On joining the digital age.

I would like to start this post by stating that I am not, in general, a stupid person.  I sometimes do stupid things, and am definitely absent-minded at times.   But (and again, speaking only generally here) I am, on most days, an average level of sharp.

But there are some things which simply confound me.  The short list includes insurance paperwork, my tax return, any type of cell phone that gives you a keyboard to type with, my two-year-old's unexplained obsession with black olives, and digital music.  Actually, digital anything.

Let me state here, before I start ranting, that I am stubborn about changing the way I do things.  My cell phone is just a phone.  I can't email you from it, I can't check Facebook from it, and I'm not writing my blog on it.  It does have a camera, but only because I couldn't find one WITHOUT a camera.  Call me old-fashioned.  I just want my damn phone to be a phone.  It doesn't need to do tricks, too.   I was very stubborn, as well, about switching from VHS tapes to DVD.  I'm not a big TV/movie watcher.  I had all the movies I liked on VHS.  My VCR worked just fine.  I saw no reason to switch.  (We did, since Daddy-O is a movie buff who also sells electronics for a living.  I still don't know which remote to use when.)  But music was my last hold-out.

My car is 10 years old, and I bought it new.  At that time, I was beyond excited because it came with a CD player.  (I will blog about past cars another day, and then you will see why this made me so happy.)  In 2000, a CD player in the car made me Queen Poo of the car trip.  I did become savvy enough with the computer to take advantage of Kazaa (anybody else over 30 remember that brief wellspring of free tunes?).  I made myself a bunch of mixed CDs for the car, which still live there.  I also had a large collection of CDs that lived in the house.  These all worked fine, and, as with the VHS tapes, I saw no reason to switch.  (Call me "stuck in the 90's."  Daddy-O does.) When we moved here, I stored all the CDs in the basement to keep Miss L out of them.  This was a great idea until last summer, when our basement flooded. Three times.

The flood is another long story, but the short version/relevant part is that all my CDs would up floating in 4 inches of toilet water, and ruined.  Now I had no tunes inside.  At the same time, the CD player in my car (which, to be fair, had 180,000 miles of singing along to Cher on it) started getting stingy about what it would play.  Insert CD.  Angry whirr, clicky clicky clicky, whirrrrrrrr, clicky clicky clicky, clicky-SNAP-whirr angry-squirrel-sounds ptooey!  And out would vomit my CD, unplayed.  Well, damn. 

It was then that I made the decision:  I will get an ipod.

This is where I become confused.  I can buy music from the internet...okay, kind of like Kazaa, except I have to pay for it now...I put it on my computer.  I can put it on a CD (again, something I understand), or I can put it on my ipod (which will talk to my computer).  It will also talk to our stereo if you plug it in right.  My computer will ALSO talk directly to the stereo (without the ipod translating) and can play radio stations I miss in Omaha over the internet.  The radio stations are free, so this makes me happy.  I hardly ever do it, though, because I'm always using my laptop and my stereo is in an inconvenient location.  Back to the ipod.   Once my bought-and-paid-for music is on the ipod...my ipod won't talk to my friends' ipods so we can share tunes.  We have to put the music on a CD (which is what I was doing 10 years ago).  I am told my ipod can also be made to talk to the CD player in my car, and doing so involves setting the radio in the car to a certain frequency, which confuses me.  If it talks to my car, why won't it talk to my friends' ipods?  Why can't I take my music (which I bought and paid for) from my computer and put it on my flash drive (which is my brain and never leaves my sight) and move it to friends' computers that way?  Let's cut out the middleman (the CD--which was the problem, because, as stated above, CDs float in toilet water. ipods probably do as well, but people tend to be more careful with them).  I was trying to get away from CDs.  Now I am told I still have to have them?  Why isn't my ipod smart enough to talk to everything, not just select devices?  Why can't it talk to my phone (which, by the way, also has buttons that indicate to me that it could also play music, though I have no idea how to make it do this)?  Maybe I could train my ipod to answer the phone for me.  While it's talking to my car stereo, why doesn't it have word with the CD player and say, "Hey--shape the hell up."

Conclusion: I now have an ipod I can almost make work, more CDs than ever, and a headache.  We listened to 8-track tapes at my parents' house this weekend.  Now THOSE made sense.

Let me in, let me in!

What is there about being a mommy that means you don't get to be in the bathroom alone, ever?

Take last Sunday.  We don't move too fast around here on Sunday mornings.  I get up around 5, make a pot of coffee, give the begging cats their wet food, and curl up with my laptop to work on the lecture for Monday's class (or whatever needs working on.  Sometimes it's Facebook.)  I sit on the couch by the east window, watch the sun come up, and enjoy the stillness that comes with being up before everybody else on the block.  Yes, I'm a morning person.  It's a little sick but I've learned to deal with it.

Usually, sometime between 7 and 8, Miss L will wander out in her footie pajamas with the zoo animals on them, curly blond hair standing out all over, rubbing her eyes.  "Mommy, you're here!"  (I"m not sure why she so frequently sounds surprised about this.)  Sometimes she'll give me a hug, sometimes she'll just announce, "It's time for Super Why!" and trundle off to the bedroom, where Daddy-O (who stays up till ungodly hours of the night playing His Little Games and therefore is of no use to anyone before about 11) is still asleep.  She'll fix that.  "Daddy, where's the remote?  Daddy?  Daaaaaaaaaaaaaddy?  Where's the remote?"  I hear sleepy mumblings from Daddy-O, then the jaunty singing of some happy cartoon show.  Back to my computer.  I can usually get another hour of work in.

Eventually, I make breakfast.  Depending  upon my level of motivation, this might be an elaborate spread including pancakes and eggs...or it might be toast with PB&J.  Just depends on the Sunday.  Miss L doesn't care as long as her tummy gets full.

Then, sometime around mid-morning, it's shower time.  Daddy-O is up and chatting with Miss L at the table as she finishes her toast.  I go into the bathroom.  I close the door but don't lock it.  Adjust the water to my desired level of "hot."  Step in.  Tip head back, let water cascade down my back.  Ahh.

Doorknob rattles.  Shower curtain sways slightly as the door opens.  Miss L's voice:  "Mommy, what are you doing?"

"I'm taking a shower."

"What does it do?"  (This is her favorite questions at the moment.)

"It gets me nice and clean so I smell good."  She ponders this.  Toilet flushes.  Twice.  She is bored but reluctant to leave.  "Go back out to Daddy, please."

"All right."  Little footsteps pat-a-pat out.  At least she's agreeable. She left the door open.  Damn.  I consider getting out and closing it, but the draft isn't too bad, so I don't.

I reach for the shampoo, squirt some out, lather it into my hair.  Halfway through the lathering process, in saunters Daddy-O.  Now, the two-year-old I can understand strolling in like she owns the place (which she basically does)...but for God's sake, I don't bother HIM when he's in the shower.  Nevertheless...he begins speaking.

"Hey..."  Pause.  "Mumblemumble something the internet mumble peanuts mumblemumble timbucktu gravel chainsaw. Okay?"

"What in the hell did you just say?"

"Mumblemumble squeegee harumph koalas bog petard Christmas."

"Can't this wait till after my shower?"  Not only can I not understand him (Daddy-O is a Grand Champion Mumbler), I don't care, and I'm starting to get irritated.

"Fine!"  He walks out, pouting.  I often tell people I have two children: a two-year-old and a twenty-six-year-old.

"Close the door!"  I peek out.  He didn't.  It's still half open.  I still don't get out and push it shut.  Back to washing my hair.

I am rinsing when I hear the bathroom door bump into the wall.  NOW which one is it? Seconds later, the shower curtain wiggles: nudgey nudgey.

One white paw sneaks around the edge of the curtain, followed by a gold-and-white whiskered face.  It's the Smaller One.  He bats the curtain open a few inches.  Behind him, I can see the Large One sitting, waiting expectantly, her big green eyes filled with loving condescension.  The Smaller One goes and sits next to her.  They both stare at me.

"Traitors."

Neither cat blinks.  They sit there and continue staring at me until I get out and dry off. I feel sort of like a circus sideshow act.  Maybe the Monkey Woman, since I didn't shave.

"Is there a point you're trying to make with all this?"

Not a mew, not a movement.  Their mocking stare says it all:  Next time, lock the door, stupid.  And we want more cat food.

Beware of singing toys.

This is an introduction that isn't really an introduction, just a collection of observations.

Adult life is weird.  It's equal parts nostalgia, juggling mangoes, toys that sing (that part multiplies exponentially after you reproduce), coffee, ten-cent armchairs, turkey hats, Velveeta cheese, overlong car trips, dark alleys, sunrises, and Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff for the thousandth time.  I write poems but I don't know that that means anything. I'm a smart-ass, which may be more important.

I have one surprise daughter, which means I fall into the Toys That Sing Exponent.  This is really the best thing ever, though I didn't know it at the time (meaning the "surprise" time, and not necessarily referring to the singing toys, because they're ever-present and sometimes turn themselves on at night, shouting out happy things in the deep dead of 2 a.m. purely to scare the bejesus out of me).  Somehow, one wound up in my car trunk, so that when I turn a corner too sharply, it bellows out, "LET'S GET OUR TELESCOPE!!!!  EL TELESCOPIO!!!!!" in a shrill voice. The trunk toy happens to be Backpack, from Dora.  Backpack reminds me of this little guy I used to work with in my restaurant years, Manny the Dishwasher.  He talked like that too, accent and everything, and he always shouted random things in Spanish at odd moments.  I'd walk through the kitchen carrying a tray full of ketchup bottles to refill, and he'd scream from the dishwashing station, "UN SACAPUNTAS!!!!" (which, I think, means "pencil sharpener").  That, or he'd sing, which is another reason Backpack reminds me of Manny.  The main difference between the two on that score is that Backpack has no off button or volume control (the person who designed this toy was obviously not a parent).  Manny, at least, would pipe down if you promised to buy him a beer after work.

But I was talking about being a parent, right?  Before I got off on the "Manny" tangent?  I should also state that I only had Backpack in my trunk for a short car trip to the grocery store, and then out he came.  (It's that lying-to-the-tell-the-truth-poet-thing, sorry.  Get used to it.  If the cat needs to have two heads for the blog to make better sense, the cat will probably wind up with two heads.)  I have two cats, the Larger One Who Rules the Universe, and the Smaller One Who Needs a Crash Helmet.  The Smaller One needs a crash helmet because he has a sunny personality and is not bright enough (yet) to run from my daughter, who has succeeded in putting him in a drawer at least two times.  Pets in drawers...one more thing they don't warn you about parenthood. 

So far, we've covered singing toys, mildly disturbing former co-workers, why I exaggerate and tweak the details sometimes but won't actually lie to you in a global sense, the joys of parenting, and kitties in peril.  That may be enough for my first post.  We'll see how this goes.