Cats, fish, snake.

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Vince got his first paying gig!  This holiday break, he’s taking care of three cats for a week: feeding, watering and scooping cat litter.   He’s also feeding a pinch of food to some fish (I hope they don’t die).  They have a snake too, but they’ll feed him before they leave, so he (the snake) won’t need to eat the during the week.

Faucet, Scout Guide, Hug ‘n Roll.

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I spent some time this morning replacing Nat’s shower faucet.  The shower diverter had been malfunctioning for a month (!) and they were taking makeshift showers with a bucket.  Anyways, with the holidays coming, I needed to fix this right away.  They had only one shower faucet model in stock that I could use at (my favorite store) Home Depot and, although it works perfectly now, there is this 1/4 inch space from the shower wall to the faucet edge which is driving me bonkers.  To really fix it, I either need to special order the right length faucet and wait for it to come in (which would take a while – a week?) or I could have (today) shortened the pipe a bit.  But this would have taken another 90 min and would have involved a butane torch and another trip to Home Depot, so I let it be. Other things needed to get done today, and frankly, the shower works!  Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Sometimes.

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Vince got elected to a leadership position tonight at scouts.  It is called “Guide” which, according to Vince, is the easiest leadership position that one can have.  This is exciting because he thought, when I dropped him off at the election meeting tonight, that he wasn’t going to be able to have any position at all which he was kind of resigned to – it’s hard to tell what he really wants because he hides behind various statements about various things being “lame” even though I think he really wants to do them.

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*****

Edda is messing with me, as usual.  She was sound asleep and then 15 minutes later, here she is:

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Then 15 minutes later, she asleep again only after I have both my arms and my legs trapped under her body.  Had to implement Ross’s hug ‘n roll.  Good night all!  See you on the other side.


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Pajamas, date night, Christmas dinner.

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Today was one of those days where I did a bunch of work, followed up some emails with my boss, arranged carpools, figured out some holiday hosting logistics and then when I looked up, I realized it was 1 pm and I was still in my pajamas.  Ack, I thought I was still mid-morning.  Each day (especially the quietest part) goes by so quickly.

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Jeremy and I haven’t been going out on dates much in the past quarter, maybe the past two quarters. It’s been a combination of evening activities, shorter/less flexible childcare hours, and then Jeremy going biking mid-day Sat and me going out into the woods mid-day Sunday doesn’t leave a lot of time for us to be out together without the kids.  But today we managed to have dinner together and do one of our favorite dates – going grocery shopping.  We are starting to shop for Christmas dinner, Jeremy wants to make a standing rib roast and so he bought all the ones Whole Foods had tonight.

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Gifts, shower, pace counting.

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I’m done with my Christmas shopping, it’s all in the house and I feel good about it.  I usually get all angsty about it because of my complicated relationship with money, my passive-aggressive behavior regarding doing it all early vs procrastinating at the very last minute, my feelings about turning a religious holiday to celebrate a guy who was really nice to everyone into a free-for-all materialistic buying spree and, finally, buying gifts for people who have everything they need.   You got food, clothes, shelter?  You got an education?  You got love from family and friends?  Lucky.  we are all so lucky.  I asked Vince if I could just shove the Amazon packages under the tree and randomly open them and give the resulting gift to whoever it was suppose to go to (you know, to avoid wrapping anything).  He said he was down with that.  I think I’ve gone this far, I might as well do the wrapping too.

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This is exhausted Vince.  He was up a lot this weekend having fun.  He’s still wearing the same shirt he wore on Friday to see Star Wars.  I hope he takes a shower tonight.

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I went to an orienteering class today.  I didn’t run any of the courses, but I wanted to learn a few things and meet a few people.  I learned today that I need to be counting the number of steps I take so I can estimate distance in the woods and that you kind of have to learn to count so second-naturedly that you can kind of shove it into the back of your mind while you are running and navigating with the map.  The person teaching the course said that at both extremes of ability, pace counting is unnecessary.  If you are a beginner, you don’t pace count because you are too busy figuring out the map itself, and if you are an elite you don’t pace count either because it’s just so familiar to your body how long 275m is. But for everyone in the middle, it’s a helpful tool.

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Ice, Christmas cards, Americone dream.

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Icy here!  Freezing rain last night left a half-inch layer of ice on all the sidewalks and driveways.  I thought it would melt quickly as the temps were suppose to rise in the afternoon, but the rise was very slow so it’s still icy out right now.

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I spent some time today working on holiday gift cards to all of Team Edda and Team Vince.  Both teams seemed to have expanded greatly this year, especially Edda’s out-of-school care team.  We went from one au pair to two evening care-givers and a staff of 8 or 10 at her after school program.

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Finally, Jeremy got home today at 7pm.  I made dinner: a baked chicken dish with rosemary, garlic and lemon.   I don’t know what happened, but in the past year, when faced with having to prep meals for myself (weekday lunch) or the family (usually when Jeremy is out of town), I’ve switched from always longing to go out to eat (even though I might cook dinner at home) to preferring to just find what’s in the pantry and try to make something (usually tasty).  It’s not really an economic thing, it’s just what I find more comforting now.

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Jeremy had a long, frustrating week in Portland.  In order to make stuff better I got his favorite ice cream flavor.

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Outfit, broken wheelchair, IHOP.

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This is an especially good Edda outfit.  Everything matches and nothing is black.  The blue in the pants picks up the blue in the shirt, the red in the bib picks up another accent color in the shirt.  Not often does this happen.

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It’s incredibly hard to pick out Christmas gifts for Edda.  What she wants is a mystery!  A complete mystery.  I think I need to get her a tub of cheeseballs, she will enjoy that.  I probably should also gift her a complete detailing of her wheelchair to get all the crustiness out of it.  By the way, her brakes broke (again!) yesterday, her teacher texted at the end of the day yesterday.  I haven’t even had the chance to look at the broken parts in the baggie they sent home.  It’s really no surprise that it happened, I was just waiting for it.  It’s such a pain to get the brakes repaired on these wheelchairs.  Weeks and weeks of emailing and calling with no response – I should mention, getting these repaired through insurance.  If I want to pay out of pocket, it’s slightly easier, but not really.

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Our Friday night dinner was only the four of us – Edda, Mom & Dad and me.  Vince was out watching the new Star Wars movie.  Jeremy’s still in Portland.

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We had a very enjoyable dinner at the local IHOP.  I was a little concerned that the IHOP would be a little depressing and sticky.  But it was very cheerful and not sticky at all even though they had the four kinds of syrup at each table.  My dad found out that they are open on Christmas and was lobbying for Christmas morning breakfast at the IHOP, but I told him under no circumstances was I going to have Xmas morning breakfast (his birthday breakfast!) at the IHOP no matter how many free coffee refills they were going to give him.

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Portland, Visa card, orchestra

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Jeremy’s kind of having a weird week in Portland on his business trip.  There was a three-inch snow storm which has shut the city down.  He was suppose to host a happy hour last night, but no one showed up.  Some other work stuff (not really related to the Portland trip) is throwing him for a loop.  I wish I was there to give him a hug.  But I’m not, I’m here.

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At least he got to walk to some hipster bike shops where he was able to look at all the bikes he’s been reading about in all of his little biking blogs (1,000 bikes in stock!  no need to put in a special order, they’ve got it right there).  The bike shop employees were happy to show him whatever he wanted to see even though they knew he was from out of town and wouldn’t be able to buy any bikes because they were as snowbound as he was.  No test bike rides though.

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*****

Vince has a couple of birthday parties this weekend.  I usually give cash ($20) to the boys because it’s easy and I’m lazy and it’s fun to watch young people palm a Jackson (soon to be Tubman).  But Vince has mentioned to me that some of his friends want to buy stuff online without bugging (or informing) their parents.  Stuff like extra lives on video games or, you know, subscriptions to the New Yorker.  So I ventured into the Visa gift card aisle.  I tried to talk myself into thinking that the extra $4 (!) on a $25 dollar gift card was part of the “gift” – that it was worth the extra fee for a teenager to open a browser window and buy whatever the heck they wanted.  I did this for at least 40 minutes today.  In the end, I couldn’t do it.  They are getting cash.  Who pays extra cash for cash?  I guess not me.

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Vince all spruced up for his orchestra concert tonight.

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The arrow is just so you know where he is.  The kids sound good!  Not so long ago, they were all playing Mary had a Little Lamb.  And now they are playing Brandenburg concertos (though Vince admitted that he got pianissimo during some hard parts).

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I broke every rule of being a polite concert-goer and snagged a seat in the very last row and texted Jeremy the whole time during the concert.  Poor guy was hosting his happy hour of one at the same time, I thought he needed some company.

We ordered a large supply of fruit (music program fundraiser) which Vince helped me pick up at the end of the concert.

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For all those who couldn’t attend…here you go!

Lydia, Lydia, Lydia.

Lydia, the therapy-dog-in-training, came by at dinnertime today.

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We tried to convince her to abandon her humanitarian mission in life and become a somewhat poorly trained suburban dog here at the Lee/Martin household.  (Lots of treats!  Begging at the table!  Allowed to nap on the couch!)

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She demurred.  She’s going to go the whole way!  First stop, puppy training.  Next stop, full therapy training school!  She reminded me so much of baby Ruby.  Made my heart break and sing at the same time…

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DVD, jowls, AP Chemistry.

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Jeremy packing last night for Portland.  It’s going to snow there – a couple of inches.  I hope his work stuff doesn’t get cancelled as he’s on a plane right now.

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I asked Vince to destroy our DVD player.  The disc tray wouldn’t open anymore and I wanted to throw it away, but I was afraid that one of Edda’s beloved DVDs was stuck in the tray.  He did destroy it, but no DVD was found.

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I accidentally ordered glasses that are exactly like Jeremy’s.  Now I can’t wear these glasses anytime I’m standing next to Jeremy or it’ll be too weird.  Also, I think I’m getting jowls.

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Once or twice a quarter, Vince’s orchestra teacher asks the kids to hand in a video of them playing a certain piece for an assessment of their musical skills.  There are hundreds of videos submitted.  I wondered how the teacher found time to look through all of the videos.  It turns out that he doesn’t.  Vince tells me that he runs all the videos through a software program which then spits out a spreadsheet which analyzes the playing of all the kids.  Then the teacher takes the spreadsheet notes and then uses that to grade the whole class.  If this is true, it’s the weirdest thing ever.

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I found my old AP Chemistry public service announcement video!  Vince laughed at needing to know “how to use computers” and I think I spied some liquid mercury in there somewhere.  I’m not sure they let you set methane on fire or drop sodium into buckets of water anymore.  1988 was still the land of chemistry fun and Mr. Lilga was the best teacher ever.  The teacher who taught me the most perfect equation ever: PV=nRT.  Forget about f=ma or v=1/2at^2.

Mid-december, science video, Portland.

How is it that it is December 12th already?  Sigh.

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Here’s Vince’s group project for his biology class.  I did manage to convince him to put some words from the rubric into the video, so I’m hoping that the odds are ever in his favor.  What do I dislike about this science project?   Well, the actual science content is low.  You know, like cell cycle regulation, telomerase, apoptosis, oncogenes – there are none of these words in the project.  And the project is suppose to be a public service announcement which in my mind is marketing and video editing and not science.   But who knows?  Maybe I don’t give enough credit to marketing and outreach in science which is why I’m not running a well-funded lab with 25 graduate students on some cool thing that I can summarize in 3 sentences.

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Jeremy’s off to Portland for the rest of the week.  There is suppose to be a snowstorm there, hopefully he won’t have too much travel woes.