Yesterday at school, the zipper of Rob’s soft lunch box got stuck. So one of the cafeteria staff SLICED THE LUNCH BOX OPEN WITH A KNIFE.

Does that seem a little…extreme? Instead of treating this as an emergency surgery situation where the clothes are cut right off the patient, why not treat it as a Forgotten Lunch situation? Call the parent or have the child buy hot lunch or do whatever is ordinarily done when a child forgets a lunch box. Because I got that zipper unstuck with less than 5 seconds of wiggling, and so I’m pretty cheesed to have the lunch box completely destroyed.

Well. Anyway. Rob is in fourth grade, and in his school that’s the year they get offered musical instrument lessons. They take them at school, so I don’t have to do anything except provide the instrument and books, make sure he brings them to school on the right day, and nag him to practice. Well, and LISTEN to him practice. Perhaps that should be Item Number One.

Paul and I have decided to let him do it, and “let” is the verb we’re using, too. Furthermore, we’re not going to rent the instrument, we’re going to buy it. Renting makes me nervous, and if we buy, we can reuse the same instrument for each child who gets all excited about band but then drops out after a year.

And so the question is, “Which instrument?” There is a list of seven instruments offered, and I’ve marked the four Rob says he’s interested in:

1. Flute. After listening to my brother practice WITH DEDICATION for years and years and YEARS, I’m not sure I can bear to hear ONE MORE NOTE from a flute. And it didn’t make Rob’s list.

2. Clarinet. This is Rob’s first choice, but his experience is limited to a short instrument demonstration given at school. My mother played the clarinet, and says that by the time she was done with it she never wanted to hear a clarinet again—and she’s a musically talented person. Also, she says the reeds are disgusting and keep breaking. My dad says he thinks the reeds are synthetic now (and therefore less disgusting/breakable) for student use. Another issue: Rob has an overbite, and my mom thinks the clarinet could make it worse, since the clarinet pushes firmly against the inside of the front top teeth.

3. Alto saxophone. This has some appeal, but it’s a more expensive instrument, and it’s fourth on Rob’s list. My mom says this one has the disgusting reeds problem too, though my dad again counters with the synthetic thing. My mom further declares that the sound of a child practicing on a saxophone “defies description.” Then she describes it anyway: “absolutely nightmarish.”

4. Trumpet. The dentist recommended it for overbites. It’s second on Rob’s list. But my mom points out that the trumpet is a LOUD instrument, and that we should take into account whether we want to subject the neighbors to a 30-minute daily practice session.

5. Trombone. Also recommended for overbites. Third on Rob’s list. Loudness/neighbors issues.

6. Baritone. No. It’s too large and it’s too expensive.

7. Drums. No.

This morning our internet is down, and I am writing this post in the body of an unsendable email. I am, of course, feeling antsy about the internet being down. And this reminded me of something I’ve been irritated about lately: all the buzz about how if you feel antsy without your internet connection, that means YOU ARE ADDICTED TO THE INTERNET OH NOES!!!

I think I’ve mentioned before that I have a phone phobia. But when our phone is out, do I feel intense relief? No, I feel antsy. When will it be back? What if we need it? I keep picking it up to check if there’s a dial tone yet. I HATE AND FEAR the phone, but apparently I AM ADDICTED TO MY PHONE OH NOES!!!

If my car broke down, I would feel antsy and uncomfortable until it was working again. I’d keep thinking of things to do, and then going, “Oh, wait. No car,” and feeling unhappy. I’d be stressed about not having it. I would have trouble living my life without it. I am also addicted to my car.

If the postal workers went on strike and there was no mail, I’d be very unhappy indeed. No mail? AAAAGGGHHH!! Where is my mail? When will there be mail again? What do you mean I literally can’t mail anything?? I am also addicted to the mail.

I like to read. If I wasn’t allowed to read, I would have times every day when I didn’t know what to do with myself. I like to read while supervising the kids in the playroom. Reading keeps me from interacting with my children! I am addicted.

I am addicted to so many things! Food: I have to have some SEVERAL TIMES A DAY or I get upset. My washer and dryer: if they break down, I get stressed—and I get increasingly stressed with every day that goes by. Running water: if the water gets turned off so they can work on a pipe, I hardly know how to live my life. Pens: you should see how tense I get when I can’t find one!

I don’t struggle with this one myself, but I’ve heard there are people who exercise every single day. If they can’t do it, they say they feel restless and jittery. They NEED their exercise fix. “Natural high,” my ass: they are ADDICTED and should SEEK HELP.

Some people have jobs, and they spend HOURS AND HOURS A DAY doing them. They think about work even when they’re home. Sometimes they’re eager to get back to work, even though they were JUST THERE. Addicted, clearly.

From what I hear (hi, mom and dad and many of their friends!), some people enjoy sex. They’d rather not give it up. Get this: even when they don’t want children, they STILL engage in this now-pointless activity! Often with the SAME person, again and again over YEARS! Man, they are SOOOO addicted.

It’s possible to be accustomed to something without being addicted to it. It’s possible to enjoy something—even enjoy it IMMENSELY—and not be addicted to it. It’s possible to miss something very badly when it’s gone, and yet not be addicted to it. It gets pretty tiresome to keep hearing otherwise.

I am perfectly willing to listen to Caillou whining in the background that he doesn’t WANNNT his mommy and daddy to go to work, he wants them to PLAYYY with him, as long as it means I don’t have to listen to Edward and Elizabeth whining the same thing.

The yellow is lemon muffins (they always come out a little dry; I’m still working on them) with lemon glaze, and the orange is orange bell pepper and baby carrots. I didn’t include the heaping bowl of blue cheese dressing because it’s (1) really heaped and (2) not orange.

Hey, if you have Netflix, has it ever told you at the top of your queue that you’ve qualified for a bonus DVD? Not the thing where it says toward the end of the month that you can upgrade to 4-at-a-time for only $1 or whatever, but that you get one extra just as a one-time thing? It told me that for the first time today, and when I looked it up in the Help section there was nothing about it, and I don’t exactly “read mailings,” and I couldn’t find any email way to contact them: it just kept looping me back to the FAQ and a phone number. It’s probably fine, I am just a little teeny bit worried that there will be some downside to it. A secret charge! An accidental upgrade! …Now that I’m writing this out, it seems like kind of a silly thing to be worried about.

I’m in the market for a new, inexpensive but awesome camera, and also for a new, inexpensive but awesome upright vacuum. I was going to ask for advice, but…I mean, do you ever feel like you’ve hit your absolute maximum for posts about cameras (Nikon!!/Canon!!) and vacuum cleaners (Dyson!!)? I’ve read so many of them, I shouldn’t be posting about it at all, I should just search for other people’s posts. Besides, I’m probably getting the Canon PowerShot and the Hoover Tempo Widepath, and so why even START a discussion that’s going to involve Dyson and SLR?

Cup of caffeinated tea

Large glass of water

B-Complex

Eight (8) ginger snaps

A “the world is a good place” video sent to me by Laura:

[If you are here from the future: the video does not appear to exist anymore.]

This morning started out with a cat accident on the carpet.

Then I looked out the window and noticed that I got distracted and missed the pear harvest: 30 perfectly gorgeous pears were rotting on the ground. I’d been looking forward to those pears since last year, when they were so delicious I ate every single one and barely shared, and then was upset because there were no more. That kind of attention lapse can’t be taken back; I have to wait another year.

I made apple bread for my brother’s birthday. It was cooling on the counter, and I was so glad that chore was done because I hadn’t been sure when I was going to be able to do it. I got myself a drink of water. I spilled the water over both loaves of apple bread. We don’t have enough eggs or enough apples to make another batch.

My tooth is still hurting. The dentist said it might hurt for up to a week just as a result of messing with it. So maybe this is still okay. Or maybe it is a root canal. And then maybe the root canal won’t stop the pain, either, and then we’ll find that OOPS it’s actually an adjacent tooth that is the problem.

I have seasonal allergies, and even with allergy medicine I want to rip my face off.

Henry is “between naps”: he needs more than one nap a day or else he’s fussy, but if he gets two naps he doesn’t go to sleep well at night. So today he cried and fussed and cried and fussed, and finally I put him down for a morning nap when it was really too late to go down for a morning nap.

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Pay-it-forward updates:

Spuddy Buddy is starting a contest for a good cause.

A Little Left of Lost is starting a new contest.

Back from the dentist, and if that’s all I need done I’ll be happy. He said there was a little decay under an old filling, and so he redid the filling. And since the old filling was silver, and the new one is white, I am pleased about this for vanity alone. Also because all my silver fillings are old and gradually need replacing, so I’m glad that the one that needed replacing was an older filling and not a newer one.

He said that unless I keep feeling twinges, this means we’ve solved the problem. Continuing twinges = root canal. So you see this can go either way here, the Happy Path of Nice New White Filling and Not Going to the Dentist Again for Awhile—-or the Sad Path of Nice New $200 White Filling Taken Right Back Out to Make Way for Even-More-Expensive Root Canal.

Another mom at the bus stop this morning said her dentist charges $100 as soon as you walk in the door, so I thought it might be interesting to compare our dental costs. Yesterday, when he looked at the tooth and did an xray, the bill was $70. Today, with the filling, the bill was $200. I know fillings can vary in price depending on how significant they are: when they schedule one, the receptionist is always asking the dentist how much time, and for this filling the dentist said “2…no, 3,” whatever that means. So this was a 2…no, 3 filling, and it cost $200. Is this about what your fillings cost?

Today’s plan: wait for novocaine to wear off; then, eat candy.

I spent most of Labor Day priming the new dining room. I’d thought, “Hey, it’s just one room. How long could it take?” LONG. For one thing, it’s a dining room but there’s also a mud room. And both rooms need not only the walls but also the ceilings painted. Best purchase: the $12 extendable-handle paint roller I dithered over in the store. Mediocre purchase: the $7 non-stick paint pan that claimed I could let the paint dry and then just peel the paint off in a sheet (FAIL—but fun to pick at the paint).

We chose and ordered the floor. It’s Armstrong Laminate, the Black Walnut. It’s the kind of floor you snap together. I hope it’s not going to be too dark/dramatic.

Oh, hi. Have I mentioned we’re putting in a dining room?

I went to the dentist this morning about a tooth that’s been doing painful little twinges. I’ll say this: it is WAY more satisfying to go to the dentist when something hurts. What I hate most is when I go in for a routine cleaning and they find $1,200 of work that “needs” to be done. It’s like when the auto place says the car “needs” $1,200 of work: What if they’re just totally making this up? There’s no way I would know! But if something hurts and they can make it stop hurting (or, for the car, if something is clattering/smoking and they can make it stop doing that), I still hate to spend the $1,200 (panic panic financial panic) but at least I know I’m getting something out of it. …Unless they broke it last time they were in there. Well, not thinking about that.

I bought the cream paint for the dining room. I chose a color called Sea Salt, which is what most closely matched the color we have now, a totally inappropriately-named white called “Clear Yellow.” Clear Yellow! I ask you! I almost couldn’t choose it at the time, even though it was the one I wanted, because Clear Yellow sounds like….YELLOW.

But it is not. It is white. Well, cream. I kept asking the painter to reassure me: “It’s not yellow, right?” and he’d say, “No. It’s white. Well, cream.” And I’d say, “Because…it’s called Yellow.” And he’d say, “I know. But it’s white. Well, cream.” But even so, the day he started painting I was antsy and had to go peek at it under the pretense of bringing over a few more boxes.

Anyway, Behr’s Sea Salt is pretty much the same color (Toasted Marshmallow was close, too, but it bothered me because TOASTED Marshmallow should be a light golden brown, not cream), so I went over to the paint counter and asked for a gallon of Sea Salt. The permed, forties-ish clerk mixed it up and put it in the shaker, and we all stood there waiting for it to be fully shaken. She started a conversation with her co-worker about how she thought Sarah Palin didn’t actually like John McCain.

Then the paint was ready, and she got to the part where they pry up the lid of the mixed paint to let you double-check it. She stopped mid-pry, gave it a whack with the mallet instead, and said wearily and I thought a little scornfully, “It’s pretty much just white.” And she gave a little half eye-roll, like I was some crazy person who was custom-ordering a specific shade of white like it mattered.

Clearly she has not found her calling. “Pretty much just white,” indeed! For a color called Sea Salt! That is such a GIMME. If I’d been feeling a little perkier and sassier and less distracted by the low-grade stressiness of the decision I’d just made, I would have said back to her, “Oh, no no no. That is not your line. Your line is: ‘Oh, Sea Salt! I LOVE Sea Salt! It’s such a clean, fresh, lineny white—but not too STARK, you know what I mean? Just the teeniest HINT of yellow to warm it up. It’s just the most perfect white. And the name makes me think of those photos where there’s the white sand and the bleached wood and the beautiful ocean and those tall faded grasses.'”

Depending on her reaction to being schooled, I could have continued: “See, then you lift up the lid to let me peek, and you give a happy little sigh. ‘See?,’ you say. ‘Perfect.’ You pause a moment too long, as if reluctant to stop gazing at it. Then you mallet the lid back down cheerfully [here I’d demonstrate cheerful malleting] and hand it to me and raise your eyebrows and say, ‘Good choice!’ and you put a firm little emphasis on each word, like you’re not usually impressed with a paint customer’s choice, but you’re impressed with mine. And as I walk away, you say to your co-worker in a voice just loud enough for me to hear, but as if you didn’t realize I could hear you, ‘I just love Sea Salt. It’s one of my total favorites.’ …I can write this down for you if you need to study it for next time.”

Seriously. A paint-counter employee! Saying something is “pretty much just white”! I felt like applying for her job on the spot. “Trust me, I could do this better,” I’d say to the manager, tying on an apron.