London Calling

First... some photos from our last day in Paris.

(the honey and macarons that I talked about in my last blog)

(Stella - the cheap beer in Paris @ our hotel's lounge. Me & a Kir Royal for our final dinner in Paris. Mike and his nasty Desperado... tequilla flavored beer. Who would want tequilla flavored beer?)

We did it again.

We fell asleep. For 12 hours yesterday. This time in London.

We win.

We got off the Eurostar at 8:30 AM in London after a 2.5 hour train ride, so I guess maybe we were pooped. We walked into a cafe at the station to let whatever bit of rush hour traffic might be left on the Underground over the holidays pass. The place was packed and there was a bit of a line which is always a good sign. We got a table and shoved our luggage into the corner and placed our order. As soon as the server left our table we heard this honking sound outside the cafe. The servers all stopped what they were doing and stepped outside to listen as a voice came over the intercom, we couldn't understand what was being said, but the servers came back in and sort of just watched for a moment. Outside, we could see that people were picking up their bags and leaving. Everything quieted down in the cafe and we could hear the announcement the next time it came over the intercom "This is an emergency evacuation - please calmly leave the building." The servers rolled their eyes but asked everyone to exit the building and if they still hadn't paid their tabs to come back and pay after the evacuation was over.

We gathered our things and headed out towards the exit where a crowd of people were waiting. We stood out there for about 3 minutes before everyone was let back in. Apparently it was a test that no one was really expecting (we've since heard them testing the system at other stations a number of times preceded by a "this is a test, ignore the next announcement") so we head back to the cafe and queued up next to the door so we could get our table back right away. The station is a ghost town with cups and plates on every table at every restaurant - and inside our cafe are two women wandering around looking lost.

Immediately we thought - holy crap, they were locked in!

The staff of the restaurant came back a bit later and told us that it would be about 20 more minutes till they could re-open. So we waited. The two women who were inside stepped outside near us and we asked them if they were locked in. They weren't. They were actually on a train that got in after ours. The train docked and they unloaded in the time that everyone else was evacuated, so they walked into a totally empty station with half eaten sandwiches, plates, hot coffee and unlocked doors everywhere. They looked lost because they thought that they had stepped into the twilight zone (maybe the rapture?)

They were a mother and daughter who lived in Northern England and had taken the train to spend the day in London. They had specifically planned to eat breakfast at this cafe and the daughter told us that she was thrilled to only have to wait 20 minutes to dine.

I don't remember the name of the cafe, but it was incredible. It seemd like it may have been some sort of UK chain that's similar to Panera (fresh breads, organic, free range, etc.) Had the best scone and cream I've ever had in my life. I haven't had too many scones, but that's mostly because the ones I've had in the past were so dry and icky. These were major yum. Fantastic quiche and delish tea. Mike had a ham and gruyere croissant which he scarfed, so I think that was good too.

We checked into our hotel (the K+K George - which is awesome and quite a bit bigger than our Paris hotel) and then off to the Tower of London for some gruesome fun. We had a tour with a Yeoman Guard (Beefeater) which was a great way to see the place. The constant drizzle was obnoxious, but I guess that's London.

(The view from our UK hotel room - I don't know what that is. An acorn from outerspace is my guess.
Our tour guide - hilarious.)

(That's a real person guarding the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London.
Me in front of the London Tower Bridge.)

Speaking of drizzle, let's discuss my hair.

My kick ass flat iron from home heats up to a steamy 480 degrees Fahrenheit. I need that kind of control. My hair is not naturally straight, it's not naturally curly, it's not naturally wavy. It's naturally weird. The bottom layers curl. The left side waves a bit. The top is just frizzy and there are a couple of areas on my head where I have genuinely straight hair. But those are mixed in with areas that have genuinely not-straight hair. Blow drying does a good job of poofing all the mixes of hair into a nice fro. Damp drizzle does a good job of turning that fro into a sloppy mess with curls near the top. So. Pretty.

Does sarcasm translate well here?

Moving on.

My awesome travel blow drier is dual voltage, so that was a win. My kick ass flat iron, is not - and it requires about as much power to work as a tv... or so I imagine.

Voltage converters and plug converters can't handle my flat iron because it's so awesome (Matt, we have to buy you a replacement voltage converter... I killed yours. Sorry.) There's only so much you can do to hide crazy hair and this morning I about lost it, so Michael went out in the morning and picked up a handy $30 Remington flat iron from the local Boots store. I am happy again. And so is my hair.

We checked out Portobello Market today and got our London souvenir. A wooden shoe horn with a duck head. We named him George. Tonight we're getting some kind of fancy pizza at a place that Mike had talked about for a while and spending New Years in a local lounge with drunk Brits (we had no desire to brave the crowds at Trafalger Square - we wouldn't want to go to Times Square, or Vegas on NYE, so why would we do it now?)

Happy New Year from the future! See you all next year!

Macaron Mania

I’m writing this blog on a train crossing the Chunnel from Paris into London.

Yesterday was our last full day in Paris – we spent it wandering around the little streets and shops in the Left Bank and Latin Quarter areas surrounding our hotel. It might have been my favorite experience in Paris although it wasn’t without a couple of hitches here and there.

A while back I had sampled a few macarons from a Beverly Hills based macaron maker. My life was kind of changed and I would by lying if I said that part of my reason for wanting to visit Paris in the first place wasn’t about a macaron.

So, I had done my research and came across a blog all about macarons. Amazing. They reviewed every store from the big ones right down to the little ones and in the top spot was one of the biggest names in Parisian macarons, Lauduree. There just happened to be one in our area, so I planned ahead and knew I’d be buying a boatload of those precious little cookie-cake-jam-gooey-happiness things.

We get there and it’s very French. As in, everyone is speaking French. Apparently (and this is new to me) I don’t speak French. Ok, I knew that going in, but I was pretty sure I’d be fluent in French by day three in Paris – enough to order my macarons with no issues.

The little dude who helped me out spoke a bit of English, so that was cool but every time I’d say one, he’d say two. And every time I said two, he grabbed one. And when I said three, he’d pick two. And when I said five he’d grab three. So. I should have known that maybe there would be an issue here.

Meanwhile, the whole store (which is the size of my kitchen – very small) sounds like a henhouse. A French henhouse. People are coming up to the register and ringing things up, people are bustling around and I’m scared.

So the dude at the counter rings up my order. In French. I have no idea what he’s saying. I want my macarons. Let me sign the damn paper and let’s get out of here. The bill was steep. About $150 steep. Something seemed wrong, but I was already out of the store and macarons are expensive and I bought a couple gift sets. I felt a bit like crying, this was more than I had thought but whatever. I wanted my macarons.

We get back to the hotel and I look over the receipt and realize there’s a 2x in front of the most expensive gift set I picked up. I start to panic. I DON’T SPEAK FRENCH AND I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!

Mike suggests we go downstairs to see if the front desk can help us. They do. They call up the store and explain to the Lauduree folk (in French) what happened. We hightail it back to the store and get our refund, problem solved. Phew.

We shop around a bit more and pick up some specialty Parisian honey. Incredible. I guess French bees are kind of a big deal. I had no idea.

We get back to the hotel and I check the condition of my macarons – a few have cracked. I’m worried about their ability to survive the rest of the trip. I look over the silly little French pamphlets and read the lines that will forever haunt me:

Macarons should be consumed within 3 days of purchase.

Damnit. I bought them as gifts.

I’m thinking this is just some fancy thing that they talk about “best by date” which really isn’t something we should take seriously. Right? I’ll keep them chilled and they’ll be fine, right? Right?

So.

Hopefully they’ll survive. If not, I hope you understand.

The Great Mike Detective

About a week ago, Mike had asked me if I had seen a BevMo gift card he received on his birthday but had since lost.

I hadn't. I didn't even know he received a gift card or I would have told him to put it in his wallet right away. Losing a gift card is particularly frustrating for Mike because back when we bought our condo, the Realtor we used gave us a congratulatory gift basket complete with bathrobes, mugs and a $100 gift card to Zov's in Tustin. Mike misplaced the gift card somewhere and has been kicking himself over it for the last 3 years.

Mike, being a great detective, found the missing BevMo card a few days after asking me about it. Apparently it was sitting peacefully in the bed of our scanner. With the card "safely" in his possession, his mission was now to find the culprit behind the mysterious misplacement. After all, why would a BevMo gift card need to be scanned?

Primary suspect numero uno was me. Of course.

As we lay in bed getting ready for sleep, Mike filled me in on his exciting discovery and followed his story with an open (but obviously accusing) question. "Who would leave the gift card in the scanner?"

I laughed. I told him I definitely didn't do it and reminded him that I had never even seen the card and that I would have no reason to scan it.

He was smiling - but he wasn't laughing. He still suspected me.

He still suspected me!!!

I laughed again, incredulous. "You seriously think I did it!?"

He smiled, "Who else would put it into the scanner? That's too strange."

I laughed as I began my defense...

Mike's got this old scanner that is the most finicky, complicated thing to use. You have to be running some special program and operate everything from the program - it frustrates me to use it so I usually have Mike come and set everything up for me so I can actually scan stuff. I reminded him of this and also of the fact that I would have NO reason to scan his BevMo gift card.

He smiled at me. A smile that was a mix of accusation ("you know you're guilty, right?") and pity ("poor wife, you probably are going senile and forgot you did that! How sad.")

I repeated my arguments. No awareness of gift card + no knowledge of scanner set up + no motive = wife not guilty.

Ok. He sat in silence for a moment as he gave it some thought.

He began to think aloud and told me that I was still suspect number one. He had to figure out another suspect in the lineup. Obviously this would be...

My brother.

My brother?

My brother had come over a couple times in the last few weeks to help me update my computer with new software. He was there for hours at a time installing my new OS and reinstalling my old programs.

Mike had deduced that whoever was scanning probably used the BevMo card to run a test on the scanner.

My brother was working on my computer and the scanner is connected to Mike's computer. Why he would run a color test on the scanner for Mike's computer while working on my computer is unknown - and in the case of the great BevMo Gift Card Heist - is also apparently irrelevant.

As Mike mulls over the two prime suspects, he begins to realize there may be room in his lineup for a third suspect. The least likely candidate of the shady bunch, himself.

Mike has been sitting in silence for a few moments.

Still baffled as to why I have remained suspect number one, I begin to list my alibis over again. I had never seen the card, I can hardly use the scanner, and even if I was using the scanner for some test, I would have probably picked a picture I could use once it was scanned. I then told him he was more likely to be the culprit - thinking that maybe he was making copies of other card-sized documents and absentmindedly threw the BevMo card onto the scanner and forgot it.

The wheels in Mike's head were turning. He spoke as he thought (and I'm paraphrasing here...)

"Ok, you may not be the suspect anymore... you probably would have remembered when I asked you about it last week. So, here's what probably happened. Your brother came over to work on the computers...and we were connecting your computer to our network... and I was trying to link your computer to the printer/scanner so you could print over the network... and..."

...and...

And it turns out Michael had put his own BevMo gift card onto the scanner bed to use as a test for scanning over the network.

Mystery solved!

Mike then proceeded to pat himself on the back for his superior sleuthing skills. He had figured out the great BevMo gift card mystery of 2009. He asked me if I was impressed by his deducing skills.

Seriously, he did.

He cracks me up.

Strike That, Reverse It.

Today, this happened. British Airways: Union Announces Strike

In 11 days, Mike and I are scheduled to be on a flight to Paris... on British Airways.

We bought our tickets well before November 2... there wasn't a union cloud in the sky then...

We're currently in limbo. Not officially canceled yet, so we can't rebook. Not officially cleared for flight, so we're not sure what to plan for.

In general, I support unions - I think they offer an ability to provide a safety-in-numbers net to protect the weakest members of the workforce when real abuse of labor is an issue driven by a insatiable drive for profit. In most situations in recent history and the strikes that have affected my day-to-day life, I've found it pretty easy to side with the folks doing the walk-out.

Unfortunately, in this situation I'm finding it difficult to back the employees in this decision when industry standards across the board indicate that these changes are not a threat to their health and safety and do not constitute an unfair work environment. The decisions that BA has made also do not appear to be driven by much else than to stay afloat under the current circumstances. I don't get the feeling - even in reading through the union's releases - that BA is doing something underhanded.

In my industry, layoffs have forced me to take on 3 times as much work with no additional compensation, no promises of bonuses and no pay raise in the coming year. We're fighting to stay afloat. I want us to stay afloat. It's not fun, but it's also not inhumane.

If airline industry standards are too low to constitute a healthy work environment or if industry standards were so low that all unionized airline attendants agreed they needed better, I likely would have supported a strike in which every unionized airline attendant would have participated, but they don't have that backing.

I get it. It sucks that you have one less person on a long flight where people are total douche bags who sneeze on you, don't say please or thank you and now everyone has to do a bit more work to cover for that. And I get that it sucks to not get your regularly expected pay raise or bonus. We all get it, because we're all dealing with it right now. Your biggest punch in the gut was to your customer - particularly me (the easiest person to get to hop on board with your labor dispute or any other hippie emotional cause.) I get it... but how about you don't pick the holidays to protest, and you wait for the trial date to get the law behind you (if they agree with you then the public will support you!) I'm finding it very hard to imagine how anyone at all wins here.

A Visual Guide

Sig shared this chart on FB... for those of you who don't understand the beauty of procrastination, it may help. Click for the full sized image.



Apparently these charts are plentiful on the web and work perfectly within the Procrastination Loop. Here's another one with a bit more detail. Click for the full sized image.

Just in case you needed a little direction for your daily dose of procrastination.

Rub-a-dub-dub, Thanks for the Grub.

Everyone seems to be posting the things they are thankful for. I have a lot of things to be thankful for so, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here we go.

I have to get the normal stuff out of the way - they'll get weirder because I'm thankful for weird things too.

First, I'm thankful for my family - husband, mom, dad, brother, and all my relatives all over this planet and my fantastic in laws. I wouldn't trade out any of them... even for Johnny Depp.

I'm thankful for my dog and all the dogs I've met or ever lived with. Dogs are awesome.

I'm thankful for ALL my friends and that you all are nice to me. I'm thankful that some of you are smart, some of you are thoughtful and some of you are stupid awesome - you all make me happy.

I'm thankful that I was born a healthy human being with a fully functioning human body. By "I", I mean my consciousness or whatever it is that seems to be linked to my human body but not limited by it. "I" could have been an ant or a termite or a monkey. Sometimes I'm jealous of my dog and the Lochness monster, but in the end I prefer to be human. As a human, I am thankful for all the animals and plants that sustain my omnivorous life. I'm thankful for all the humane farmers and workers who treat those creatures with respect and the people who work to make sure that the Earth and all animals are treated that way no matter where they sit in the food chain.

I'm thankful for all the blessings that came with the fact that I was lucky to be born in a first world country. I didn't do anything to deserve it, but considering that the odds of being born in the USA is about 3.1% and about a 15% chance of being born in a first world country, I pretty much already won the lottery. I'm no more or less special than any other child born on the same date at the same time, but "I" got lucky.

I'm thankful for the guy who designed Mercedes 300E that was built in '87. My old car is the best.

I'm thankful for technology. Facebook. Computers. Internet. Blogging. Google. Nanomachines. Robots. Even if I hate some of it, I'm still thankful for it.

I'm thankful for Battlestar Galactica. And the X-Files. And Arrested Development... And The Office... And Cartoons.... And actually, if I go on it will be too long. I'm thankful for TV... but only the shows I like. I'm not thankful for shows I do not like.

I'm thankful for subtitles.

I'm thankful for Michio Kaku, Ray Bradbury, Dorothy Day, Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua and Steven Colbert. Maybe for reasons other than what you might assume.

I'm thankful for Jon Stewart - probably for the same reason you assume.

I'm thankful for time travel (it will happen/has already happened... we can discuss this another time.)

I'm thankful for cheese.

I'm thankful that I haven't been abducted by aliens.

I'm thankful for ghosts. Even though I haven't seen one myself.

I'm thankful for photographs.

I'm thankful for pizza and nachos and frozen yogurt.

I'm thankful for patient polite strangers.

I'm thankful for people who hold open doors for others - male or female.

I'm thankful for holidays.

I'm thankful for the reality that my perception creates. Because of this, I believe the world I see every day is actually very beautiful.

I'm thankful for many more things that would take me years to list. Since I can't list them and because Michael is telling me we have to go, I have to remember to say a thank you in my head for those little things when I come across them - Thanksgiving time or not. I'm Thankful for it year round.

Boot to the Moon, Now Jazz Hands

Last night, Will, Michael and I headed up to the Downtown Artist's District in Los Angeles to the Cafe Metropol to watch a jazz performance by one of their old Cal Poly SLO choir mates, Inga Swearingen.

Michael had talked about Inga for as long as we had been dating - he played old recordings of her singing with their choir group and I'd be amazed by how perfectly her voice moved along all the notes. I was pretty excited to hear the real deal and she absolutely did not disappoint. She performed alongside her sister (also doing vocals), a stand up bass player, a guitarist and a percussionist. There was another jazz vocalist in the audience who happened to be a friend of hers - at one point she invited her up to the stage for a "songversation" - about 4 minutes of improvisational verse, harmonies and scat. The performance was phenomenal and I would not hesitate to drive anywhere in Southern California to see her again.

The only thing possibly more remarkable than her voice was her incredible personality. She recognized Michael and he introduced me to her and without hesitation she opened her arms and hugged me with a great big smile. She told me how much it meant to her that I could be there. It was the first time we met.

Now, normally I'd be totally freaked out by that type of person. I can definitely be a don't-touch-me-or-look-at-me type of person and when I've run into some of those overly friendly- spaced-out-touchy-feely type of people that teeter on creepiness, I tend to curl up into a ball and shut down.

That wasn't her. It might have been the first time I had met that type of person. I had no sense whatsoever that she was being anything but genuine. She was all there. She was very... present.

Her big sister, Britta, later made her way over to our table and began conversation with us, asking us about what we did and how we found out about the show and later telling us a bit about her family and their growing up and their passion for Music. She was EXACTLY the same as Inga. (Well, except that she was a Dental Hygienist - not a pro-vocalist... although she could be...when she and Inga sang together it was unbelievable.)

I've decided I like that type of person. The person who can start up a conversation with a total stranger who had nothing interesting to say, yet genuinely hangs on to every word that's being said as if they have a complete appreciation for the fact that this conversation, this moment, that word will never happen quite the same again. The type of person who listens as carefully as they speak and realizes there's no value in putting anything but goodwill into the atmosphere.

I don't know what their parents put in the water on their farm in SLO, but I'd like to bottle feed it to my children someday.

Anyhoo - I hope Will uploads his videos soon so I can share them, but for now here's a YouTube Vid of one of her songs - ignore the visuals... if she happens to show up in your 'hood, it's worth the effort to cancel all your other plans and check it out.

Economic Forecast for the Apocalypse

Last night I told Michael that my new retirement strategy would be to invest in tangible items that I could sell or trade in a post-apocalyptic world. Things like HAZMAT suits, gas masks, roller-skates, toilet paper, a fleet of trained dogs, solar panels, steel-toed Doc Martens, nano-machines and craploads of water. It's probably a good idea for me to work on my pocket desalination filters now so they'll be available at any time. I should also get a better grip on nano-technology as I'm pretty sure nanomachines will be the new gold. I don't want to contribute to any sort of post-apocalyptic violence, so you'll have to find other vendors if you're interested in guns or weaponry.

It's not that I think civilization will end any time soon or that I'll even live to see a post-apocalyptic world, but apparently I've got to have some sort of investment plan and as a non-economist, investing in a post-apocalyptic future seems to be the least risky strategy I've got.

I don't like risk. I especially don't like risk when it comes to my money. I work to get paid and I pay others for their work. I get that. I don't understand the other 75% of how I'm told making money works. Making money by letting it sit confuses me. I'm told that if I buy this stock now, put my money in this account now, invest in that thing now, it will be worth ten times more in 10, 15, 20 years. Magical capital. I don't doubt that it actually happens, but I just don't get how it's sustainable. The growth has to be endless for investment to be deemed profitable, right? But is endless growth possible? Isn't that where a crash or a burst comes in to level things again? Your regular boom and bust economy? I'm supposed to put my money in something that I'm told won't go bust and be ok with the risk that it actually will have to do that at some point and that I might get less money back that I put in? I'm supposed to keep afloat by jumping ship right before the bust and hopping on the next boom before it booms? I don't know how I feel about that.

I know I'm being paranoid. They'll say, "that's what risk management is for." And who am I supposed to trust for that information? The "experts"? The nameless person managing my 401K? They can't even decide amongst themselves what to do - they're familiar with the theory so maybe they have an intellectual advantage, but the bottom line is that they're gambling just as much as I am, right? In order for me to win, someone else has to lose, right? I don't care if it's a 401K or penny stocks - at the heart of it all, it's just a gamble. I don't like gambling. The last time I went to Vegas I went in thinking I'd be ok to lose $200. I lost my first $5, got sad, then won $20 and decided that I'd rather have $215 to spend on dinner than on this emotional roller coaster and quit.

We purchased our home back in 2007 - right as the real estate bubble was gently pin pricked and the air was slowly being released. We thought we were buying at a good time - the research you'd do on the net in late 2006 would yield two very strong opinions - 1) the bubble would burst and real estate would collapse any day now so plan on renting for the next 15 years or 2) the bubble would slowly let some air but bounce back again - the price drop would be temporary and it would be a good time to buy. Reliable sources for both opinions thrived.

In either case, it didn't matter too much for us because we weren't looking at a place as an investment. Everyone (literally) we talked to about buying a place told us we wouldn't be living in the same place in 5 years but we didn't want to assume that and instead looked for a place we loved. We found that place (I still love it) and decided to buy.

I read every. single. document. Anything that I needed to sign, I read twice - once at home and once again in the Realtors office. Most of the people we dealt with were fine with it, but our loan guy was a massive douche bag although he didn't seem that way at first - he was an older guy with many years of experience in the field. He was very friendly, knowledgeable and he met with us as often as we needed to discuss our loan options. We weren't sub-prime applicants, but the loans he was showing us were on were definitely on the creative end of the loan spectrum. We had to request to see a normal fixed interest loan. He somehow calculated that based on our incomes we could apply for a loan that was about $200,000 higher than the max we had set for ourselves when we came in (thankfully we didn't buy into the bigger loan thing.)

During our closing there was a specific document that they asked us to sign that indicated that we knew our loan was a "balloon loan." Our loan was NOT a balloon loan. I looked at the escrow woman and told her this is not our loan. The loan guy was sitting in the room. He said, "that's just a standard form, everyone signs it." I asked, "do we have a balloon loan?" he responded, "no." I reread the document and looked at Michael and said "I'm not going to sign this. We don't have a balloon loan." The loan guy got angry! He looked at me and said "Do you want to lose the house? You have to sign that or you can't close escrow and you won't get the loan. It's not a big deal, you just sign it, it doesn't mean you have a balloon loan!" In my head I flashed back to the moment where I asked the loan guy if he would recommend the same type of loan we were getting for his own children (he had told us about his children and his new grand child) he said yes, without a doubt. I looked back at the escrow lady and told her I couldn't sign that document. The loan guy huffed, got up and left the room pissed. The escrow lady read the document herself and then hand wrote something on the document indicating that we did not have a balloon loan and had us sign the page under her handwriting and stamp. That worked, we closed, we owned our home. I decided the loan guy was a douche bag and I probably should not have trusted him at all.

As the real estate bubble continued to leak out air and eventually pop, more information on these predatory loans started coming to the surface. While we were doing ok with our purchase, I did feel sympathy for the people out there who were losing their homes when their out of control loans came due and the market was not turning a profit anymore. Having gone through the process, I know that they most likely trusted what the "expert" had told them. Internet people were calling them stupid for not knowing better and blamed the homeowners for the collapse of the market. I agree in part - they should have read and understood all the terms of their loans and the documents they signed, BUT I understand how intimidating it can be as a non-expert when you've got the pro telling you that this is the way to invest and that you're just being a paranoid idiot if you don't follow their advice. It can be kind of hard to tell the expert they're wrong.

I can do all the research I want on WebMD when I have a weird cramp. I can pull up all my symptoms and do what I think is a pretty effective self diagnosis, but when I go into my doctor and she tells me my cramp is not due to the Maple Syrup Urine Disease (it's real, look it up) I'm going to believe the expert. To me, it's pretty much the same thing. I think that when you're dealing with money instead of lives though, it's a little easier for the "experts" to dismiss the danger signs when they're going to make more money off a little risk with my investment.

So, thanks, but no thanks. Post-apocalyptic nanotechnology FTW. Uhhhmmm... anyone know how I can get my hands on some nano-machines? I pay a pretty penny... or will trade for magical capital.

Offspring From The Future

Procreation is pretty trendy lately - everyone seems to be having babies. Mike and I are not planning on jumping on the baby bandwagon for a couple more years, but our friend Jessica (Swaaaaaan) recently posted an awesome link on my brother's Facebook page called 1,001 Rules for My Unborn Son which, over the course of the last few days has had me thinking of all the "rules" I've got in my head for my still unconceived children.

Many of my ideas actually don't really involve actual parenting - which should give you some insight into where I am mentally as far as the mothering-spectrum is concerned. For example, the one I decided today is this: When I eventually do have an infant, I think I would like to strap it to my body in some way while I go about my business. I'm talking full on papoose-field-worker-baby-attached-to-your-back-like action. It makes sense to me. You know where the baby is. It's not eating anything it's not supposed to be eating. It's got tons of crap to look at while you're doing your own thing. It's floating around like it did in your belly. I have no problem falling asleep in a hammock - and it's pretty much the same thing, so baby nap time seems like a no brainer. Plus, it seemed to work for the hardest working women all over the world. They've got their hands free to do all the stuff they needed to do and freedom to bend over to pick stuff up and junk. Brilliant.

Of course, I'm sure I'll read something as I get closer to having children that might change my opinion, but for now all I need is to look at awesome pictures and stay pretty convinced that this is totally what I will do.

Most people that have had the "will-you-have-kids" conversation with me already know that Mike and I are dead set in rearing some awesome nerd-children. If you review this venn-diagram that Marci shared the other day, I'd say we're aiming for the bluish-purple hemisphere with some yellow overlap for fun. Obviously the "Genius" is our kid, but I'm sure we'd be happy anywhere in the realm of "Brain", "Geek" or the classic "Nerd." We don't want to venture too far into the "Dweeb" category or the emotional dysfunction and social ineptitude hemispheres, but let's be honest, your stereotypical "cool" kid is nowhere on our radar.

Until our children can beat me away from their closets with their tiny fists, they will be dressed primarily in clothing of awesome. This includes daily animal costumes (they aren't just for Halloween friends) hats, sunglasses, and crazy shoes. There's also a good probability that on any given day my kids could walk out of the house looking like they stepped out of a vintage photograph. Why? Because I can. And because kids look cuter in knickers and bloomers. And because you don't remember much of what you wear before you're 4 anyway - you just remember what it looked like in pictures. I promise to be kind and avoid itchy fabrics... but yah. Get ready to be jealous of how awesome our future children will be. Someday.

I'm glad I'm writing this down so that in 7 or so years when I'm actually trying to get a 4 year old to wear a pea coat, knickers and a cap and he is screaming bloody murder and I'm crying because his 2 year old sister prefers to run around naked after ripping off her hippo costume that I tried to make her wear for the family trip to the zoo in February (because seriously, most appropriate time for animal costumes) you can all print this out to remind me how sure I was about how easily this would all work out.

Atomic Mischief

I love the possibilities that lie within the impossible.

I just read: “Sheldrake has also demonstrated in a number of studies that we can assist each other’s learning across distances, without any external interaction or communication. In one study, for instance, a group of individuals completed a newly created crossword puzzle, and their average completion times were recorded. The same puzzle was then broadcast to millions via TV, for the viewers at home to complete. Subsequently, a new group, who had not seen the puzzle at all, finished it significantly faster than the original group, suggesting that as a result of so many individuals having done the puzzle, knowledge of the puzzle was somehow etched into the field of collective consciousness, making it increasingly easier for others to solve.”

First off, this means you are all at fault for me not being a genius already - but that's not what I'm writing about.

Back when I was in school the simple explanation of matter was that it exists and you can't destroy it or create new matter - you can only change it's form. In the last few years scientists believe they've been able to create new particles which is new, different and exciting... but wasn't "possible" when I was a student. (Possibility in the impossible!)

Anyway, almost everything I've learned about science came from high school text books, Bill Nye The Science Guy, the Discovery Channel, and the Science Channel. I'm no science wiz. If I remember things correctly, I'm not the same thing now as the thing I was when I was born - atomically speaking - the structures are all the same, but the atoms are constantly changing. All the things I eat and breathe mix and mingle with my body sharing it's carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, iron, sodium, potassium, lithium, calcium, and sulfur atoms and they dance together and rotate in and out with the atoms my bones and organs. I convert the atoms I need to live and I get rid of the atoms I'm not using on a second by second basis.

Stay with me here because I have a point.

WHAT IF all these atoms had some kind of "memory" - kind of like a muscle memory. You know, like when your body remembers how to do something even if you haven't done it in years. So what if atoms have a "muscle memory" and they remember what it was like to be part of say, Einsteins brain, and once they wiggle themselves over and out and into grass or air or snot they wiggle themselves back into someone's brain and they have a "muscle memory" of a tiny part of what they did the last time they found themselves in a brain. They could also find themselves mixed into that brain with say an old atom from Galileo's brain and they're both like, hey, I've done this before and bam, Einstein-Galileo brain hybrid moment and voila, brilliance.

So my point.

This is my pseudo-scientific explanation of why there's movies that come out at around the same time with similar premises or similar characters. Case studies - Saving Private Ryan & The Thin Red Line, Deep Impact & Armageddon, Antz & A Bug's Life, Volcano &. Dante's Peak, Gordy & Babe (also, it appears the late 90's was big on Hollywood's atomic subconscious being all in a tangle) The Illusionist & The Prestige, Paul Blart Mall Cop & Observe and Report, Million Dollar Baby & Cinderella Man, there are plenty more I am sure.

It's the atoms.

The folks in Hollywood were all eating and breathing the same atoms in different cycles so the atoms got all up in their brains and were like, dude - Volcano movie - trust me. Within days that same atom had worked its way through the brains of studio execs and production staff so they all thought - dude, Volcano movie - so they did it and thought it was a new and brilliant idea. Until they realize they'd been had by their very own ATOMS!

And that's why you never trust what an atom tells you. They have no allegiance to your brain and are basically smearing the same ideas all over the collective subconscious. It's not your fault. And that's why this theory is likely neither new or unique - because I bet a rebellious atom plugged itself into my subconscious and told me to write about it - it's already told some of the others. Maybe the atom is part of the resistance and is trying to get awareness out about what those other radical new-idea-movie-killing atoms have been doing because he's tired of being expected to watch the same movie twice. Jerks.

Sigh.

(It's been a long day. I think this blog is further evidence of my need for a nap... I think I'll be filing this theory next to my "Seaweed As Evil Alien Species" theory in my ever expanding file of awesome-and-totally -possible-if-I-was-in-charge-of-everything-in-the-universe cabinet.)