I’ve got a barrel of this
CLIMATE CHANGE
I am sure you have heard plenty of whining from Midwestern folks about our recent high temperatures, so I won’t add to it. The charming vintage bungalow does not have central air, so we have a window air conditioner in our bedroom, which at least makes the nights okay. Unfortunately the way that the roof slopes away from Nora’s bedroom window makes it difficult/impossible to install an air conditioner there, at least not without building some barely-to-code wooden safety supports and then constantly worrying about the unit crashing groundward and killing the people sitting on our patio. So she has been making do with a ceiling fan and sometimes, when the overnight “low” has been in the 80s, sleeping in bed with me while LT crashes on the basement futon.
The basement-sleeping may sound like a noble fatherly sacrifice, but I am actually not sure who had the better deal there. Oh sure, LT was on a lumpy futon that smells a bit like bong water, but he also got solitude, quiet, and a bit of bachelor-cool (beer bottles on the milk-crate “nightstand,” Battlestar Galactica on the laptop). I was in the air conditioning on a posture-saving queen-size mattress, but also sharing space with several stuffed animals and the small person, who likes to sleep sideways with her feet in my stomach.
There is a built-in window air conditioner unit in the family room addition, which we had not used until a few days ago—LT objected to my turning it on because there were backyard birds nesting in there. The disgusting coating of sweat all over my body overruled him, however. Oh well! Sucks to be a bird!
LIST OF BANNED WORDS 2011
Lots and lots of meetings lately for a major work project, and the following are words that I never want to hear again in my life: class, content, content record, container, object, configure, configuration, display, task.
ANOTHER BANNED WORD (FOR CHILDREN)
The other day I was stuck driving behind a slow-ass city bus and I said something like arrggggh I hate this stupid bus. From the back seat Nora said, “Yeah, stupid fucking bus.” I was like WHOA WHOA HEY but kept calm and told her I’d rather she did not say that word.
(You may not believe this but she most likely did not hear that from me—I swear much less in person than I do on this diary and it takes a certain level of beer for me to bust out an f-bomb. And even then, not in front of the children.)
So of course, Miss Thing asked me why not. Since I don’t actually believe that bad words make the baby Jesus spit up his formula or anything like that, I was at a bit of a loss and we talked around the subject for a while, while I slowly realized that all my reasons boiled down to the fact that I find it trashy when kids swear. That we are not Those Sorts Of People. That you can almost always find a better adjective, unless you are a complete low-class moron. These are all things that I really believe, but I never had brought these ideas to the forefront until I had to explain them to my child, and it was somewhat revealing. Social-class expectations lurk where you least expect them.
MY MORNING CABERNET
I was walking to the train and a guy came out of this apartment building on Kimball carrying a stemmed wineglass full of red wine. Eight o’clock in the morning! I do not judge, I salute, but whither thou goest with that glass of wine? It does not seem like the most convenient alcohol to drink on the go. He just sort of smiled and walked down the block in the opposite direction, and I was already running late so I could not follow him to the wine-tasting breakfast party. As nice as that sounded.
—mimi smartypants had a glass of Shiraz and an everything bagel.