a few minutes after midnight…

…using my parental super-translation powers…I think a little after midnight things went like this…

Miss Squeaky: “Ack!  I can’t believe we  forgot!”
Mr. Grunty:  ”wha…”
S:  ”We forgot to get a card for our parents!!”
G:  ”I don’t understand.”
S:  ”It’s their anniversary!”
G:  ”of what?”
S: “They have been married 10 years.”
G: “No way!”
S:  ”WAY!”
G:  ”We better wake them up!”
S:  ”Wake up! Happy Anniversary!!”
G:  ”We love you! Happy Anniversary!!

Thanxies childrens, but next time, you can wait until a decent hour, like, 7AM to wish your parents Happy Anniversary.

And also, big THANXIES for MyBetterHalf, who has been my love, my best friend, my inspiration & my wife for the past ten years.

“Jennifer Government” – book 15 of 2008

I didn’t really want to read this. But it was short, and I was behind on my reading. I was afraid that some smug 30-something would have a diatribe about either government, or capitalism.

What I got was a fun, fast paced story, with a bit of over-the-top humor.

compares with other dystopias:

The government is very weak, corporationa are very strong. Everything has been privatized. There are no taxes. A cop has to get a funding source, to get a budget, before she can investigate a murder.

It did not follow the “boy meets girl, girl shows him how messed up the world is” format that we’ve come to expect in a dystopian novel.

Doesn’t really go into “how it happened”.

Things get changed, because someone in the corporate world goes too far and takes things to the logical extreme.

Sex in this dystopia: seems pretty much like in today’s society.

“the Children of Men” – book 14 of 2008

Beautifully written. PD James is a wonderful writer, and I really feel after reading this that I need to increase my vocabulary. I asked once, what should I do to write dialog for a character who is more intelligent than me. Well, I think the character should try and sound like PD James.

from page 16

“If there was time enough or purpose in it, it would be interesting to trace back our common ancestry to discover the roots of this obsessive self-sufficiency. I realize now that it was one of the reasons for my failed marriage. It is probably the reason why Xan never married. It would take a force more powerful than sexual love to prise open the portcullis which defends that crenellated heart and mind.“

About three pages into it, I was very excited to be reading such beautiful writing, and was excited that I would get to talk to my better half about it. (I texted her from a Denny’s to tell her this.)

There is one little thing that was initially bothersome, sometimes it is third person, other times it is a diary entry. That switch between point of view jerked me into remember that I was reading, and stopped the flow.

And there is one BIG thing. I have seen the end of the movie “Children of Men”, and though it is much different than what PD James wrote, I think it is much better, and I feel the end of the movie, matches the tone of the book better. (I have heard from MyBetterHalf that the movie is hardly related to the book, her book review and her movie review). The end of the book, seriously, what the heck!?!!??? It is a horrible ending. Up there with:

• “and then the commies dropped the bomb.”
• “…then Trashcan Man drove in with a semi, & nuked everyone.”
• …it was only a dream…
• Seinfeld’s last episode.

Do read the book, but skip the last five pages, and then watch the last five minutes of the movie. Trust me, it’s for the best.

I’ll give it a B+

oh yeah….dystopia….so, here’s PD James version. Men become infertile, no one knows why, no more babies are born. At first, people think it’s good, because it will ease over population, but then, none. And people start to realize that the human race is about to go extinct with a whimper. As people got more depressed, power was consolidated into the hands of a few. What the people wanted was “protection, comfort, pleasure” (pg 60). The cost: 1) no general elections, 2) the imported indentured servants for slave labor, 3) a govt. sponsored suicide program, 4) all criminals were deported to an anarchy island, 5) mandatory fertility testing.

The male protagonist was going along, as happy as a melancholic divorced historian can be, until a girl comes around, interests him, and introduces him to a different point of view. ( Seriously, is this the formula for dystopia? …boy doing fine, boy meets girl, girl shows him how messed up the world is.)

Sex in this dystopia. Minimal. People have lost interest.

Is there hope for us? I don’t think PD answers that question. What started the dystopia was the ending of th species, and if biology is against us, there is no hope.

the end of Redemption Road?

happy 500th published post!

And another cause for celebration, the Olympics are over! I can finally get a good night’s sleep.

Yesterday, I watched synchronized swimming for the first time ever. WOW!! that is some impressive artistic competition. A lot more fascinating and interesting than ballet, ice-skating or mime. But is it a sport? I don’t think so. Is it impressive? YES! Synchronized swimming is very impressive. I will watch more of it. And unlike water polo, where all the splashing around obscures the view, synch-swim is amazing, and designed for the audience. Seriously, I was entranced.

Yesterday, I watched the US men upset the giants of indoor volleyball, Brazil. That was fun to watch too.

And, watched, once again, US women defeat Australia for the gold medal. Last time, the Australians were in a good mood after the game. This time, I think they were a little grumpy about being beat by America again.

Hat’s off to US men’s waterpolo who got a silver medal. Interesting, most of the US players have minimal funding…most of the Hungarian players are professional water-polo-ists in Europe.

and on the wonderful Canadian channel, CBC, I watched USA Basketball men defeat Spain for the gold medal. If NBC had played it live, like at 11:30 pm on the West coast, I would have watched it. But no. The stoopid NBC has to have a 3 hour delay, so that if NYC watches it at 2:30AM, then Seattle has to watch it then too. I don’t understand? I can understand their prime time scheduling, you want people to watch ___ at 8pm, because then you have the most viewers. But 2:30AM ?? who’s watching? You think someone on in LA would stay up to 11:30pm to watch Kobe??? HMMMM?????? Anyway, I watched the Canadian channel. In fact, I think I did most of my Olympic viewing on the CBC. Take that you stoopid Peacock, you are making yourselves the No Body Cares network!

Also, on the CBC, I trust the commentators a bit more to be neutral. Like when they say the Spanish were acting “like Manchester United” arguing every call that didn’t go their way. And the CBC commentators saying that Team USA acted with class through-out the entire tournament.

Oh, and China, what the heck was up with the blue stuff in the trapazoid lane? Next time, make the floor uniform. Duh. So the athletes don’t risk an injury because they lose their footing.

Anyway, it was a good game. I enjoyed it. I wish it had been a rout, making my case of Redeem Team is better than Dream Team a little stronger. But hey, not everything works out like you wish.

Dritte

yesterday, I snuck out of work to go to our second ultrasound for Dritte. Yes, I was nervous, it’s early, so many things can go wrong. To my knowledge, at my work, only our good friend BitterKat knows about Dritte. As there are more OB/GYN appointments, I may have to tell a few people.

( Once, one of my favorite bosses LOC, when I told him why I was turning in a slip for sick leave, he turned to me and said, “GBAtT, if I ever ask you why you were sick, you say, “It’s none of your BEEEPing business.” So I know I don’t have to tell them.)

We got there, the tech was a mother of twins, and said her boy-girl twins while growing up were comfortable around the opposite sex, and weren’t super excited about the opposite sex. But she had no advice on a third baby, and only wished us luck.

Last ultrasound, Dritte was like a little spot, a kidney bean. This time, we could see arms and head and legs! Dritte was sleeping, so MyBetterHalf had to lift up her butt and shake herself to wake up Dritte. Then we saw Dritte move around a bit! It’s becoming more and more real.

tonight w/ the childrens

I got yelled at by Miss Squeaky, she saw me put away the bag of shredded cheese without giving her any. She was mad. I tried to explain I was making quesadillas for their dinner, but she wanted the cheese NOW! I gave her some. She was happy. Mr. Grunty was happy to get the cantelope for desert, and ignored me when I asked if he would share.

Miss S walked backwards, about six steps. First time we’ve seen it. I got her to also, bring a diaper to me, and then put the diaper in a trash pail. A very helpful girl.

Miss S also had some very fussy times when things weren’t going her way, and she would scream and throw a fit. I tried to snuggle her, that seemed to help. Mr. Grunty, noticing his sister was getting way more attention, crawled onto me while I held Miss S, circled me whilst pounding on my back, and when he got to where his sister’s head was, wanted to hit her in the head. I wouldn’t let him, and he was all upset that we never let him have any fun. (Previously, Miss S was having problems with a toy, Mr. G took it, she got upset, and since she wasn’t strong enough to take it back, she tried to push him over…I stopped that.)

Mr. G, another time when I was holding Miss S in my lap, was sitting a few feet in front of me. There was a ball nearby, so I rolled it to him. He laughed when it hit his feet. We did that for a bit. Then I said, “it’s too far, can you give it back to papa.” And he picked up the ball, tried to reach it to me, and then threw it about a foot away from himself towards me. I wondered if that was a fluke. But no, he kept throwing the ball back towards my general direction. Yay! first time playing catch with my boy.

That reminds me, we have this toy ring that we toss and Oliver kitty goes bounding after it, usually in a tumble of fur crash-landing when he gets to it. Sometimes Miss S will get to it first, and she holds the ring up, and talks, and will take the ring to Oliver and shake it. She just forgets that she needs to let go, if she wants to throw it.

more Olympics coverage

wow…first off, sorry I jinxed the USA women’s softball team. Congrats team Japan for that huge upset.

I watched Rogers & Dalhausser win beach volleyball gold for USA. Seems that the men set the ball more than the women.

Tonight on CBC watched Spitz get gold in women’s mountain bike. I really like the CBC, it just seems different enough to be cool. Oh, and NBC are a bunch of hosers. I get ads for shows like “Little Mosque o n the Prairie“, I will have to watch that one! How can you go wrong with “small town Canada, with a Muslim twist”?

Saw a few minutes of water polo…just like soccer (boring) except all the water makes the visibility much worse for the spectators.

catching up with the Olympics

Handball…seems strange, the spawn of soccer & basketball, but why are scores so low if you can use your hands and the nets so big. Watched women’s Norway vs Romania.

Domination

• USA softball, outscoring all opponents 53-1 in round robin play. Wow!
• USA women’s basketball, 31 straight wins in Olympic play, so far this Olympics winning by at least 36 points in a game
• Walsh & May-Treanor, 108 straight winning matches. I watched them win gold. On CBC, thank you Canada! I am liking beach volleyball, there’s team work, but it’s easy to follow because there’s only two people, the rules are easy enough to understand, the refs have little influence, the excitement of diving into the sand, or spiking the ball into an opponent, or a gentle bump of the ball into an empty space, the rallies that keep the ball bouncing & keep the play alive. And the dance team to help pump up the crowds is cool too.

hats off to, folks that kinda inspire me to try and attempt to break the five minute mile (my best was 5:04…21 years ago, when I was young)

• Ian Millar, Canadian, Age 61 and at his ninth Olympics, became the oldest medalist of the Beijing Games when Team Canada took silver in the team show jumping!
• Dana Torres, a youngster at 41, wins silver medal in 50 m freestyle swim.

men’s basketball USA -vs- Spain, , I saw most of this. I like Jason Kidd’s attitude, so far he’s shot the ball four times in six games (got all four), only getting 13 minutes a game, not really filling up the stats sheet, but I think he’s there to set the tone for the team, and showing by example of “accept your roll”. Also accepting his role is Tayshaun Prince, I hear he’s helping be a quasi-coach on the side lines, too.

It was funny, the announcers were talking about how much more physical the international game is, and then after Kobe gave a hard foul to Laker teammate, Paul Gasol, the announcers who earlier talked about how Gasol is a great international player, said “that was a smart foul by Kobe, because Gasol is a finesse player and you can get him out of his game if you rough him up a bit.” I love Carmelo Anthony’s smile, he just seems like a little kid when he smiles, like when he gets three 3 pointers in a row.

They say, what is helping this years Men’s BB team is continuity. I wonder how long it will last, will we get embarrassed again in six or eight years, and have to get a bunch more stars to make three year commitments to the program? Maybe, team USA can be a normal NBA squad that plays in the NBA like any other team, only they don’t have a home town, and they only allow American citizens on the team.

sorry

• Roqaya AL GHASARA, of Baharain, who runs in full body suit for Muslim modesty rules, sorry you didn’t make it out of the 200m semi-finals. I watched you run.
• China men’s basketball, sorry you didn’t make it into the medal round.
• Susanna Kallur, (Sweden) was gold medal favorite for women’s 100m hurdles, sorry you fell in the semi-finals.

math problem

I need help.

Currently, our method of being fair/ equal distribution of the childrens, so that one particular child is always with one particular parent – which I think is good because they need to develop good relationships with both parents…

…oh yeah, the method:

Even days – parent & child same gender

Odd days – parent & child different gender

So, on bath night, or running an errand to the store, or changing diapers, or taking to the car…there’s the system.

Here’s the problem…I can’t think of a way to have a similar rule for three children. Unless we go with the same rule, then the two same gendered kids never get alone time with a parent, and that’s not good. Alone time with a parent is good too.

so the options are

AB   and C

AC   and B

BC   and A

she left me

the other day, I told MyBetterHalf, “I’m going to the store for some ice cream. Do you want anything?” On the way to the store, I got the hankering for some greasy junk food, and got fried chicken, french fries, and soft-serve ice cream. It was tasty and hit the spot. When she found out I made a detour, she was peeved. Evidently I was supposed to notify her of every step of my journey, and she if she has any updates on the requests.

A  few days later she left.  She’s in  Vegas right now, and I’m a single parent. Me and the childrens went to a Karaoke party last night, and  I was either going to sing “Stand by your man” or “Every Rose has a Thorn” but the childrens  were starting to have breakdowns. It’s been tough on all of us.