Labels: festivities

So, yes, we live far outside the country. And are still registered Democrats in Brazos County, Texas. So they sent us a ballot, and i sent it back, and it had some random note about it being a corrected ballot, and to disregard the other one. But i hadn't got the other one yet anyway, so yeah, i sent in the first "corrected" ballot and thought i would be done.

Then the second, "uncorrected" ballot came in the mail with a big letter S on the envelope and a little note inside saying if i didn't fill out a certain form, my vote wouldn't be counted. At least the certain form is included. Except they sent the "uncorrected" ballot too late anyway, they mailed it on September 23, which is less than 45 days from Nov 4 (45 days is the national, i don't know if it's a reccomendation or a law, thing, for mailing out absentee ballots) - and if i have to sue them to get my vote counted, then this is something that is going to matter.

And of course there's nobody there at times that are not convenient for Brazos County, Texas, when i call the number on the form to ask them about it. And the form is far from self-explanatory - there is a space to affirm that yes, i still live in this county and precinct, only you know what, i fucking well don't. And if signing the form to say that the information provided is true is part of filling out the form which i have to do or my vote isn't counted, what the fuck?

So i have to call in another hour - finally i think the cleaning lady or somebody was there, and she was very helpful but couldn't answer anything, just "call back at 8." We'll see. But if they get my ballot and no form in time, because they sent it too late? If they get my ballot and it has no form in that original first envelope? If they get this form in a second envelope and decide that i sent two envelopes, so they're duplicates and neither is counted?

And why didn't M get the extra little form?

To be updated as events warrant.

...

Update: Finally located someone to help me (yes, ma'am, but there's someone in the County Clerk's office at the moment and then my head may have exploded, but i was quiet and polite about it. In my very best Texas accent). If i couldn't afford international long distance calling, or if i didn't have time for it, or if i didn't have access to a phone regularly, (like: people in the armed forces, people in the peace corps, all sorts of people that ought to be able to vote. I am just dripping with privilege, aren't i?) my vote would be in the trash: how they told me to fill out the form is very, very far from what one might think it would be. But anyway. Done, and i count as much as i can in a solid-red state. I count.

Vote. Get ready y'all: one week left. Early voting is sometimes easier. I won't be able to breathe until this is all over. Please vote. Just go show up. Please. Give your friends a ride if they need it. Tell everyone you know. Vote. It fucking matters.

Labels: politics

from this thread on the babywearer.com: this one

Labels: emptor

In the current state of things, trying to save money. But also realizing that we don't have it nearly as bad as lots of people.

Which is better: to make M cut my hair at home (since the only way to get better at cutting hair is to cut more hair) for free, or to go to the salon for €30, since if things go farther in the tank, she'll probably feel it more than us, and so it's only fair?

Labels: emptor

We didn't do much. What's another day? But you got, of course, those crayons-that-are-not-crayons, and some markers, and some paper to go with, and a nice big bucket of Duplos all from us. And a ball with Christopher Robin on it.

One set of grandparents sent you a very nice snow suit, a jacket and pants so you can go in the snow (which should be beginning shortly) and not get cold. And also some toys, a flip phone and a shape-sorting box. And you got CDs from your cousins and a delicious warm pair of boots that are so soft, i can't even tell you. And some very cute clothes. And the other grandparents sent a little wheely cart with a compartment under the seat and it is very squat, and orange, this cart, with a little car-phone on the side only it's a rotary landline, and you have no idea what to do with a rotary landline. But the cart you can sit on (albeit backwards) and push around and put things in the compartment, and you really like it. The flip phone, too, and the Duplos and the markers, all favorites. Especially the flip phone. It's, ah, loud. But you haven't got a lot of very loud toys, so that's okay. I guess. The implements of artistry we can't really let you play with at all alone, i have to keep one hand on whatever marker you've got at all times or else you draw on your face, but you seem to like them anyway.

But so many presents, and instead of being overwhelming and doing it all up like crazy we gave you one present a day for a week and a bit. And that was good: you got to really focus on each thing. Less pressure on everybody.

On your actual birthday we had proper spaghetti to try and get you to put it on your head like all those classical babies do; but you ate it very neatly, one strand at a time, like in the Lady and the Tramp. As it turns out, miso soup is something you'll dump everywhere from being so excited, oh, the deliciousness, but you hadn't had miso soup at the time. Now we know. And then this was the cake i made you, from here:

Applesauce Cake Recipe: 1/2 cup oil; 1/2 cup normal sugar; 1/2 cup brown sugar; 2 cups flour; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/2 teaspoon cloves; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup applesauce. Mix things. Use baking-paper-lined-pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.

Icing (it's my own invention): Most of one tub, mascarpone cheese; Quite a bit of brown sugar; Real maple syrup, not enough to make the mascarpone melty. Mix things. Makes brown icing. White letters can be dome with straight mascarpone piped out of one corner of a Ziplock bag. (Later, use the rest of the tub of mascarpone to make really, really delicious mashed potatoes. Yum. And you ate a whole lot of that.)

I think you liked the cake. Mommy and Daddy liked the cake. But i came in with one candle on it, one of the big number ones, and your eyes got so big. Bigger than they got the next day with the miso soup, even. All that magic we're making just for you. And the cake, too.

Labels: festivities, food

Little, but enough to make one snort one's coffee. Had one any coffee.

so "der Teint" in German is pronounced exactly the same as taint. And they mean completely different things. Completely. So (upon passing a billboard for makeup) one morning one sees the words "der Meisterwerk ist der Taint" i switch languages halfway through and the German meaning is not the first one in my head.

I'm still a little giggly.

But i know my Deutsche is improving because i get word-play jokes now. The one with the snake and the line, the ones for the lingerie shops, the ... er ... maybe it is just an obvious translation when the Austrians use sex to sell things? There was a really misogynist one for some plumbers that i almost couldn't believe. Oh well.

Labels: expat

legend of neil
very secret diaries
dungeonmaster of the rings
darths and droids

Labels: internet

we've had this stroller and been using it for one year, now. Seeing as how you're one. We chose it because it was appropriate for newborn usage - it lies down flat - and because of the flippyness. It takes about five seconds, literally, to switch it so that you're facing in or facing out, and we call it flipping the baby and you don't like your face in the sun or in the wind, and sometimes you want to see the world, and sometimes you want Mama, and on sunny days when we're out and about you get flipped at every corner and it's so easy. But, you are wanting to face out more and more, even to fall asleep. This stroller - and i think they probably all are, but i don't have experience with all of them, but this one - it is nearly windproof, and when you were just tiny and lying in the bassinet-form all wrapped up, it was so warm inside. The wheels and suspension take cobblestones well enough that you don't hate them, and i'm not sure if that has anything to do with the stroller itself or if it's just because you've been cobblestoned since you were born and are used to it. Does pretty well in slush, okay on grass, gravel not so much. I think this is pretty standard, but the wheels are the absolute suck on gravel. Cracked sidewalks are not remotely a problem. You are now almost always sitting up in it and appear perfectly comfy. We have the 2007 model, and so it came with a parents' cupholder but it doesn't fit through our front door with it attached so we don't use it. We do use the baby tray, now, but not always. The front bar is getting hard to move around, i think the working parts have gotten dirty and sticky, so that's a little annoying. The five-converting-to-three-point harness is great, sure, but we are using it more and more often as an only-three-point harness. It clocks in at nearly ten kilograms, though, 22 pounds, so very much not a light stroller, though it is pretty narrow and quite maneuverable as these things go. It is not a sidewalk tank like some i've seen. But the weight is why i don't ever, ever take it on the streetcar alone (that, and the lack of elevators at the nearest U1 stop). Or, that, and the size and inconvenience - our nearest streetcar is always the old one with four steps to get on, and our second nearest streetcar is only a new one about a quarter of the time, or less. Even the 71 is only new sometimes but it only connects to the U3 and even that is way, way out. (They say that in 2019 the U2 will extend to Rennweg but, um, by then we will be so far out of strollers.) So i use the stroller almost exclusively for neighborhood walks, the grocery, the pharmacy, the general store.

And since i go to the grocery with it, i load up the basket with milk and orange juice and yogurt and things that are heavy. So the basket is finally, after eleven months is when it started and it's only getting worse even though i've tried to repair it with duct tape, finally starting to come apart. And i called Peg Perego after hearing good things about their customer service and apparently in Austria they don't have a warranty at all, so a new basket would be forty Euros, and for forty Euros i can get a whole new umbrella stroller, or almost half of a whole new really nice umbrella stroller, and so i am wondering. (We could have got a Bugaboo with a two year warrany, but that would have cost three times as much and harder to flip, as they say one shouldn't flip a Bug with the baby still sitting in it, and also the Bugaboos wouldn't fit through our front door so we'd have had to either get a new front door or lock it outside and be paranoid about it being stolen all the time. We could have got a Teutonia with a three year warranty, but that would have cost twice as much and not been flippy at all, though they have that skinny new model and i lust after it. If they had had the DIY Teutonia a year ago you'd absolutely be in one of those.)

We paid three hundred Euros for the Venezia. So if we sold it now, or if we donated it now, then it'd be a little less than one Euro per day of available usage. Which is better than paying for gas, right? Or something. Anyway, we have used it heavily, and we have beat it down with the cobbledy streets and the grass in the park and whatnot.

i have almost decided to buy a new stroller. If the basket hadn't busted and if i didn't use it for going to the grocery store every two days then maybe we could have really been a one stroller family. Which was kind of the goal, and we were for a long time, and if i get a new one we can get rid of this one and be a one stroller family again. Almost decided. And while the top rated umbrella stroller on baby-gaga i can't find here, if i decide that we do want a new stroller, it will be air-bubble light. But have a big and useful basket. (Does anybody make a carbon model? It could match the canoe ... )

Or do i just get a new basket? Since the umbrella strollers probably the baskets will never be so big. But after a year of hard use, one of each of the now-front wheels are worn way down, and one of them doesn't spin like it maybe should and scrapes across the floor if you try to turn it a certain way. And if i donated it, there is undoubtedly a lot of use left in the thing. Especially as it works so well for newborns. Hum.

Labels: emptor

I got you a pair of socks with little tractiony bits on the soles, and there you are taking them off and chewing on your toes again. You were fussing because you unwrapped one present this morning - it was a sorting block set, stars and crosses and triangles and circles and squares - and you can see another present still wrapped up in the playpen and you had so much fun tearing the wrapping paper.

You are one year old and it wasn't a goal of mine to get more than a thousand pictures of you until i looked at Flickr last week and we had nine hundred and twenty-seven. So then i had to get to four digits. I think at baby group on friday i'll print out pictures of the other kids and give them to their moms, too, since i've taken so many pictures and a couple of them are pretty good.

I am pleased with how well i know myself, how well we know ourselves. We have done most of the things we wanted to do, as parents: i am working part-time, and so you are with the tagesmutter part-time, two days a week, and that is going very well for us. We are still breastfeeding a great deal, but you eat solid foods like in babyled weaning and also babyfood purees like in, i guess, traditional american whatnot, and are not picky about not eating things, and you will easily take a bottle from anybody, and that is going well for us. You will take a bottle of expressed milk, or a bottle of formula, or (as of yesterday!) a bottle of cow's milk, perfectly fine, so that is good. You get mostly organic baby food. When you eat what we eat, sometimes it is very healthy (steamed broccoli! whole wheat dark rye artisan bread! salmon! avocado! Gouda!), and sometimes it is not (sweet, delicious, chocolatey pastry). We use the babywearing Ergo quite a bit, and we use the stroller a lot, too - we use the Ergo when we go on the streetcar, or when you go to daycare, to the point that the other people in baby group were surprised that i had a stroller at all; but i feel like i use the stroller almost every day. You for a long time weren't Ferberred and now you are, and it wasn't inhumane really, and by now, at one year, that is working out okay for us, but really working well, i guess i should say. (You were really absolutely textbook Ferber.) You have your own crib in your own room, and that is good. You have a lot of toys, and a lot of clothes, and you like bathtime and going to the zoo and going swimming, and you are a pretty good traveller i think. Some of your toys are plastic, and most of them are not, and it's a decent balance, i guess, and i don't think any of it is really cheap plastic crap. You are well attached and confident and can wander off on your own if you're not tired or hungry, and can also smile and wave at people on the street, and the people on the street really like that. You play nicely and cuddle the dog and don't usually poke her in the eye. You have a bedtime routine that is working. You really, really like to read books (though reading, in this case, means turning all the pages, and then starting over and turning all the pages again, without waiting for anybody to actually say all the words on the page). You are up to date on vaccines and milestones, we've had your eyes and ears checked and they're fine and functional, you're not Spectrummy, and you have shown no signs of food allergies. You sleep through the night. You have no slutty Bratz dolls yet, though you do have a couple of shirts that say Princess from the relatives, and, yeah, you still wear them, because they are soft and warm and maybe even cute. You have some pink things, but i try to get you things that aren't completely baby-pink and frilly - so the other moms say i don't dress you like a girl, because there's just one ruffle and a couple of flowers on your magenta shirt instead of a lace-covered dress. (Or, when you are wearing something baby-pink and frilly, i try to pair it with something army-green. My baby wears warm, fuzzy-on-the-inside combat boots. Anyway, people think you're a girl more than half the time, these days, though i think that's because they think boys aren't friendly, here.) You know how the television works - you can turn it on, with your fingers and the buttons and you know exactly which button to push, and i'm not sure i even know which button to push - but i've got it set to digital radio, now, so there's no picture, because Mama is a dirty cheat, but anyway you haven't ever seen an entire TV program even halfway through, with the possible exception of when we're trying to distract you so we can cut your fingernails, but it doesn't usually take that long. You are the most beautiful thing i have ever seen in my life.

So i am happy and comfortable with the decisions we have made. And so far we haven't had to change our minds a whole lot; though i feel like we have chosen the Middle Way for almost everything: the babywearing/stroller thing, the breastfeeding/bottle thing, the working/SAHM/daycare thing, the babyledweaning/babyfood puree thing, the avoiding all sugar and juice/Coca-Cola Baby thing, the learn-a-few-signs thing, the cloth diapers at home/plastic when we're out thing, the sleeping by us for months/and then Ferberring thing, the your own room/in our tiny apartment thing. That feels about right, the Middle Way. And some days are postpartummy, when i'm depressed and missing your cues and doing everything wrong, and you are angry and fussy when you're teething or overtired, but most of the time, you're happy, and i'm happy. And Daddy is happy, too. And the doggie.

We were going to go to the zoo today but i think we'll go again on the weekend anyhow if we don't leave soon: we're waiting for a package from the grandparents that is listed on post.at as being out for delivery, but it hasn't arrived yet, and if they really sent that box they showed me a picture of then there is no way i can lug that home from the two-miles-away post office. Maybe we can make it there. But i'm going to try and make you a cake, too, so anyway we'll see how it goes.

And now you are waking up from your nap, and talking to the two plush dolls in your crib - one is pink and has a rattle; the other one has a beetle-and-dragonfly pattern and says Love Bug on the belly - and, happy birthday, Little E. Big E.

Labels: baby, milestones, toddler

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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