Virtual Christmas Wishes to You

Warm Christmas Wishes to you and your family.

Happy 2007, let's make 2008 Great!

Bah! Humbug.

Go Scrooge yourself.



Make sure to turn on your speakers.



Can you even believe that we're less than a week from Christmas? Wow! Time sure flies.

I'm living with roosters!

I'm going utterly crackers, here. (As if it were something unusual-ha!)

My evil little children insist on being up at the pre-crack-of-dawn. I've said it many, many times before: Mommy don't do kids before 6:00 am.

I. Just. Don't.

There's just something very sick and wrong about children being awake and up (playing loudly) before 6:00am. I can't and don't want to handle it.

BUT!

My children have consistently been up and awake at 5:00am, 5:20am every. single. morning. I don't know what to do about it. I've tried to put them to bed later (10, 15, 30, 60 minutes (and more) past their bedtimes): still up in the 5:00am hour. I've tried to run them around and wear them out more in the afternoons: still up. I'm at my wits' end with what to do.

I am up early, early in the mornings. Part of my early waking is insomnia (ironically I could easily go back to sleep about 6:30am...too bad for me, that doesn't work), the other part is that from 5:30-about (ideally) 6:00am that is my private do-whatever-quiet-activity-I-want-to time. Just one problem: evil little monkeys who refuse to a) sleep until a reasonable hour, or, b) the same evil little monkeys who refuse to sleep until a reasonable hour also refuse to stay and play in their rooms.

So, dear reader, this is where you come in: I need your help! Desperately!

I'm looking for ideas of how to get my kids to sleep until at least until 6:00am or how to get them to play quietly in their rooms until 6:00am. Let's face it folks: I'm not picky. In my perfect world my kids would sleep until 6:30am weekdays and 8:00am weekends. But, at this point I'd settle for staying in their rooms until 6:00am.

Please, please write in. Help me find the 'magic bullet'. I'm open to just about anything--as long as it works.

I'm counting on you, dear friend, help me out!

What I get for driving without the radio on...

Driving home from work today I kept the radio/CD/satellite/DVD off.

Amazing, I know.

Actually, I turned it all off on my way to work today. Sometimes I crave quiet, and driving sans electronic gadgets blaring is one sure-fire way to get it.

Peace gives me time to think--it is a good thing and a bad thing, both.

Anyhow, as I was nearing home I drove past an 'Oil Can Henry's' and I glanced at the reader board:

Come on in. Free WiFi.

Huh?

I had a couple of thoughts: are we so addicted to entertainment that we have to take our laptop to get a 15minute (or more like 30 mins) oil change? And, I also thought: 'free WiFi' Is is possible to have WiFi for a charge (other than your own personal home account)?

Have you ever seen signs: WiFi $.15/minute for the first 30 minutes, and $2.75/hour after the first half hour?

I certainly haven't. Could you even charge if you wanted to? People drive around neighborhoods with their laptops open looking for a signal so that they can steal WiFi. I know this because the laptops that we have at work have a very limited range of reception so that random freaks can't park in the lot at night to steal our WiFi. It's a security issue.

Hmmm.

So, does it "Free" and "WiFi" said in the same breath (or reader board) make the statement an oxymoron?

See. Sometimes thinking gets me into trouble.

What do you think? What do you know? Can you charge for WiFi in a public space? I'm curious to know. If you have any idea, post a comment, will ya? Thanks!

Because, well, inquiring minds deserve to know.

Nikon: No Longer Gone!

Oh, sweet Nikon, how I do love thee, yes oh yes, it's surely true.

Oh, sweet Nikon I so missed you, you are my favo-rite little toy.

The days have been so long and dull.

I haven't been able to snap and click.

You are now clean and spark-ling, after just a month been gone.

Oh sweet Nikon I do love thee, I can't wait to click away.


(to the tune of Beethoven's 9th symphony, 'Ode to Joy')

Yup. It's official: I need a serious vacation.
Probably the kind of 'vacation' that has the staff in white lab coats.

But a break, nonetheless.

Pinkeye

The boy has pinkeye. Again.

He got it this July when we were on holiday in Sunriver. I have no idea how he contracted it or from whom, but he did. We were there a few hours, took the kiddos to the playground, and voila! the next morning the Chubber woke up with a green, goopy, crusty eye. And, of course, it was on a Sunday. After a trip to the urgent care center in Bend he had some nasty antibiotic eye drops, and 5 days later he was good as new.

Now, this go around he started to have a bit of redness in his left eye on Friday. I didn't think much about it--the poor kid is a walking allergy, and I figured it was nothing. Saturday his eye is a bit more red looking. I still wasn't concerned, again, I figured he's a little boy---they're destructive--and he likely poked himself or something. Sunday shows up and his eye is really red, and he's grumpy. I think to myself, "Oh, no. Not again. I bet he's got pinkeye."

So, being the semi-decent mother I can be, I phone the pediatrician and leave a message with the answering service. About an hour later I get a call back from the triage nurse saying the on-call doctor can see the boy. Yay!

I must say, I really like our pediatrician, and the clinic we go to. From this Sunday's events I found out that they are open from 9:30am-7:00pm, weekdays, 9:00am-4:00pm, Saturday, and 9:00am-12:00pm on Sunday. What amazing hours, huh? I'm fortunate in that my kids are rarely sick, and because of it I don't necessarily (before yesterday) have the clinic hours memorized. I remember the days when you only saw the pediatrician during 'banker hours' and you could forget about weekends--if you were sick over a weekend you had two choices: 1) lay around the house and 'die' waiting for Monday (and hope there's an appointment open), or, 2) go to urgent care downtown and have a better chance of dying of whatever illness you had while waiting, or worse, contract whatever other awful disease from the guy who passed out on the couch next to you after a week long alcoholic-bender (I'll never get the olfactory memory erased from my head: the smell of unwashed transient and booze puke that emanated from the urgent care center).

So, clearly, compared to the 'old days' we're living in the lap of luxury.

Today I'm home from work and have the Chublet with me since he's not quite out of the contagious (24 hours on antibiotics) period. Peanut is at the sitter. I felt kinda bad dropping her off, but I don't want to risk her catching pinkeye (though, if she were to get it she'd probably have it by now). To prevent the rest of us from getting it I am on a mission to sanitize...well, pretty much everything. Chublet touches everything, so I need to clean everything. Oh joy. But, I suppose the alternative is getting pink-eye. I've never had it before, and I don't really want to find out just how fun it is. So, I've got my work cut out for me.

Ratatouille

I had a very interesting start to my morning.

For starters, the evil Chubber was up at who-knows-what-time (when I got out of the shower and walked into my room, he was standing in the doorway--staring at me!), so I had a super early start: 5:30am. Ugh. I really need, honestly need a half-hour to myself first thing in the morning after I get out of the shower. With the Chublet being up so early, my 'personal time' instantly evaporates. At any rate, despite the early, early start with kids, the first part of my morning went smoothly. Where's the interesting part, you ask? Here it comes:

Once I got to work I was really productive. Rare for me, as I like to socialize a little bit in the morning with my co-workers and catch up on the goings-on (I miss out on a lot since I don't technically work full-time. Yeah, right.). I got the art materials we'd be using prepped and ready to roll for Friday, and the only thing I was missing was a few gallon-sized ziplock bags.

I started to look for the bags I needed. None to be found in my supply closet, desk, or random piles of detritus that inhabit my work-space. Bummer. That left me with having to cruise down to the second floor to look in the 'science closet.' I am in this closet constantly (I have a bit of a penchant for science...) and I know that there are not only gallon-sized ziplock bags, but quart-sized bags. Oh joy! As I was opening the storage closet a friend walked by and started to chat about what was going on, and, being me, I turned and said hello and got filled in on this very important 'memo.' As I'm standing there I'm noticing a foul odor emanating from the science closet. It is nasty and somewhat familiar, though I can't quite place it. Finally, important office talk taken care of, I begin to turn around to look in the closet when I hear it (slow things down to slow-motion): the plat-plat-plat of little naked rodent feet.

Eew, yucky!

Then, it all becomes odorifically clear: that smell was rat and/or mouse pee! And, those little feet that were scuttling across the floor were rat and/or mouse feet.

At this point, the elapsed time is approximately 0:01.05 seconds. I SCREAM! and jump up in the air, doing a fair imitation of my 'arachnoleptic fit' (the jiggy moves I perform when I happen upon a member of the arachnids--I do not like spiders!). To my horror, there are two small children in the a hallway who witness my 'freak-out-fit' and I run (think 'fairy princess' in the derogatory sense of the saying) to another co-worker's office.

Talk about a wake-up-call!

I complain to the appropriate department, and find out:

1. The appropriate personnel is aware that there is a (moderate) rodent problem
2. An exterminator is to be coming soon (I asked "soon? As in we're getting our new copy-machine 'soon' (it was supposed to have been installed some time after JUNE!))
3. The appropriate personnel had, in fact, killed a mouse in said science closet that very morning

Oh, how I do love working for the US government. Your tax dollars at work, baby! Nothin' but the best for our future.

So, Disney had a 'cute' rat in their new Disney/Pixar film "Ratatouille". We have disgusting, bad-smelling-pee, nasty little scuttling pink feet, dirty ghetto rats.

Hmmm.

How did they ever think rodents were cute and cuddly? I'll never know.

The Last King of Scotland & My 100th post

Last night B.J. and I watched a pretty powerful movie: The Last King of Scotland.



Yes, yes, I know it is old. I know it won an Oscar and a Golden Globe (best actor: Forest Whitaker), but it was new to me. So, I'm going to add my 'two-bits' about it.



The movie takes place in 1970's Uganda, during the tyranny years of Idi Amin's administration. It is a fictionalized version of what took place during the years 1971-1979.



I was completely blown away by this film. I, like a typical American, know very little about Africa and its myriad of problems within specific countries (I'm ashamed to admit it, but its true. I have no excuse). I appreciated this film, because it, although fictionalized, strove to portray what Amin was like: both as the monster and the man. It showed Amin as a well-loved political leader (president) of Uganda, and how hopeful the people were that he'd make things better. He was portrayed as a friend and caring father. And, of course, he was shown as the madman master-mind behind the ruthless and systematic murder of 300,000 Ugandan people.



Forest Whitaker (Amin) did a bang-up job in his role; doubtless, why he received such accolades for it. I cannot imagine being able to act so well and engross myself into a character so much that I would 'become' that person. Whitaker, to me, becomes Amin. His multifaceted talent showcases the spectrum of 'people' that was Amin.



What was most striking to me was the extras on the DVD. It interviews the characters and the Ugandan actors about how the feel about portraying Idi Amin and his regime in Uganda. As one Ugandan woman put it: "Idi Amin has not returned to Uganda since 1979 [he spent the years '79-'03 in exile in Saudi Arabia]. I don't know if I like the idea of Amin coming home."



The film was shot on location in Uganda, using Ugandan actors who, incidentally, in real life, survived the Amin years. Their interviews were, I believe, paramount to the credibility of the film. Actor after actor, and extra after extra, over the age of about 25, recounted with sadness and apprehension tales from their lives during the Amin administration. Brutal treatment of innocent and guilty alike, dismemberment, mutilation, humiliation, and unspeakable terror made up the composition of their lives. The worst of it, being, that the young Ugandan people (under age 20) do not know/remember about the Amin years. The atrocities are not spoken about, and people are not educated. This leaves the door wide open to yet another megalomaniac like Amin to waltz into power, romance the people, and commit the same types of atrocities over again.



It is very much like the Holocaust during Nazi Germany's rise to power during the first half of the 20th century. As people forget, or worse--are told lies that the atrocities NEVER HAPPENED--it leaves the history books open to be re-written and for the horrors to surface and happen all over again.



The Ugandans interviewed on the DVD hoped that by raising the specter of Amin, in Uganda and the world, that it would help the world to remember the cruelty and inhumanity that took place during the 1970's. They hoped that it would help the youth of Uganda to know a version of their past, a version of the truth, so that it could set them free from future tyranny.



I cannot recommend this movie enough. Watch it when you're in a 'space' to appreciate all that it encompasses. I know it was sitting on the top of my television set for a the upwards of two weeks (gotta love Netflix and the 'no late fees' policy) before I was where I could truly sit down and watch the movie. I'm glad I waited, and I'm glad that I was able to see it.



Do, find time, watch The Last King of Scotland.