The week started off slow. It's summer, what can you expect? Also I can't really remember what actually happened early on.
I think the chip-in farm may or may not have been visited. Story time may or may not have happened. I am pretty sure we did not pick up library passes this week, so that means no drumlin farm or zoo. But what else? read more »
We tried to stay wet.
One morning, I took the girls to the Lexington park -- because Paela likes their slide selection better -- but the heat and sun were so stifling, we changed our plans and went to an outdoor splash park instead. I wouldn't say that our area is "ripe" with free summer entertainment, but we have managed to stay wet via splash parks or swimming or whatever. Both girls are quite the tadpoles.
I had another phone interview for another possible job. I really wish there was more I could say about these, but until I am out of the hiring season, I'd rather not mention too many details. My interviews go well, but with the job market commanding hundreds to thousands of applications per opening, it makes employment seem distant. read more »
It was hot this week. And hot some more. And then another day it was hot too.
We stayed indoors with blinds closed trying to escape the heat. We were grateful beyond words for the little window AC unit. We bought some more fans because the bedrooms don't get much of the cool AC air into them. And we looked forward to the predicted rain that was supposed to cool things down a bit. Mostly, the rain just made things muggier. We didn't realize that was even possible.
But, Paela and Wayne and Aderyn enjoyed the spray park in Waltham one morning. So much so that Aderyn stayed up well past her naptime that day. Paela asked me yesterday if she could go to the spray park again, or the beach again. You think she likes water activities??
Another day was a mall play area trip because the mall is air conditioned. Notice a theme? And story time was attempted and abandoned. It was a different library from normal, so what can we say? read more »
Salisbury Beach is a dump. The kind of dump that shouldn't still exist in this world of high technology and advanced marketing analysis. But it does, and it is a spot to treasure. It isn't that we fell in love with the "townies" who had sun-baked themselves into a cancerous leather-like skin, or the crusty boardwalk food -- but the ambiance was definitely so thick you could cut it with a knife. We decided to spend the morning of July 5th at the beach when we realized Aderyn hadn't been to the ocean yet. read more »
"When Picasso died I read in a magazine that the had made four thousand masterpieces in his lifetime and I thought, "Gee, I could do that in a day." So I started. And then I found out, "Gee it takes more than a day to do four thousand pictures." You see, the way I do them, with my technique, I really thought I could do four thousand in a day. And they'd all be masterpieces because they'd all be the same painting. And I started and I got up to about five hundred and then I stopped. But it took more than a day, I think it took a month. So at five hundred a month, it would have taken me abuot eight months to do four thousand masterpieces. It was disillusioning for me, to realize it would take me that long."
--Andy Warhol. "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol" read more »
Paela and Aderyn played a lot with trains this week. Aderyn is loving her newfound mobility. She is a happier camper the better she gets at crawling, as she can now chase us when we leave the room.
Or get into the cat food.
Or tear apart the train tracks Paela built up.
You can imagine how Paela and Star car feel about this. On the plus side, Paela is beginning to learn the powers of distraction. For example, we teach her to create decoy lines of the train cars she doesn't care about, in order to protect the line of her favorite train cars from the destructive powers of a baby on the move. She is learning, as this morning she used a decoy of the lego helicopter in order to keep Aderyn from crawling into the cat litter box. Go Paela, go. read more »
I got a new phone. And after a few days, it broke. The screen is really weak and it cracked in my pocket during daily use. This isn't a good phone for me. Sadly, my phone broke on June 15th. If that date is meaningless to you, it is because you aren't one of the 600,000 people who were attempting to get the newest iphone on the first day it went on sale. So, I tried to get my phone exchanged and failed. Eventually -- after AT&T's service collapsed under duress -- it was decided that they would postpone sales of iPhones. But their company is still reeling from the destruction left in the wake. How do I know? Because I have tried on three occasions to exchange my phone. Each time, I manage to get on the phone with someone, but then something disrupts the transaction. Once it was the inability of the service provider to access their own databases. read more »
After a month or two of trying, we finally got out to the ICA this week. What with emergency room trips and crazy game day traffic, we were starting to think we would not see the Roni Horn exhibit before it left the ICA! But finally, three days before the end, we made it out there without much ado. We enjoyed the trip. Aderyn slept in the moby, Paela loved the sculptures, and we even found cheap parking. Hooray.
Though Wayne commented that he always forgets how small the ICA is. read more »
There were plenty of hot muggy days and the other days were thunder storms. Paela informs us that clouds say "boom" in the night; apparently they wake Aderyn as well. Aderyn, at times, can be a very sensitive sleeper. However, we have found that Aderyn is at the age she wants to put herself to sleep. We give her a pacifier and lay her down in her crib and she does the rest. This means she does a better job in the night, even though we are still at three (ten minute or less) wakings. But, no longer do we have two hour wake periods at one in the morning. read more »
