 | |
| ::: ::: Journal entries: ::: ::: RSS Feed « New! :::
Check out: "I'm sure everyone who made this game is dead by now." Blip. Blip. Blip. Blip. Artifact:
A Dog, Some Pumpkins, and a Baby, starring Ted Danson as Pumpkin On The Left!
| Tuesday, November 15, 2005 This past weekend's activities consisted solely of running a few errands in our neighborhood. Once upon a time, I would have described it as boring, the type of weekend that you're embarrassed to admit to when you're shooting the shit with your coworkers on Monday and when someone asks how your weekend was you say "Oh...it was relaxing". However, in the last few months I have lowered my entertainment threshold significantly. As far as I'm concerned, there is now only one requirement for a successful weekend: LEAVING THE HOUSE. I am all too intimately familiar with the inside of my house these days. Look, there are the nine hundred snout marks on the sliding glass door from Dog. There is the cobweb, lazily twirling in a high corner of the ceiling, whom I have named "Fred". Fred the cobweb. And there is the stain on the carpet that has resisted countless OCD moments of wild scrubbing while hissing "Mother. Fucking. Out, damn spot!" through my gripped-with-cabin-fever jaw. So, it's good to get out sometimes. Plus, it forces me to pay attention to my appearance, IE ensure clothes are not encrusted with formula, eyebrows have not transformed into bristling Jason Lee uni-tuft, hair is not held off face with a binder clip, etc. I no longer consider any pursuit that requires me to leave our driveway to be tedious. Why, even the most uninspiring outings are exponentially enlivened by including a small baby. A simple trip to the grocery store? Ha! HEAR your child clear the produce section with his lusty cries as you frantically scramble for a pacifier! FEEL the disapproving stares of strangers as he waves his naked feet, the socks having fallen off in the backseat of the car! SMELL the irrefutable evidence that the fresh diaper he left the house with has filled with what will later appear to be an entire jar of Skippy: Extra Creamy! It's downright thrilling, really. When I'm by myself it can be exhausting to cart Riley around on chores, despite what the scale reads the boy has the density of Pluto and his carseat somehow increases its weight by a pound for every second that ticks by (also: note to expectant mothers - you know all the nice door-opening that people are doing for you right now? Well, revel in it while you can, because in the near future when you actually are in dire need of an opened door, like when you're balancing a Pluto-dense baby, a purse, your car keys, and an enormous bag of dog food, those same people? Will sail by completely oblivious, letting the door slam in your invisible face). When I'm with JB, though, he can do the heavy lifting and we can at least laugh about it together if Riley produces a 90-decibel level fart in the UPS store. That's basically been our weekend recreation lately, learning how to do everyday things together with a baby in tow. Let me state for the record that the drive-through Starbucks is, in my personal opinion, an invention second only to the printing press in terms of its beneficial impact on mankind. I do miss going to movies. One of these days we'll figure out a babysitting situation, but until then it's DVDs for us. Here is a partial list of what we've rented in the last several weeks from Netflix and Blockbuster: Black Hawk Down I haven't been interested in seeing movies about people with feelings. I change diapers all day long, people, when I sit down to watch a movie I want to see action, and if there's no action, there had better be monsters, and if there aren't any monsters, there damn well better be some offensive language, and failing all that, it should at least be funny as hell. (Low marks for 3 of those: I had forgotten what an annoying movie The Fifth Element is - all I remembered was that it had some cool flying cars. The flying cars do not, repeat, DO NOT make up for Chris Tucker's character. We turned off Love and a .45 about halfway through, because 1) Renee Zellweger and...the dude from Ally McBeal? and 2) oh my god it was so bad. The Ring Two? I should have known better - in fact, I did know better, but I thought there might be some residual creepiness that would make it worthwhile. Um, no. Although the scene with the menacing CGI deer herd is sort of hilariously awesome: "Help! For murky plot reasons, our car is being attacked by badly animated deer! State Farm will never cover this!") Last night, after deciding that between the DVDs and terrible TV shows (Breaking Bonaduce, anyone?) we're spending too much time in front of the television at night, JB and I played Jenga. Jenga! And then I put Riley to bed, said goodnight to Fred and went to sleep at 10 PM. Life is much the same as it always was, and at the same time, everything is totally different now. Today I have very exciting plans to LEAVE THE HOUSE, and so I should probably consider washing my hair or brushing my teeth, but there's a warm and sleepy baby draped in my lap and for just a few more minutes, I think I'll ignore the snout marks and carpet spots and relish the changes instead. :::
::: And because videos make stupidly huge files but are fun, now presenting: the wiggleworm (7.37 MB). |
