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Last Updated : Sunday, 20 October, 2002 at 08:19 PM -0500
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| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 20 October, 2002 at 08:19 PM -0500 |
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Monday, October 14, 2002 |
And There Was Much Rejoicing...
Indeed, indeed. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Got a call from a recruiter this morning on a position I applied for Saturday. He said "worst job market in six years." I said yeah.
I caught his eye by noting in response to his query about "Appropriate Ethical Behavior" that I was a Boy Scout, and Eagle Scout. And I emphasized the last. The recruiter, fortunately, was also. So there I went.
Further news as events warrant, but this could be good. And the best part is that I would be working about a mile away from where I last worked - in a southerly direction, which would mean just slightly closer to home. Which is fine by me.
So there was, indeed, much rejoicing.
Some Excitement...
Last night, as I was standing out in the front yard talking to someone, Ann stuck her head out the door. "One of the alarms is going
off."
I came in and found Ann holding the Nighthawk Natural Gas/CO2 alarm. It had been beeping. Of course, as it was one of those days, I noted with some dismay that the transformer was out of the wall. Which explained some of the problems. But I kept looking around.
Turns out the battery had run dry after holding the monitoring up on it's own for about 8 hours after the vacuum cleaner had unplugged it. After feeling somewhat twitchy and nervous about the whole thing, I checked the detector (after removing the battery and power supply, letting it air out outside, and installing a new battery). 0 ppm. Much, much better.
How Can He Walk Like That?
I've a mental image of Jerry Falwell. Both feet in his mouth up to his thighs, and a little cartoon balloon above it saying "how'mi gonna get outta
this one?"
Admittedly, most talking head shows (including 60 Minutes) book Falwell for his ability to get both feet so deeply into his mouth you just wonder if he's going to go all extra-dimensional on us and completely disappear.
But now I see Falwell's called Muhammed a terrorist. Will wonders never cease?
I should think that by now, the Media as a collective group would finally see through the Southern Baptist preachers for what they really are - while I'm sure plenty of them are upright, decent human beings, there are enough bigoted bastards in the bunch to make the whole barrel suspect.
Frankly, I know more than a few Baptists. Most seem to be decent folk - a few seem to be utterly without brains functional in the brainpan, and working on less than a full number of cylinders. Those few tend to fill in the brush when you get geniuses like Falwell, Fred Phelps (I'd have sent you to the link for Fred Phelps' site, but apparently, God not only hates fags, but also Netscape. Does that mean God is Bill Gates? Oh, no. This isn't gonna look so good on my permanent record, then...), the fine folks at Bob Jones University, and the myriad others who preach hatred based on a Biblical value seem to have forgotten the single commandment Jesus left us...
"Love one another as I have loved you."
There's no judgment there, no condemnation. No "yer gonna fry in hell (fill in the blank)!" There's no specific and clear condemnation of any one. Yet the fine Baptist folk seem to believe that in order for them to get to heaven, they've got to trod over a whole heapin' pile o'sinners to get there.
If so, so be it. I've got enough issues with organized religion, and I consider myself a "Rational Catholic". Perhaps I'm the only member of the church at hand, but if so, so be it. I find that, in the main, there is some good in the Church. It is as good a basis as I've found for fundamental building of character and ethical treatment of each other.
On the other hand, there've been more than enough "bonehead" moves by many organized religions through the years (yes, including Catholicism) that lead me to believe that the religion has not been entirely led by good and holy men. Which is another problem I have with the current Catholic church - apparently good, holy women who are called to a religious life are destined to be third-class citizens in the Church, much like whipping boys. And that's just not right.
So yeah, Falwell's an idiot. Good news is that Falwell can serve as the lead clown in the clown parade of all of the fundamentalist hatred-preaching bigots who hide behind a holy book of any stripe or faith and use it to demean, debase, or destroy the other people who do not believe as they do in the Giant Purple Earthworm and His Holy Mission To Till The Entire Earth.
It's a small mind that can conceive only their belief as the proper and correct one. Even smaller is the mind that condemns those of different faiths.
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Tuesday, October 15, 2002 |
Update
Yeah, political crap... 
You might remember last week when Mr. Pawlenty got his fingers caught in the political money cookie jar, with the state Republican Party paying for Mr. Pawlenty's ads locally. Well, about 12 hours after I wrote what I did last week, Mr. Pawlenty came out and said he wouldn't appeal, he took full responsibility, and would abide by the decision of the Election Finance board.
Last night word came down that Mr. Pawlenty's campaign gets a $100,000 fine, and has to count $500,000 of the ad cost against his $2,200,000 campaign budget. In other words, Mr. Pawlenty now has a shortened campaign budget.
Interestingly enough, the Pawlenty campaign did manage to knock down the total charges from $800,000 to $500,000, which in turn has incensed the Independence party (which lacks the machinery that the other two parties do for phone banks, voter registration rolls, all the rest), which has, correctly, pointed out that Pawlenty's campaign has managed to get about $2,400,000 to run their campaign. Not too shabby, really, if you can get away with it.
Does it make it fair? Well, I don't know. I can't imagine any seasoned politician who has the skills and popularity to run for Governor not being able to attract top-flight talent which, frankly, knows their way around all of the oddball political rules we have. I don't see how Pawlenty, Moe, Penny, and the other fellow who's name escapes me from the Green party - Ken Pentel, I'm just kidding, people - can run a statewide campaign for $2,200,000 - media buys in five media markets (Duluth, Iron Range, Twin Cities, Mankato, Rochester), plus radio and newspaper ads in countless more, travel through the entire state, repeatedly, and all the other stuff - signs, flyers, leaflets, all of that - on $2,200,000?
Then again, if I had $2,200,000, I sure as hell wouldn't be running for governor.
Running On Empty...
Feels like that some days. I've been tired a lot, dropping into bed and immediately off to sleep. Awaking tired, pushing all day, and then trying to
figure out why I'm so beat. Well, there's a good chance there could be depression involved. Short-term, I know, and nothing that can't be cured by a
good whack to the base of the skull with a ball-peen hammer (which I acquired over the weekend as a friend went through her mother's estate. You can never
have too many good hammers, unless of course you can't find one, you hear hammering, and you can't find Jack, either. Then, even one hammer's too
many. Oh well).
And it little helps that one of the first things I heard this morning was Boy Weather announcing happily that in the next twelve days we shed an awful lot of degrees from our average temperatures, but we also suffer that wonderfully twisted period known as Daylight Savings Time adjustments. We lose 37 minutes on the sunset in the next twelve days, and when combined with the extra hour of sleep we gain, it means that 5:00 pm will be our twilight, rather than 6 or 7. Which means no more "Can I go outside and ride bike after supper?" Sorry, kids.
Yesterday's phone calls turned out to be what appears to be another dead end. Combine that with a bit of a downer on a piece of hardware I was testing (well, you power up the machine, and you get no beep codes, no nothing, that's just not something I can fix. Not after swapping EVERYTHING that's in or attached to the motherboard with known-good stuff), and yesterday was a day when the coyote gnawed.
Today was worse, if you can call it that. Got a call from the Job Center. The fellow I spoke with wanted to know what I was doing. I told him about my newsletter to family and friends and former co-workers and recommended others, trying to find someone who was looking for tech help. I told him about my Personal Performance Portfolio, with stuff that shows I can do what I've got listed on my resume.
I told him about cold-calling. I told him about calling recommended individuals and asking for a few minutes of their time to discuss where the industry was going, to see if there were skills I could develop to help me in the future.. I told him about making it through the pile of two hundred resumes, only to miss the interview because there were so many over-qualified people there instead.
And all the man could do is say "wow - that's great - wow - I'm going to steal that idea if you don't mind - wow - you sound like you've really got this thing planned well and organized." And you know what? That doesn't help.
I want someone to tell me "No - MAIL resumes, not e-mail. Use Blue Paper, San-Serifed fonts, and make sure your name is BIGGER at the top." I want useful critiques, not "hey, you've really got your shit in a bundle".
This situation is so much more frustrating because there are so many opportunities I know I could do, which I'm missing out on because some fellow with doctoral-level knowledge, dumped from a Dot-Com-Bomb, is slumming.
So, I guess, I'll have to lower my sights. I had been doing network administration and MIS Management, now it appears I'll be back to primarily user support/tech support/phone support type roles. Which, as we all know, means less money. Which, as we all know, means I gotta get off my butt and make some of these other ideas pay out.
Oh well. Good news piece number one is that my "little" project I mentioned last week has all of the hallmarks of turning into a full-time job. I spoke to the fellow who requested it today, and told him "yes, short-term, you'll reduce your time spent on certain types of maintenance. On the other hand, if you're running an older OS on older hardware, you WILL experience problems, you WILL have to monitor it daily for patches and security fixes, and you WILL need help to do that. And if you roll into that an e-mail server and other large applications, you're gonna need more help."
To which he said "get me the numbers by next weekend, we're going to a strategic planning retreat to do the budget."
So I'm tossing him a project plan which, right now, has a leading-edge budget of about $20,000, not counting implementation, and my salary, which I've pegged at an astronomical $2,000,000 a year. Just kidding, folks. I'm no candidate for Governor.
The only other piece of good news (aside from us acquiring a boat - not really, we're just storing it, but I'm sure all the neighbors are asking "just where the hell is he getting his money?") is that I found a dual-floodlight fixture with no fancy stuff (motion sensors, etc.) in my very own home. Well, it was hanging in the shed. Which, of course, leads me to ask the sort of questions that you probably shouldn't be asking about why people would put orange-tinted floodlight bulbs in a dual-flood fixture in an uninsulated, unwired shed. I was thinking for things like, say, starting plants in the warmth before putting them in the ground, but since the previous owners did nothing with a garden until we got here, that's definitely not the case. Or should I say "since the previous owners did nothing with the space in the yard that used to be a garden."
Either way, we cleaned the shed thoroughly, officer, and I'm pretty sure there are no remaining bits of evidence. I hope.
Off like a herd of arthritic, apathetic turtles I go... G'nite.
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Wednesday, October 16, 2002 |
How Disturbing
At 3:40 pm, I came upstairs, looked out the window, and noted, for the record, the futility of it all. It was snowing. Yes. Serious snow. This is not good.
Oh, Goodie
Today, the UPS man dropped off my A+/Network+ books. And, in a totally disturbing development, I took the pretest in the A+ book. Now, the conditions weren't exactly good (I was in the bathroom, to be honest), but I scored 78%. According to the book, 600 points is required to pass, though the adaptive testing methods allow from 800-1300 points. So I don't know what that means.
I do know that the test, as designed, is supposed to be challenging to an individual with six months of hardware and computer experience. Given I've got nearly 20 year experience, I think I'm not going to have too much of a problem. However, I'm going to set myself a goal of getting the test done in as few questions as possible. I had a buddy who passed his CNA test in six questions. Each progressively harder (and worth more), and he answered each correctly. According to him, the test administrator said that the last question, worth 100 points, put him past the limit by 95 or 96 points, so he could have passed with another easy question right. Oh well.
Fall
Here we go again...
This morning when I went out to wait for the bus with the kids, I watched the tree leaves fall. Our ash is almost totally down now, and the neighbor's maple across the street was dropping leaves at about ten a second (yes, I counted) while we waited. As it was clear this morning and the temps were down around 25 (no, not celcius, my friends, the good old "freezin' Farenheit" scale), that might have something to do with it.
When I drove down to school this afternoon, I got out of the car to wait (the lone consistent male among all the mothers and occasional fathers who show up to get their kids after Kindergarten), I scuffed through the leaves, and was reminded of the falls of my childhood.
Typically here on the Northern plains, summer is still in force when the school year starts. Short sleeves are required most days, and sweatshirts are dirty words. But, as they always do, the leaves change colors, warning of what is to come.
As a kid, I would get in the car at least one weekend day, and my father, mother, and the rest of us would set out, armed with the Random House Unabridged dictionary, baggies, tissues, and paper towels. We'd head down the back roads past where my father worked, and I would later attend college, and hit the low-rolling-hill country of rural Stearns County.
In my neighborhood, our choices of "sliding hill" were, in order,
It's also important to note that nearby "Kremer Hill" was almost two acres of land which stuck up almost 20 feet above the surrounding countryside. It was such a remarkable landmark for the area that it was named. So "low-rolling-hill country" was pretty remarkable - variations of forty to eighty feet (and more) in relatively short (quarter-mile or less) stretches, combined with hundreds of pothole lakes, led to a very beautiful drive.
Add to that dirt roads, no nearby freeways, and low population density, and you have a near-perfect leaf-viewing experience. The hills were covered in shades of green, red, yellow, and brown, and when it was matched with the blue of the sky and the darker blues of the lakes, you had a near-perfect palette.
And that, in turn, led me to thinking of simpler, easier times.
Certainly, we've benefited from the advances in technology and industry, but are we better? Benefits are one thing - improvements another. Have we improved our lives, or have we, like nature, created an overabundance of wealth which we now need to thin out, to reduce the overhead for a coming winter?
Put bluntly - have we just finished the harvest, and are we about to head off to the winter, where things are thin? I would like to think that better times are ahead, but when I look around, things don't look so good.
I see a president hell-bent on a war overseas, while here at home the economy isn't heading into the toilet, it's in the toilet, and swirling quickly. Our corporations are run often by principled and intelligent people, but a fair number of crooks, schnooks, and otherwise dastardly characters have managed to besmirch the whole legion. And on the political front, leaders are no longer attracted to public service, politicians are. Leaders see little purpose in working to make a better world, only to be abused and hounded by a media which feels that the season-ending cliffhanger script should be top secret, but invasion plans for Iraq should be aired on the nightly news.
I'm a simple man - I scratch where it itches, I do a good job even where it's not going to show, and I try to be fair with everyone, so that they will be fair with me. Perhaps I'm an anachronism - a throwback to an earlier age where decency and honor and civility was prized, rather than profit and me-first and do unto me before anyone else finds out. Sometimes seems that way. Perhaps I'm blowing my own horn, but there are days when I feel as out of time as the Connecticut Yankee did pulling his forelock in King Arthur's Court. (Forelock's hair, folks - not what you were thinking). I feel a bit like a knight in a new age - one that no longer values those values which I do.
I suppose that, were things different - if the economy was doing well, if I were regularly interviewing, if I were feeling better, life would look better. But right now, the leaves match my mood. Down, down down they go.
I suppose the good news is there's nowhere to go but up...
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Thursday, October 17, 2002 |
What Have We Learned Today?
We have learned ...
Yes, today was "Day One" of the MEA weekend. MEA is the Minnesota Education Association's annual conference. All, or most, of the teachers head into St. Paul where they gather in the hockey arena to discuss teaching our kids.
It's been a tough year for them. Budgets are getting tight, layoffs, raises they do get are offset by job losses, and there's the whole new way of financing the state's schools. Plus the leftover old battles about the fun stuff like the Profile of Learning, and all the rest.
And the rest of us look at MEA and just wonder where the 800 pound gorilla will choose to cast it's vote this fall. MEA is one of the bigger voting blocks in the state - most of the teachers vote the way the union wants to vote, and there are many who listen to their votes and decide to follow. Of course, MEA's big platform plank is more money for schools, which does make sense to me.
Tomorrow, Day Two of MEA weekend, we're sleeping in. For the first weekday since ... Oh, I don't know when, Ann's going to drive herself, as she's working only a half-day. And I just don't want to get up that early.
Other than that, I finished my desk-side table tonight, and I can already see it's too small for what I want it to do, but hey, I'll live.
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Friday, October 18, 2002 |
Another day...
Forgot two things yesterday that we've learned. First, that a thirteen year old can "play" a thirty-nine year old (sucker him into doing what
the thirteen year old wants). Second, that a thirty nine year old can be far, far more devious than the thirteen year old in getting free babysitting
help.
I'm so mean...
... And The Weekend Arrives
Not that there's much change for me, other than the occasional opportunity to sleep ten to fifteen minutes later, and more people hanging around the
joint.
This weekend, we have the new annual ritual insertion of the bulbs (this is something that's so secret I don't even know where they will be inserted. I do, however, know that I am neither going to be the inserter or insertee. Which pleases me greatly). We're also contemplating the abuse of perfectly good pumpkins all in the service of the evil Halloween gods, who force me to buy candy that I cannot eat, and give away instead to small strange people who wander my neighborhood begging for the stuff.
And in a complete and utterly cruel twist, my son, who until late this afternoon, was hell-bent on being Frankenstein, changed his mind. We were in the costume shop, and I was trying to sell him on the great idea of a top hat and tails for the Frankenstein outfit (a 'la Young Frankenstein's "Puttin' On The Ritz" number) when he flopped and changed to "GI JOE" with full paramilitary gear, including M-16 Rifle. Lovely.
So that's taken care of. Further news as events warrant on that front.
Banging Away...
No, I'm not ignoring you folks. Really I'm not. I'm into page 19 of the proposal to end all proposals - or the proposal to get me a job, depending
on how you look at it. So far, I'm about $10,000 into software and equipment purchases, the project has sixteen phases, and each phase is
self-contained. The first 8 are to meet the organization's needs. The next 8 are to meet the needs of the organization they will have become by the
time we finish the first 8. Not because in ten years we'll have this all done - it'll take about three months, truth be told, to do the whole thing - but
by the end of the first 8 steps, we'll have exposed vulnerabilities, plugged holes, and created some nice, new, shiny stuff. And as you know, once you
finish one portion, the rest looks pretty shabby by comparison.
So still head-down banging away on the whole "how to build an IT infrastructure going from peer-to-peer over multiple locations to centralized, efficient administration and prevention." And why you need to hire me to do it.
This, we hope. We shall see, however.
Ahhhh...
Those of you intimately familiar with the phrase "stung like the dickens" will appreciate this one.
Yesterday, while moving wood around in the garage, working on the computer table, I flipped a three-foot-long chunk of two-by-four in my hand. I tossed it end for end and then slid my hand up along it to grab the end.
Yes, I know. It was one of those pieces I thought I'd trimmed the edges smooth on. Of course, I hadn't. And a chunk of wood stuck into my hand.
At first, it was a "I'd rather be nailed in the testicles by a baseball bat" type of pain. My whole hand screamed "what the $#@%^@$%# are you doing to me?" And yes, I contemplated the doctor's office for a few seconds.
Then I saw that about a quarter-inch of wood was sticking out of my hand. Obviously, if one end is accessible, then the whole thing is removable...
Unless that end breaks off. Which, as Murphy is my co-pilot, it did. I knew there was some matter in the hand, but figured that it would work it's way out eventually. After all, I'm young, strong, and had a tetenus (sp?) booster just last year.
So, absent a chain saw to do the job properly, I figured I'd just wait.
Oh, how painful that's been. The inability to use the forefinger on my right hand was ... nearly paralyzing. I'm extremely right-handed, for starters. Secondly, of all the kids in my family, I'm probably the only one who adopted my father's method of typing.
Dad, with his polio, was only able to rely on three fingers of each hand. So, I learned to do the same thing (partially, of course, to spite Sr. Octavia, or whatever her name was, who tried to teach me touch-typing on those brutal old Olympus manual typewriters. If I used half the force now that I had to use then, I'd be through the keyboard of the notebook and halfway into the motherboard each letter. God forbid double letters. I'd probably lose a finger, or more). Which means that instead of my fingers more evenly distributing the load, I've got about three fingers on each hand that type. And two of them (the thumbs) are used for the space bar. Which means 25% of my typing capacity was damaged...
Tonight, it started to hurt, rather badly, and throb, and ooze. Pleasant picture I'm painting, no? Well the site of the injury itself was less than the thickness of a dime (for those of you overseas, take a floppy disk, and look at the seam - about half the thickness of a floppy disk, in other words). I was frustrated and sick and tired of the ache, so I hauled out the Xacto knife and the tweezers. And I removed a chunk of wood that was almost 3/8" of an inch long (those of you with those floppy disks nearby, look at the corner with the hole (either one). From the top edge of the disk down to the bottom edge of the hole).
Yeah. #$@%#^$^$#% ouch.
And yes, I'll be more careful next time.
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Saturday, October 19, 2002 |
Mental Note...
Rhiannon wants to get a rabbit when she gets older. Memo to self. Test rabbit to see if it meets my criteria of "fluffy baby bunny" or someone else's. Ahem.
(though how anyone leaves this for Santa instead of Milk and Cookies makes me wonder what type of rabbit he thinks he is. Then again, rabbits have changed considerably since the Middle Ages... Perhaps he's a throwback. In that case, I'd best be checking my munitions.
Soccer's Done...
Yup. Started nine weeks ago in shirtsleeves and dew on the grass. Ended today with my winter coat, sweater, long-sleeved shirt, and tee shirt, and
hat (fortunately, I remembered my hat). Still froze my kneecaps off... But Jack managed to advance in skill considerably - he was able to dribble
the ball down, and once I encouraged him to move up a little as Goalie he started to shine in the position. Of course, half-way to mid-field is a bit too
far to dodge up, but there you go...
Anyway, final score, as trumpeted by Bree, one of the two girls on the team (and a very good defender, goalie, and all around scorer) was 4-2. Who says they don't keep score?
So anyway, we made it through that, and now we wait for Rhiannon's Basketball to start - supposedly the coach is still in Indiana, dealing with a family crises of some sort, so we'll see what happens this next weekend - Rhiannon's supposed to have a game. We'll see how it goes.
Schmucks...
Damned neighborhood kids.
Someone's been going past my fence, pulling down the occasional loose picket. It's frustrating, in that the fence is old, most of it's nailed together, and it looks like it needs to be replaced (which it does).
Unfortunately, at the moment, I can't afford to replace it. So I went to Menards this morning and picked up some galvanized deck screws, and will be going down the sidewalk next week, screwing each board again into the cross-beam.
I just wish there was some way I could mark the offending bastards who are doing this. These boards aren't falling off by themselves, they're being pulled. What's irritating is that there are kids who are just walking along, doing it. I'd love to wire the fence so that when a board comes off, I get an alarm - whooping, sirens, flashing lights, all the rest.
And perhaps a net that would capture the little tykes, so I could beat them severely before handing them over to their parents for even more beatings. Then again, I suppose the problem is that since the children aren't respectful of their own property, why should they respect others?
Little apes.
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Sunday, October 20, 2002 |
Happy Anniversary #12 To Ann (and me, I guess...)!
Well, THAT was fun...
Got up this morning to light snow falling here in the southern suburbs. Not willing to admit this is an absolute certain sign of the apocalypse (snow on my anniversary, that is), we hopped into the car, hit the road, and found the S.R. Harris Industrial Fabric Outlet store up north, or "up nortd" as we say here.
Not willingly, of course, but because my mother and two sisters would be there, and the youngest one needed her suitcase back, as she's leaving next weekend to visit the English lad who was formerly known as her boyfriend, but is now formally known as her fiancee. She (the youngest sister) was apparently looking for dress material, because as of this coming Friday she has 92 days (or three months exactly) to her wedding. Being the youngest of five and an unusual sort (which in no way makes her any less employable, to any potential British employers who might have found a tenuous link from her to me, I hasten to add), she's determined to make her own way. Which means her own custom dress.
Did I fail to mention that "stubborn" was going to be the family motto until we decided to be obstinate about it? Yeah, I know, shutting up... Then again, if you'd seen some of the puns I did this week, that would be a right clever word play, that would.
As to our destination today? Imagine hell. Well, imagine a warehouse about 300 x 500 x 20 feet. Imagine the place filled 16 feet high in most places with bolt after bolt of fabric. Bolt after bolt of various oddball fabrics in various shades, textures, and types. And three-foot irregular aisles between each warehouse rack. And a small, energetic, three-foot-tall child. Fabric hell, all nine levels, indeed.
I found one aisle with Polartec™ fleece in just about every shade under and over the rainbow, and a few in-between. I joked with Jack that if you made a camouflage blanket, you'd never find it again. Though I did entertain the idea of one side camouflage, a center of heavier fabric (denim?) and batting, and the other side blaze orange, just to be twisted. And the more I think of it, the more I regret not doing it. Oh well...
I also found a pretty neat fabric Jack liked with colorful diamond patterns - thought it would make a good shirt for him. And I found another with pigs in rocket ships. Another tasteless shirt that will never be made. There were plenty of other fabrics, including some vinyls for seat covers and etc., if I get into fancy upholstery with furniture (it's easier than staining, I've found), so it's some place to remember. If, of course, I can maintain my sanity in such a place.
Following that, we had lunch at Olive Garden with my mom and sisters (me, Zuppa Toscana and Ann, Pasta e Fagioli, Rhainnon, Spaghetti, and Jack, the ever-popular Mac'n'cheese), then stopped by the Krispy Kreme Donut shop for another fix, before returning home via the usual grocery store shopping stop, and then to collapse for a few minutes before starting to tackle my unusual pile of chores - well, unusual in the sense that I've got five days before Rhiannon's loft must be done and the basement carpet shampooed so that we can have six shrieking girls over here for a birthday sleepover. God help us. And that reminds me - we forgot to get more tylenol, motrin, ibuprofin, aspirin...
Good Grief...
Those of you with small children will know what I mean...
I asked Jack to go upstairs and grab me a legal pad off the table, where I'd just been sitting, doing some figuring. He disappeared. I could hear him upstairs, asking people where the pad was. He came back downstairs about a minute later with a plastic bag. Some back and forthing later, he went back up. About three minutes later, he came down with something else, definitely not a purple legal pad. He went back up, after very specific instructions ("it's paper, put together, not loose, at your mother's normal dinner place. It's on a board with a big silver clip on it."). And returned with a toy plastic puppy. I tried one final time. Five minutes went by. As anyone with small boys knows, that's the limit at which either the child has died in the attempted task, or has forgotten completely what the task was, and will complete it some time next weekend, when you yourself have forgotten it.
So, plan B - "Rhiannon!". Same, albeit less detailed instructions. And she returns. With the clipboard. Sent her back for a second try - and it resulted in the pad.
Now, I wish I could remember why I wanted it in the first place...
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