids are playing on two-thirds of the playground, geese are grazing on the field, and everything smells like burnt rubber. What the hell is wrong with people?

UPDATE: @Anonymous, it was a Tot Lot, you were right. For more information, check out the Patuxent Papers' article about the incident.

Dreaming Is Free

2009-10-10T18:21:00.001-04:00

It was a busy week in the theater of the absurd that is my dreamscape. Earlier this week, I dreamed that I was moving alone to Michigan for some kind of short-term (four to six months) professional certificate program and had allowed Dino Spouse to direct my pack-out, a full service affair involving an army of hyper-efficient foreign movers packing everything in sight. For some reason, this led to the movers packing the kids' winter clothes, random pieces of my furniture that Dino Spouse has never liked, and oversized, outlandish handcrafted objects (like a large, ceramic, red and blue painted baby's bathtub) that seemed to represent my various attempts at crafting. Dino Spouse did not direct them to pack other items I considered useful, however, like a roomful of beautiful antique furniture or my dresser with clothing still inside. It was a distressing dream.

(Now that I try to recall last night's dream, all I remember is that it involved my search for a power cord for my laptop and that I woke up in a crappy mood. This morning it seemed significant, though. Man, I hope HP gets that cord here soon.)

Moving On

2009-10-08T21:16:00.001-04:00

The move of my organization to its new building will officially end on Tuesday, when the last wave of people will finally come over from the old building. This week has been paced accordingly. It's not even 9:15 PM and I am barely conscious. Not even Dino Spouse's latest You Tube odyssey (the collected works of Foreigner) will keep me awake for long. So much for maintaining my place in the Mobbie voting!

Seal of Meh

2009-10-07T09:52:00.002-04:00

I have already awarded the dread Dinosaur Mom Seal of Disapproval to Assets for the unpleasant skin feel of their body-shaping undershorts. I cannot rouse the same wrath against their control-top pantyhose, which adequately cover and contain all the parts of my body they promise to clothe without torturing my tender flesh. However, their "nude" tone hose are too light and opaque, giving me the unpleasant feeling that I'm wearing white tights. White tights on an adult female who isn't in costume are not an acceptable fashion choice. So meh to you, Assets, for sucking significantly less than the last time I tried you.

Target, on the other hand, is verging dangerously near a Seal of Disapproval for limiting my range of Big Beautiful Walrus hosiery to these Assets thingies. Target, when I want to make a capital investment in shaping my flab, I will buy a body-shaper. When I need some damn pantyhose so I can wear a skirt to work September-May, I do not want to be limited to Assets. The nice hosiery you stock for skinny people comes in my size, I just bought some at another store. The L'eggs you used to sell in my size still come in my size, I can buy 'em in Wal-Mart. Why do you scorn my custom, Target, why?

It's Not What It Looks Like

2009-10-06T23:32:00.000-04:00

Dino Spouse and I have, over the years, compiled a list of the worst excuses ever. "It's not what it looks like" is one of them. Other winners are "It just happened" and "I can explain." This is my public service announcement to all of humanity: if you're ever caught red-handed doing anything wrong, please refrain from use of these phrases. They're just dumb things to say.

There is no real reason for me to be sharing this thought except that I just finished reading (and basically enjoying) "The Abstinence Teacher," and that got me reflecting on human folly. Hoo boy, I really am fortunate that I never got the chance to teach sex ed in any kind of institutional setting. Good thing they left Eeeeevil Seeestor in charge of that.*

*Seriously, Eeeevil Seestor is a professional health educator. She would have smacked the crap out of all the dramatis personnae in "The Abstinence Teacher" if she'd been in there.

I am sober and, except for the caloric burden of some Lebanese pistachio candies Dino Spouse's coworker sent home with him, hungry. This is good. Now I will sleep and dream of the laptop power cord HP is sending me in order to refuel my laptop, the old cord having bit the dust. I do not like blogging with my thumbs.

Logic

2009-10-04T11:46:00.001-04:00

If Ma Protosaur read my blog, she would (after strenuously objecting to being "Ma," an appelation she hates) take great delight in Riley Dino's discovery of logic as a tool of persuasion. Yes, the day has come; Riley has discovered that he can change my mind with a logical argument. Yesterday he reveled in his newfound powers, and I gave him the lecture on how logic doesn't always trump other arguments, notably "because I said so." This morning, when I bested him on a point of logical argument (the relative merits of Cheeburger Cheeburger compared to those of Three Brothers for Sunday lunch), he was crestfallen. "Logic, you have failed me!" he mourned as I victory-danced around the gas pump.

(My mom is still reminding me about how I sneered at her logical argument skills when I was 16. I know my days of triumph are numbered.)

Perks Of The Job

2009-10-01T23:52:00.000-04:00

Just finished hand-writing seven pages of notes of latest draft of Dr. Johnson's novel. Okay, I guess this may be something editors do all the time too, but to my mind this is a major perk of musedom.

How To Make Blog Like A Porn Star

2009-09-30T23:06:00.004-04:00

I am conflict-averse, yes, but I have a competitive spirit all the same. It is fueled by vanity and insecurity and, occasionally, by the desire to test myself.

My competitive spirit was tickled by being nominated for a Mobbie, but today I learned via Jezebel that there is a challenge looming out there in cyberspace that I cannot meet. Jenna Jameson is starting a mommy blog. I visited her Twitter page, where she has almost 50,000 followers to my 73. Granted, my odds of catching up with Jenna Jameson online are better than my odds of becoming the next Dooce (she has 1.3 million followers), but still.

Ripped From The Headlines

2009-09-29T23:14:00.003-04:00

The spirit of Twisty Faster and the literary influence of Dr. Johnson prompt me to point out that, as Rilke said, beauty really is nothing but the beginning of terror.

You Could Vote For Me

2009-09-28T22:58:00.003-04:00

I got nominated for a Mobbie, which is a Baltimore Sun award for meritorious blogcraft. You could vote for me (or a worthy local blogger of your choice) if you check out the Mobbie page. I can't vote for me yet, though, because my password keeps getting rejected. I must want it too much. Time to go back to sorting through the fall and winter clothes, clearly.

The Wagon

2009-09-27T21:44:00.003-04:00

I am hungry and sober. This is how I should fall asleep every night if I want my bosom to keep sticking out further than my stomach. Alas, the last few days have involved lots of rich food and drink. I vowed to change my ways this afternoon after I collapsed in a sugar swoon following pop tarts for breakfast and a bag of twizzlers for lunch. Technically a salad was my lunch, but the twizzlers (my snack at "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" with Riley Dino, Nephew Junior, and Mouse) were what really stayed with me.

For those of you keeping score at home, I've had five or six cigarettes since May, when I bought the fake cigarette on a cart at the Mall. Friday night was one of those times, and combined with the cold I was almost over and the strain on my voice of screaming wildly at a burlesque show, it's taking me under. I look and sound like a figure of tragedy. If my new minion weren't returning to the office after a month of leave, I would stay home tomorrow and sleep.