By Julie

Last week, Ana discovered during her nightly peek at the aquarium that the fish had died of a disgusting white fuzz that enveloped their entire bodies. Kevin looked it up and learned that it was a fungal infection that took over the gills, i.e. they had been suffocated to death.

I left the room and asked Kevin to scoop out the bodies because my stomach couldn't handle it. In comparison, the kids handled the deaths of their pet fish just fine, until Alex discovered that there was one last fish still alive. When he was told it probably wouldn't make it, he took it very hard. Poor kid.

The snails are still alive and well though, and Ana still visits them every night. In a couple of weeks, once Kevin has gotten a chance to clean the tank, we'll get some more fish. Or who knows, maybe we'll let ourselves be talked into getting a crab or tortoise.


This weekend we invited some friends over. One is expecting a boy only a few weeks after my due date. She was happy to take our old baby boy clothes off our hands, so I spent some time weeding them to make sure nothing inappropriate got passed along. Like this gem of a vest. I don't know about you, but "star warm" sounds way too hot to me. I don't think any baby needs a vest that will keep them THAT warm.

Today was all about me - and Cesar Chavez, I suppose, but mostly me. Kevin and I both had the day off, and he took me out for brunch and shopping. We stopped at the Kiehl's counter at Nordstrom where I embarassed the saleswoman asking if Kiehl's made nipple cream. (They don't.) Then we went to Macy's because I've been so very depressed about my lack of clothing options. Many of my maternity outfits are 10s on the cutesy scale, which was fine back when I didn't need people to take me seriously. But things are different now. So, despite having only 4 more weeks to go, we got me some new shirts all in the name of workplace effectiveness.

Labels: kids, pets, pregnancy, shopping

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By Kevin

When I started talking about getting a 'sporty' car a few years back, I saw it as the final realization of a dream that started when I was about fifteen. My first two car choices were driven primarily by a severe income shortage. The 70' VW Beetle that was given to me with only 220,000 gentle miles on it and the '93 Civic VX hatchback which was the first car I actually bought.

These days when I think back to '93 it's usually to recall the year in which I met Julie. We got married a year later, started talking about having kids, and rather suddenly I found myself driving an '00 Honda Odyssey. Now there's nothing at all wrong with the Odyssey. I still think it's the greatest minivan on the planet and when I bought it I was very much taken with the idea of carting the family around in a big comfy boat van.

As the kids grew up and started calling it "Daddy's car" to differentiate it from the Prius which was of course "Mommy's car" I started to think that perhaps it would be fun to get something a little smaller and more responsive. I missed driving a manual transmission and feeling a connection with the pavement.

Which takes us back to the quest for a 'sporty' car and several years of trying to reconcile my new, family-oriented life with my nearly twenty year old lust for something fast and entirely irresponsible. I have read reviews, stared at specs, and created massive spreadsheets. It turns out the main problem I had wasn't picking a car, it was picking an acceptable level of practicality. All the cars I wanted in my teens were two-seaters or 2+2 at best. Given the realities of picking up the kids after work every day, these cars would end up sitting in the driveway while I slogged around town in the minivan M-F. Then there were the times I swung the other direction and convinced myself that I really didn't need much 'sport' in my sports car to be happy.

K: Well, I've picked my new car.
J: Again?
K: Yep. Civic Si Sedan.
J: A Civic?
K: No no, it's fine, it's a 5-seater. They're bigger than they used to be.
J: A Civic?
K: It's the Si...
J: Your mid-life crisis car will NOT be a Civic.

Well, I'm definitely too old to be having a quarter-life crisis so lets call this a one-third-life crisis. Whatever. I'm fortunate to have a wife who absolutely refuses to back down when she knows I'm being a stupid-head, so she forcibly kept me away from Honda dealerships until I found something better.

Yesterday she bought it for me.



Seats five. 6-speed manual transmission.
Five doors. 1/4 mile in low 14s @101mph.
Room for groceries. Turbocharged 2.3L DFI.
Nice smooth ride. 18" alloys on multi-link suspension.
Did I mention the five seats? Limited slip differential.
$21,800. 263hp and 280ft*lbs of torque.

When Alex first saw it yesterday he said "Yeah! Daddy got his race car!" and when I picked Ana up from the babysitter today she ran out into the driveway, hugged my car (!) and jumped into her car seat.

Labels: kids, midlife crisis, shopping, toys

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By Julie

This weekend we reached an important milestone in our financial life: we stuck to our credit card budget two statements in a roll! I haven't been this excited since we paid off all our student loans. Back then it was me wielding the whip that got us there, but I haven't shown much financial restraint since. Sure, I've gone through all the motions of making a budget, but it was just this number in an Excel spreadsheet. Every month I'd pay all the bills and tell Kevin, oh well, we've gone over again.

Finally Kevin got tired of hearing that we weren't putting as much into savings as I'd hoped, so he made it his personal challenge for 2008 to stick to the plan. He started logging into our accounts every week and coloring in a thermometer representing our budget, and during the final week of each billing cycle we've been finding ourselves going to extremes to keep from bursting the thermometer. Not that there's any real consequence to bursting the thermometer. It's just a fun game.



Speaking of games, Alex drew this impressively accurate representation of Pacman using the pattern editor in Animal Crossing. He has never played Pacman before. When we asked him where he'd seen it before, he said he noticed it on somebody's T-shirt. If the kid does not have a photographic memory, I'd say he has something close to it.

Over the 3-day weekend we had a Harry Potter movie marathon at home. By Monday night we'd watched all five movies, and when I went back to work today I was experiencing serious Harry Potter withdrawal. I don't know how I'm going to make it 'til November when the Half-Blood Prince finally comes out.

One thing I noticed was that Alex watched both Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets with rapt attention but barely paid attention to Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and Order of the Phoenix. Kevin thought it was just short attention span, but I have a different theory. As a kid I never paid much attention to movies or TV shows unless they had at least one character who was my age, and I think that's what happening here. In movies 1 and 2, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were ages 11 and 12, older than Alex but still young enough for him to feel like they're not much older. By the 3rd movie, the characters are 13 years old and full of teenage sturm und drang, and I don't think Alex can relate to that just yet.

With all the lazing around this weekend I experienced the worst leg cramp ever Monday night. My first thought was blood clot (panic!!!) but Kevin assures me I had it this bad the last two pregnancies and rubbed my leg until the pain went away. Also I'm pretty sure my cold is gone and that my runny nose is just due to rhinitis of pregnancy, yet something else I'd experienced the last two times. And finally, I'm back up to +17 pounds, thanks to a huge batch of oatmeal cookies I baked and subsequently ate. (Hey, at least they were made of oatmeal.)

Labels: harry potter, kids, pregnancy, shopping, toys

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By Kevin

I just found this interesting blog post by Swedish archaeologist and blogger, Dr Martin Rundkvist who thinks that our "entire bipartisan system maps onto the conservative half of European politics." Specific mention is made of the fact that all of the US candidates are pro death-penalty, none are strict gun control advocates, and all make frequent mention of their religious views in public. All of which would apparently be extremist views in Sweden.

In search of a more international view of the political spectrum I found The Political Compass. Apparently this is quite a popular test (even has a Facebook app!) but it was my first time coming across it. Six short pages of questions map your views onto separate economic and social axis. The four corresponding quadrants are liberal-left (Ghandi), liberal-right (Milton Friedman), authoritarian-left (Robert Mugabe), and authoritarian-right (Margaret Thatcher). Having gone through the survey and accompanying information I would tend to agree with Dr Rundkvist's assertion about our presidential hopefuls. Other than Ron Paul, who I would throw in the liberal-right quadrant, all of our candidates would seem to reside in the authoritarian-right.

High-minded political theory discussion aside, however, the real reason I loved his blog entry was this quote:

The Republican presidential candidates are really, really scary people in my view. So all of us in the world at large who live under the shadow of US political hegemony are holding our breaths, hoping that Clinton or Obama will make it into office. They're pretty bad, but the alternative would be unspeakably dreadful.

Fabulous.

On a slight tangent, does anybody know if the people working tables in the cosmetics/vitamins section at Costco are on commission? The lady handing out Ocean Mist Saline coupons got into a fight with me tonight over whether I had a cold or not!

authoritarian-right: mumble mumble mumble OCEAN MIST! mumble mumble.
me: No thanks.
authoritarian-right: I saw your red nose. It's allergies!
me: Actually I have a cold.
authoritarian-right: It's NOT a cold! It's ALLERGIES!
me: Uh... believe me, it's a cold.
authoritarian-right: No, it's allergies. mumble mumble (fades into the background noise)

Labels: meds, politics, shopping

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By Julie

My latest read is A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place. I'm about halfway through it. The writing is not exemplary, which is too bad, since it does make some good arguments against our society's illogical bias towards over-organization. I'm still not fond of my crammed drawers or messy desks, both at home and at work, but I'm pretty sure spending more time alphabetizing, labeling, and container-izing is not going to solve anything. If anything has helped it's Scaling Down: Living Large in a Smaller Space, which I'd read last year. I came away from that book convinced that less really is more, and I've been slowly but surely making headway against my packrat tendencies.

The best weapon I've found so far is to avoid shopping and bringing more things into the house. Whenever I do go shopping, I tend to buy too many things, whether it's the jumbo bag of onions or yet another V-neck T that I do not need, just because it's on sale. When I give a shopping list to Kevin and ask him to go to the store, on the other hand, he tends to come home with only what was on the list. Judging by our credit card bills, this strategy has already kept a few hundred dollars worth of stuff out of our house this year, so I think it's one worth continuing. Since I do not actually like shopping, it won't even feel like I'm depriving myself of anything.

Labels: books, shopping

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By Julie

I'm now 26 weeks, +13 pounds, 2 pounds less than a few days ago. Not sure what happened, maybe I'm retaining less water? Anyway, I've got about 13 weeks left. I can't wait. I'm tired of people looking at my belly instead of my face while talking to me.

We had a busy weekend. Went shopping for a few things Friday night for Alex's birthday party on Saturday, which went better than I had expected. I'd rent a party facility again, even if I weren't pregnant and my back weren't killing me.


In fact, I'm already planning something similar for Ana's party next month. I'll be a month closer to my due date and all the happier for not having to deal with all that cooking and cleaning.


Sunday we went to a lovely baby shower for friends who are having a girl. Most of the women I know who are pregnant are also having girls. Fortunately I do have one friend who is definitely having a boy. Yay, someone to take all of Alex's old baby clothes off my hands!

Yesterday I woke up with a horrendous pain in my abdomen. Baby girl had turned during the night, and she proceeded to take all morning to wiggle into a different position. Meanwhile I gritted my teeth in pain as she shoved either her feet or her head against my stomach.

Unfortunately, all this took place during my glucose tolerance test. The drink was as disgusting as I remembered. Hopefully my blood test comes back okay and I won't have to go through the three hour test like I did with both Alex and Ana. Just thinking about the needles fills me with dread.


After the glucose test we looked at couches in preparation for turning our study into a coffee house. We didn't buy one, but we saw several that would work.

Then I got a hair cut. Alex wondered why. He liked my hair the way it was. (Long.) I thought that was very sweet of him to say.

Then we went home and I helped Ana walk on Kevin's back. She's the perfect weight for working out the kinks, as long as she doesn't jump.

I had other things to say but I can't remember what. Blame it on my pregnant brain.

Labels: kids, pregnancy, shopping

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By Julie

We finished putting together the last of our Christmas cards today. The one advantage in waiting so long is that we were able to include a family portrait taken in front of our own tree. Ana and I had sent Kevin and Alex off to Home Depot to get "the biggest, prettiest tree they've got," and they chose this gorgeous, 7 foot tall Noble fir. It makes the house smell nice.

Today, while the kids were playing in the living room, we took all the presents into our bedroom and wrapped them there, leaving a few unlabeled, from "Santa." Believing in the chubby bearded guy was Kevin's tradition growing up, not mine, but the kids hear about Santa from school, daycare, and pop culture, and I don't see any harm in it, so we're preserving the tradition as long as the kids keep believing.

So all the prep work is done. The ingredients for our holiday meal are in the kitchen, waiting to be cooked. What's left to do but to start planning for Alex and Ana's birthday parties in January and February? Today I called up a party place and made a reservation for Alex's party. Apparently everybody else too busy with Christmas to think about January birthday parties, because I got my number one choice of date and time, yay!

Tomorrow's our last day at work before a week-long holiday. If you don't hear from us, it's because we'll be eating lots, sleeping late, hanging out with the kids, working just a teensy bit from home, and buying up all the good deals at the after-Christmas sales. See you in the new year!

Labels: kids, parenting, shopping

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By Julie

I'm still sick, hence the grumpiness. I can't believe I'm still sick. Why the heck am I still sick???



Saturday I took Kevin to see Wicked. It was good. So good, in fact, that I felt compelled to buy my very first Broadway musical shirt, a green thermal with the words, "Green for Good" emblazoned across my ample pregnant chest. I felt slightly less grumpy.

We also celebrated Kevin's birthday with my family. My mom prepared a delicious hot pot, which didn't quite clear my sinuses. Over dinner, I grumped that my colds often turned into sinus infections, and my sis the doctor advised me to get a sinus cleansing kit. Apparently everybody else in the universe has already been told about this product by their doctors, because when we stopped at the drugstore on the way home, that section of the store was cleaned out.



Sunday Ana helped me baked birthday cookies for Kevin. Afterwards I collapsed on the couch from exhaustion, but I was slightly less grumpy.

Monday morning, after a bad night's sleep, I had to wake up at an ungodly hour to drive myself to the airport for a meeting in San Jose. During the flights there and back my ears hurt even more than usual from being sick. Also, it was REALLY COLD in San Jose. I had the foresight to wear a knit cap, gloves, and ski jacket, but my jeans didn't provide much protection. I was extra grumpy.



Tuesday I took the day off to recover from Monday, and I kept Ana home from daycare to cheer myself up. My grumpiness petered off into a mostly manageable lethargy.

Today I went back to work. I answered a bunch of emails, attended some meetings, and blew my nose a LOT. I'm grumpy again.

Now I'm going to go cleanse my sinuses. Have you ever cleansed your sinuses? It's not an attractive procedure. So unattractive, in fact, that I feel more sorry for the model in the instruction booklet that came with my sinus cleansing kit than I do for myself, because modeling the right way to cleanse one's sinuses is right up there with modeling support hose and nursing bras.

Labels: food, kids, meds, music, shopping

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By Julie

I'm sick. I'm exhausted, misanthropic, and full of boogers.

To-do list:
* Finish holiday shopping (50% done, due 12/25)
* Buy a tree (0% done, due yesterday)
* Review two books (0% done, due yesterday)
* Buy a toilet paper holder and door hook for our new bathroom (0% done, due whenever)
* Research answer to question from colleague (10% done, due yesterday)
* Cook veggies in fridge before they all go bad (25% done, due this weekend for mushrooms, next Wednesday for everything else)
* Review an article for a journal (0% done, due -- believe it or not -- 12/26)
* Prep for meeting on Monday (50% done, due this weekend)
* Do lit review for poster session on the off chance it actually gets accepted (10% done, due -- too close to baby time!)
* Replace carpet in study with wood floors (0% done, due whenever I guess :P)
* Write script for two videos (0.5% done, due -- would have been nice this term, but I'll settle for next term)
* Get haircuts for Alex and Kevin (0% done, due a month ago! They look like hippies!)
* Make holiday cards (0% done, due -- is it gonna happen this year???)
* Celebrate Kevin's birthday (50% done, due this weekend! :D )

Labels: food, home improvement, shopping

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By Kevin

1. Where My Time Goes

The kind clerk in the jury room gave me some things to think about when she discussed the way Los Angeles County maintains its juror master list. Essentially, they merge the DMV and voter records for the county and the unique combination of your name and address is used to determine when someone is on the list twice. The problem is that if the DMV shows a John Q. Public at 123 Main St. and the voter roll lists a John Quincy Public at the same address, Jury Services considers this to be two different people. If you're on the list twice, you get called, on average, twice as often.

Thank you, kind Jury Services lady, for finally explaining to me why I had more jury experience than any of the 34 other potential jurors in the courtroom today. Seriously, some of these people are old enough that they could have witnessed the LA Superior Court system being founded in 1851 and they've only been called once before. I have been summoned no less than seven times to participate in the fine tradition of ensuring justice for my fellow man and have ended up on three juries. Now should I try to get my middle name added to my voter registration or get it removed from my driver's license?

2. I Speed, You Speed, We (don't) All Speed

My assigned court was a relatively small one for LA, but it's not like there's any empty space around here. There are probably around half-a-million people who would indicate that this courthouse is closer to them than any other. So why do all the people in line to deal with traffic citations know each other? I kid you not, I walked past this line six times over two days and three of those times I got to witness a mini reunion of long-lost pals. Hey Joe, they caught you?! Hah, they're always on me, it can't be stopped! Nothin' to do for it, eh?? Nah man, you know... so how's the wife?

3. The Shopping Factor

These days it's quite difficult to get excused from jury service altogether. What is relatively easy (for those of us who pick up the kids from childcare at least) is getting your service moved to a more convenient location. I got the courthouse with a shopping mall across the street. I wish I could say that I planned this, but fate can be a wonderful companion.

It turns out that the judge doesn't rearrange his schedule just because there are 34 people waiting around for a particular case so that they can find out which twenty get to go home and which fourteen don't. He spends a couple hours in the morning with his "normal case load" which is followed by a fifteen minute break. After the break he'll either finish up the last batch or just chill with the Deputy DA and the defense counsel for a while. We, the potential jurors, the mass of humanity clogging up the hallway for a couple hours, don't get invited in until, oh, about 40 minutes before the hour-and-a-half lunch break. After lunch it improves somewhat with a little over two hours of jury selection action peppered with breaks and a few leftover morning cases. Then the court closes at 4:15 and ends the milling around until the next day.

The major benefit of all this is that I finally caught up on some of my shopping, and the next time you get a summons, I expect you to do the same!

4. Why Our Government Shouldn't Meddle In The Market

Did you know that more or less the first time the up-and-coming industrialists of England stood up to the landed gents in Parliament it was over protective corn tariffs? 1813 or thereabouts, if my information is correct. Well, the landowners were a tad pissed because the whole war with Napoleon and some bad weather made for a pretty lousy harvest and some entrepreneurial chaps decided to run a little import business to take advantage of the high corn prices. The Parliament naturally went along with the idea of massive corn import tariffs because they'd rolled over for the landowners for hundreds of years (think feudalism) and it would have all gone swimmingly except for one thing. The price of corn directly impacted what the industrialists had to pay their labor - hard to run the cogs of industry when you're dead of starvation apparently. This cut into their bottom line and they weren't having it any more.

It would all sound remarkably like today except for the fact that now industry is in bed with the legislators and the land owners and the only bottom line suffering is mine and yours. ADM gets to buy subsidized fake sugar and ethanol that takes more fossil fuel to produce than it saves at the pump. Corn growers get fat subsidies. We The People pay for it, come April 15.

What does this have to do with Jury Duty you may well ask? Well, aside from shopping I got a chance to catch up on some of my long overdue reading. Any activity that carries the side benefit of hours of reading time is a good one.

5. They Aren't My Peers

I'm not sure who started this mis-quoting of the Sixth Amendment as a "jury of your peers" because I just looked it up and it doesn't say anything about your peers. It says you get an "impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed". This has been said before, and I'm not generally one to beat a dead horse (is that saying correct? why would anybody do that?) but these people are definitely not my peers.

When it was time for the defense council to have a chat with the first twenty potential jurors, he tried to get off to a good start by asking some leading questions. Questions which could only be answered in the affirmative by any US citizen. Or so he thought.

Defense: So, juror number... four. Would you say that it's a good idea that we have here in this country that the defendant doesn't have the burden of proof? Do you think that's a good thing?

Four: No.

Defense: ???

Four: I think that if he's arrested and all, he better have a pretty good excuse for why he shouldn't go to jail, right?

Defense: Okay, honest opinion. That's good. (maybe they didn't understand, lets go back to the start...) Juror number... eight. Do you think the way it is here, with the defendant assumed to be innocent, is a good system? Or do you think it would be better if we just believed what the arresting officer says and assume them to be guilty?

Eight: I trust police.

Defense: Okaaay. Right. But, isn't it plausible that an officer might make a mistake?

Eight: I guess that's possible.

Defense: Right. So we assume that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty so th

Eight: But I trust police more than criminals.

And so on.

Honestly I could write pages and pages of this crap except that by this point I was trying so damn hard not to laugh because I was right in front of the judge and he was looking all grim at the state of society and wondering why he bothered coming to work anyway and it wouldn't do to laugh and... well, I sort of tuned the rest out.

6. What You Absolutely Should Not Say If You Want To Serve

I really didn't have an opinion one way or the other about serving, honestly. The case was only expected to last a week at the outside and I already mentioned the shopping and reading benefits. That was until the lawyers and the judge made nice and agreed on The Twelve. I was number thirteen.

Allow me a short digression here on why thirteen is bad. I show up for a week. Pretend I'm a real juror. Listen to everything the boring people say. Take notes. Form opinions about the credibility of witnesses. Get all the information I need in order to decide the case. Then I sit in the hall for as long as it takes the real jurors to decide what to do with the guy. I'm against completely pointless effort on principle and this passed all obvious tests for qualification as such.

Even given all that, I wasn't exactly trying to sabotage my chances when they started questioning the group of eight potential alternate jurors. I was actually thinking about my (non) peers back in the previous point when he asked me the ridiculous question.

Defense: Juror number thirteen. How do you feel about the burden of proof?

Me: I'm sorry, what was the question?

Defense: Do you think it's good that [the Deputy DA] must prove my client's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt before a guilty verdict can be returned?

Me: I'm in favor of The Constitution, yes.

That was his last question. Immediately afterwards I was excused by the Deputy DA.

Labels: books, politics, shopping

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By Julie

I don't know what possessed me to even consider buying clothes during this time of body limbo, but so far this pregnancy I've bought four blouses, a pair of ankle boots, and this dress. I find the collar irresistible. The fit is flattering too, and it isn't even from the maternity section.

I'm at 18 and a half weeks, far enough along for an ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby, so that's what we did today. The kids came along for the show. We all had a good time seeing the baby during the examination, but we couldn't tell if Alex and Ana were getting a brother or sister until the doctor started tilting me this way and that way to make the baby move. Finally we were able to catch a glimpse between the little legs and learn that we're having a GIRL.

I was unprepared for the flood of emotions that hit me as we left the exam room. You would think that this being baby number three, I'd be an old hand at this mothering business, but all the insecurities that I felt when I found out I was pregnant with Ana came rushing back to be revisited. What it all comes down to is this: can I be the role model that this baby needs? Because even if her personality ends up being nothing like mine, she's still going to look to me for clues on how to behave as her same gender parent. I guess after almost four years of mothering a daughter I still don't have it all figured out yet.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting, pregnancy, shopping

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By Julie

We did some Veterans' Day weekend shopping today, including a stop at Home Depot to pick up a big five gallon bucket of paint.

Even though the bathroom construction is done, life in our house hasn't returned to normal yet. Kevin's been scraping the acoustic popcorn off the ceiling of our bedroom. It's not too hard -- you spritz the popcorn with water and then use a paint scraper to peel it off -- but Kevin says it smells like vomit. (Strangely, I don't smell a thing.) After the popcorn's gone he'll repaint the ceiling and then start laying down the new flooring.

Here's the hard part for me. Unlike Kevin, I actually enjoy painting, but unfortunately I'm not allowed near the stuff in my current state. This happened the last time I was pregnant too. We had designed these awesome magnetic walls for the dining room, but Kevin had to do all the painting by himself -- all five layers of it!

So here I sit, far away from the painting supplies, just twiddling my thumbs. Meanwhile we're still sleeping in the dining room, and Daisy is still living with my parents. Kevin hopes to finish the bedroom in a couple of weeks (at least I'll be able to help during the floor laying portion). The day after Thanksgiving Kevin -- with the help of his brother -- is going to do some very loud (i.e. dog unfriendly) demolition work in the house, but after that we should be able to bring Daisy home.

So other than paint, we also bought a lot of clothes. We navigated across four freeways for a special trip to South Coast Plaza because they have the only H&M with a men's section worth visiting in Southern California. Since I don't buy their women's clothes, I think of the place as Kevin's store and have thus dubbed the place Homosexuals & Metrosexuals. It's a fun place to people-watch and be people-watched. I had sat my pregnant butt down on the floor while Kevin wandered through the racks, and on his way back holding an armload of clothes to show me, Kevin caught a gay interracial couple smiling at me cradling a sleepy Ana and playing games with Alex.

For some reason Kevin's story reminds me of the time YEARS ago when I caught a burly truck driver looking at me cooing at little baby Alex at a fast food restaurant, waiting for Kevin to bring our food. The truck driver then turned to his equally burly friend and said, "Ever thought about having kids?"

Labels: home improvement, kids, nablopomo, shopping

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By Kevin

Today was one of those days in SoCal that makes people from colder climes particularly jealous. 88 degrees in November, go figure. We drove over to San Marino to visit Doll House Lady in advance of their permanent closure on 15th December. 70% off everything in the store and they have some really amazing miniatures. I'm really quite amazed that we got out of there for under $100, it's not like I tried to stop Julie from getting more. She came home with a fantastic wood-burning stove and matching copper kettle, a hand cranked sewing machine with table and stool, and loads of other great finds. Now I just have to make the time between home improvement projects to finish the (much assembly required) doll house I got for her ages ago.

After the lilliputian furniture hunting, we stopped at the Santa Anita mall for food and a spin on the carousel. The kids rode Seal and Zebra, both on the upper level. I have a feeling they're going to start asking about a return trip soon.

If you have two monitors on your computer, be sure to check out this Lifehacker article. Years ago I had a Matrox dual output card which handled stretching the task bar in the drivers. These days I'm running AMD video and the single-monitor task bar has been driving me nuts. I'm glad I came across that article in my feed because it has lots of great suggestions for getting the most out of your dual display setup.

Labels: los angeles, nablopomo, shopping, toys

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