Well, nearly two weeks later, we’ve finally been told that when I hit the deer I did a little over $5100 of damage to Tim’s car, and it’ll probably take until about the middle of next week to fix. Whee. We’re not too happy with Farmer’s about the length of time it’s taken to even find out what’s going on, though. I get that it’s a) the holidays and b) the winter slippery season and all, but still.

No New Year’s resolutions for me. There are things I intend to get done this season, but I’d decided on those before winter officially began. (And why does winter “begin” on the solstice, anyway? How does that make sense?) Like Jen, I see no reason to wait for New Year’s to do that kind of thing. Also like Jen, I used the Resolution Randomizer to find a resolution anyway. My resolutions?

1. Refrain from hiding staplers during happy hour.
2. Explore rolling my eyes every day.
3. Forget about dancing in a daze.
4. Refrain from singing Neil Diamond in the refrigerator.
5. Forget about doing shots in bed.

Upgraded to Wordpress 2.7. (Thanks, Tim!) My assessment, so far: It rocks. I much prefer the sidebar navigation to the previous across-the-top thing, and I like having the dashboard as customizable and functional as it is too. (Though I wish I could assign categories to posts that I’m QuickPressing!)

You know what else rocks? The Prius.

Yesterday afternoon, Tim’s mom came over and watched Natalie while we went out shopping. When we got back, she told us (with a good-natured but long-suffering expression) that there were some songs she just never wanted to hear again. We reminded her that she was the one who bought probably 90% of the noise-making toys in the house.

The latest in Natalieness: Three more teeth, forks, hugs and kisses on request, willfulness, social directing (sit HERE!), a chair that plays music, attempts to put her own shoes and socks on (unsuccessful), still pushing other kids around (sigh), eight plastic frogs, a toy car with no moving parts, closing all sorts of doors. Also: still adorable. No partridge in a pear tree, sorry.

It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be all right
–Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”

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I finally managed to go through our Christmas photos, and added a few to Natalie’s public gallery:
Peek
Giggle
Christmas is FUN!
I Dunno

There’s also a full gallery of all our Christmas photos (and they’re not even ALL of Natalie, I swear) in the private area for those with access. All the various gatherings we went to are kind of thrown together since I didn’t get to any of the photos until today.

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When I ordered my full bottle of Belle Epoque, as my reward for having hit 50K in NaNoWriMo, Tim decided it was time to try some scents for himself. So there was enough to the order that we got five free samples thrown in. I’m not going to sit down and do a full exploration of each of them as I have in the past, but here are some quick impressions…

Wings of Azrael (Warm myrrh swirled with a bittersweet blend of violet, Lily of the Valley, juniper, cypess and cajeput.): At first, this one was a deep floral. It reminded me somewhat of the New Orleans scent, lush but with a hint of something else underneath. As it dried down, though, the myrrh started to come out. In the end it was reminiscent of Rose Cross and Hymn, incense mixed with flowers. It’s not bumping Rose Cross out of its top-three slot in my own personal ranking, but it’s pretty nice.

Blood Pearl (Lustrous, sanguine, soft and lavish: soft orris, blood musk, and coconut.): Reminds me of the scent Manila. Coconutty, with some woody undertones. Tropical. Not my new favorite, but not bad either. Didn’t last long, though, unfortunately.

Ogun ([H]eavy and dark cigar tobacco, gin and juniper, melon, chili pepper and a touch of honey.): A heavy scent, fairly masculine. (Maybe Tim should try it.) Almost musky, but I think that’s just the way the tobacco and the honey mix. A smoky scent, but without actually smelling of smoke, if that makes sense. The longer it stays on, the more prominent the honey becomes, which I like since that’s one of my favorite BPAL notes.

Loup Garou (The wild, untamed essence of lycanthropy. Primeval in its raw power and insatiable hunger: juniper, cypress and galangal with the barest touch of eucalyptus.): Pine. WOW, pine. At first it’s pretty overwhelming, but as it dries down it does soften somewhat.

Saturnalia (Unrestrained revelry, unchained licentiousness! Violet deepened with vetiver.): In the bottle, very harsh. On me, occasionally takes on a powdery, flowery scent — but mostly smells like wet paint. Not a fan.

Tim got Wrath, Plunder, and Bengal, all spicy scents with lots of cinnamon in them. I need a closer sniff of each before I say much about them.

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(Some/many of you have probably already heard this, as word has been getting around by word-of-mouth, but it seems like the sort of thing I ought to record in written form too.)

This all begins maybe a week before Christmas, when I started to hear my brakes squeaking and also realized I needed an oil change. When we got the oil changed, they told us that the AC belt would need changed sometime in the near future as well. Besides that, we knew that regularly scheduled maintenance indicated a transmission flush and a new timing belt. So: Brakes, AC belt, transmission flush, timing belt.

So then last Tuesday we took my car to the shop. Since Tim was off work and I wasn’t, I borrowed his car to drive to work. I dropped Natalie off at daycare and went merrily on my way… Until a deer appeared out of nowhere right in front of me. SMASH. I wasn’t hurt, but the car was a different story. Tim had to borrow a friend’s car to come get me, since my car was in the shop. (I didn’t go to work after all, what with the not having a way to get there.)

Then, as we were still trying to deal with all this, the quote for my car came in. In addition to the stuff we’d known about, if they were going to change the timing belt they also needed to do the water pump. All that would run us upwards of $1000, with more probably to come. Not to mention an unknown amount of damage on Tim’s car, which the insurance adjuster couldn’t see until Monday.

This is where people start to get confused, possibly because I wrecked Tim’s car, so when I say we decided to replace my car, they think of the wrecked one that I had been driving. Not so. Tim had been considering trading my car (the one that didn’t hit the deer) in anyway, and we decided that the money we’d spend on repairs would also make a good down payment on a new car. So that’s what we did. Which is why we have a brand spanking new Prius. (The very basic model, no cool extra features, but still. I’m very happy about this.) We got really lucky; they happened to have one on the lot that someone had ordered but not been able to pick up, so we were able to drive away with it that day rather than have our names put on a waiting list.

Now we just have to find out what’s happening with Tim’s car. We’re kind of hoping it gets totaled; we have GAP protection on the loan, so we could just start over from scratch. If it doesn’t, we’re out for the amount of our deductible, which at least is probably going to be a lot less than the cost of repairs, but is still a chunk of money. I guess we’ll find out later today when the adjuster calls.

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Well, Virginia, It’s a Longer Story . . .

With everyone from teachers and celebrities to parents and psychologists weighing in, the battle lines in this debate are starkly drawn. One camp dismisses the Santa story as a pernicious lie that commercializes Christmas, excludes non-Christians and ruptures the trust between parent and child; the other embraces it as a bit of harmless fun that reflects the imagination and wonder of childhood. On both sides, the strength of feeling can be startling. One blogger writes that lying to your children about Santa is a “form of child abuse.”

…Are you kidding me? Child abuse? Can I have some context here? Because the optimist in me really wants to believe that this anonymous blogger isn’t comparing allowing a child to believe in Santa to, say, beating them to within an inch of their life (or past), or molesting them, or stripping away their self-esteem by constantly telling them how worthless they are, or any number of other things. I can’t imagine what context could justify that, but surely this can’t be what it looks like. (See: optimist.)

The author also goes on to tell about a family he knows who has put their children in therapy over this. It’s unclear to me whether the therapist is helping them break the news, or whether the therapist is there to deal with trauma incurred by the news. I’m not sure which to hope for.

Aside from expressing a great deal of shock, I’m really not going to get into the “Santa or no Santa” argument. I mean, Tim and I haven’t talked explicitly about it, but I think we’re probably going to start doing Santa stuff when Natalie’s actually at a point where she can comprehend it. (I’m doubtful about that this year; she’s just now getting the hang of opening presents, and still doesn’t seem as interested in the gift as in the wrapping paper. Which is fine. Am considering giving her several empty boxes of different sizes wrapped in paper…) That doesn’t mean everyone who celebrates Christmas has to do the same, of course, and I wouldn’t dream of telling them that they do. Actually, barring actual abuse, I tend to feel that way about a lot of issues, parenting and otherwise.

In other words, I don’t feel a great deal of emotional investment in the question as it relates to the world at large. (Beyond thinking “child abuse” and the involvement of therapists is a bit much, I mean; but that involves reactions to proposed answers, not the should we/shouldn’t we question itself.) But, you know, just make your decision and do whatever you’re going to do and get on with life. This is what bugs me — not that other people do or don’t tell their kids the truth about Santa, but that apparently it’s this big faux-important issue.

I mean, aren’t there more important things to worry about than Santa? Or is this just me?

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1. Diet. It’s been nearly three weeks since my re-resolution on the subject of getting back down to, and then maintaining, my original goal weight (180). How am I doing? OK, I guess. I’m certainly not sticking perfectly to the whole concept of healthy eating. In the past two weekends, I’ve been to two family gatherings at which desserts very nearly outnumbered “real” food. I made some bad choices; we’ll leave it at that. I think I’ve overeaten a few other days too. Overall, though, I must be doing all right. I’ve dropped two of those four pounds I wanted to shake back off. Two more to go.

2. Exercise. I worked up a new plan and have only had a couple of days since where I’ve just completely let it go. My strategy is to try to aim for shorter workouts, which are less intimidating and easier to fit into my schedule. So far that’s working pretty well. I might only have gotten ten minutes in last night, but that’s better than nothing, you know?

3. Writing. Without the pressure of NaNoWriMo, I’m a little behind here too. I think I’ve gotten about 12K more words written since the beginning of the month. I’ve been really bad about not using that time I have set aside in the evening for it; I’ll write over my lunch hour or something, and thus be productive, but then not actually do anything during my scheduled writing time. The good news, though, is that I’m finally into the final act. So hopefully I can keep at this and get the draft finished. It’s 93 pages long so far. I’m in shock.

4. Photography. Technically this was a photography weekend, but there’s been so much going on with the holidays that I wound up skipping it. I have a few snapshots of Natalie at Christmas gatherings that I need to deal with, but that’s about it, and it’s not like they’re anything terribly special.

5. Just in case anyone is curious, it was -1 F out when I got up this morning. This has nothing to do with anything; I just felt the need to let you know.

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Tim tested for, and got, his third degree black belt in Hapkido and second degree in Taekwondo tonight (that would be Thursday). Congratulations, love! I’m so proud of you!

I’m especially proud because it would have been easy for you to just give it up after your CKD diagnosis, when you found out you’d have to curtail your physical activities somewhat. I know you thought about it — but in the end, you found a way to make it work without having to quit or even stop advancing. Sure, it’s slower going now, but you’re sticking to it and working within your limitations without letting your kidneys tell you that you can’t do it at all. That’s something to be really proud of. And I am.

*round of applause*

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Check Your Tech Etiquette

Much of this article I have no problem with. I may disagree very slightly about particulars (I’ll often remove only one earbud for a quick conversation in the hall at work when my iPod is on, for example, not both, and I think that’s fine in context), but overall… Meh. There’s very little in there that I feel is flat-out wrong. There is some stuff, though, that I think is overgeneralized, or perhaps underthought.

Is it rude to check your PDA at a friend’s house? Expert answers indicate pretty much yes, unless you’re just wrapping up something real quick before sitting down to visit or checking something related to your visit. This makes no distinction between a formal dinner party and a casual “hang out all day” sort of visit, nor between checking a couple of times over the course of several hours and checking constantly. As long as you don’t do it at a time that interferes with conversation, or the game you’re all playing, or some crucial moment in the movie you’re watching, I don’t think it’s so very rude to check a couple of times during a relatively long, very casual visit.

How quickly must I respond to an e-mail? Are the standards different for work e-mails versus personal e-mails? One expert gives the reasonable answer that you should be consistent, whatever you do. The others seem to think that not replying to e-mail immediately — or certainly by the end of the day! — is some kind of vast insult. While it’s true that there are certain kinds of e-mail that require that kind of prompt attention, not all of it does. I think there’s a burden here not just on the recipient, but also on the sender of the e-mail. Namely, they must recognize that e-mail is not a phone conversation or a live chat. Of course it’s polite to respond in a timely fashion, but if you need an immediate reply it’s better just to call in the first place. If you send an e-mail, you should expect a certain amount of delay before the recipient has a chance to check their mail, much less formulate an answer. There’s also this: Not all e-mails require a reply. Different people might have different ideas about what does require one, so don’t assume that someone is failing to reply because they’re upset with you or trying to insult you or etc. It could be that they didn’t understand you were expecting a response.

If someone calls you, can you e-mail the person back or send a text message if you’re not in the mood to talk? What if you text or e-mail someone and the person calls you back? No one really seems to address the obvious answer, which is: Don’t answer, and don’t bother with the text message or e-mail. You’re contacting them to let them know that yes, you have your phone on you and no, it wasn’t so buried in your purse that you didn’t hear it ring and yes, its batteries were charged and it had signal and all that… But when you saw that they were calling, you didn’t pick it up anyway? You’re giving them written notice that you’re intentionally ignoring them? Is it just me, or is that completely rude in and of itself? Just let it go to voicemail and let it go. They’ll get the idea without your rubbing their nose in the idea that you don’t want to talk to them.

Is using BCC (blind carbon copy) on an e-mail considered sneaky? Answers appear to assume that it’s being used to conceal something. Obviously either you’re tattling on someone, or you’re protecting your contacts’ e-mail addresses. I’ll grant that’s not entirely an unreasonable assumption, given that the whole point of the field is to allow a copy to be sent to someone without alerting other recipients that someone else is in on the conversation. It can, however, be used for perfectly benign purposes. Tim and I will often BCC each other, for example, when one of us knows that the other needs to have information contained in the message but no further explanation is necessary and there is no content that it would be untoward for us to share. (For instance, when he’s making arrangements for a social outing, he’ll BCC me on the message finalizing time and date so that I know where he’ll be when.) In that situation, it’s not so much that we don’t want the other parties in the conversation to know that we’re keeping each other informed, it’s just that there’s this information that we need to convey but the other person doesn’t need to be part of the conversation.

Hm. OK, apparently I have problems with all the questions after all.

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This is something that I guess I kind of grew up with. I’d call it a family recipe, but it’s, um, not so much a recipe. Easy, relatively quick, tasty, and very healthy warm treat for cold winter days. I suppose you could add sugar if your apples are very tart, but I never do.

Stewed Apples

1. Get together as many apples as you want to stew. (Figure about one medium apple per serving.) Core and slice them. Peeling is optional, but recommended. You can do this step ahead of time and freeze the slices for later use, if you have a bunch of apples you need to take care of in a hurry.

2. When you’re ready to cook, dump the apples into a pan big enough to hold them all. Add one or more of the following ground spices to taste: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. (Go easy on the cloves, although the sort of mouth-numbing feeling you get if you use too much can be fun.) Stir everything up so the spices get distributed.

3. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the apples are all nice and soft and giving up their juices. Unless you’re doing a big batch, this shouldn’t take too long with fresh apples. (Frozen will obviously take a little longer, since they have to thaw.)

…That’s it. Guess you could microwave them if you wanted, but really, this is quick and easy enough to do on the stovetop that the microwave doesn’t seem necessary.

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So here I am, reading along through Stephenie Meyer’s The Host, and… the theme of motherhood keeps coming up. At one point, the main character makes some observation about the bond between a mother and a child being the best humanity has to offer. I have less issues with it in the context of the book and the specific character who is thinking this and her particular circumstances. It is, however, not a phenomenon limited to this character in this book. It’s a sentiment that is present in society at large, too, and that’s what I wanted to speak to. Hence, the post here and not in the reading blog.

I feel like, as a mother who is forming a pretty good bond with her child, and as a daughter who has a fairly close bond with her mother, I ought to agree. I ought to say that the mother-child bond is so wonderful and so great and it’s just the greatest thing ever and the pinnacle of human achievement. The thing is, this sentiment actually really bugs me. Three reasons.

One. It’s too exclusive. A child’s mother is not the only important adult in his life. To say that the mother-child bond is better than everything else is to ignore the contributions of people like fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, even family friends. Yes, I know, they didn’t carry the child for nine months. And? Does that make them less worthy, less able to bond with the child? Not that I’ve noticed.

Two. It’s too inclusive. I had the benefit of growing up in a pretty happy, healthy household. My mother and I had the opportunity and the desire to bond, and I hope that the same will be true for myself and my daughter. This isn’t the case for everyone. News flash: That nine months does not produce a magical unbreakable bond. It has to be built and cared for. As warm and fuzzy as it may be to think that every mother is going to take the time and effort to build that bond and nurture it, that’s just not the case.

Three. It’s too reductive. If the best thing I can do as a human being is to have a child… Doesn’t that suggest that my major value to the world, as a woman, is to produce and raise children? After all, that’s the best. Everything else I do is secondary. I don’t even know where to begin with what’s wrong with that idea. I don’t think I should have to begin with it. I think we, as a society, are by and large past the idea of women as baby machines. Or if we’re not, we damned well ought to be.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m enjoying motherhood, even if it is often a little bit of a trial. I wouldn’t trade Natalie for all the empowerment in the world (and, on the flip side of point #3 above, I shouldn’t have to do that either). But this idea that the bond between a mother and her child is something that automatically happens, that is universal, that is inherently superior — no. Just, no. The most I can say is that the bond between my mother and I, or between my daughter and I, is a good thing. Not that it’s “the best”, not that it’s superior to other bonds, not that it applies to anyone else by virtue of their being a mother or having a mother. It’s just a good thing. A very good thing. For us.

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