I am for the most part what is known as a “late adopter.” Or maybe it’s “lagger”—I forget. I didn’t get a cell phone until 2001, and I only got it because I got into a VERY MINOR, INJURY-FREE, NOT-MY-FAULT accident while pregnant, and Paul kind of freaked and said it was stupid we didn’t have cell phones. So now we have them, but they don’t play games or music or anything, and Paul always leaves his at home on the counter. We still have a landline, and our phone has a cord.

And, like, we don’t have a DVR or a Blu-Ray or HDTV or a iPhone or a Kindle, and it’s not because we’re technology snobs, it’s because we’re cautious. Okay, I’M cautious: Paul is by temperament (though not by bank account) the sort who would buy every new thing the day it came out. I tend to buy things when everyone I know has already replaced it with something two generations more recent.

All this is to say that I have finally acquired the Fear of Recession everyone else picked up a few years ago. Yesterday I was in a funk all day and couldn’t even figure out why I felt so doomy. I tried to pinpoint the problem: was it marital? No. Was I worried about one of the kids? No. Was it ennui? No. Hormonal? Probably no. A fight with a friend? No. But it felt like it was SOMETHING, and finally I figured out what I was feeling was Financial Stress.

I know exactly what triggered it, too. We got a letter from Paul’s company saying they were changing our health insurance plan AGAIN (as they do EVERY YEAR), and that as usual there was no good news. Not only is our monthly contribution now MORE THAN OUR MONTHLY MORTGAGE PAYMENT (just let that sink in a minute: if we chose to wing it on the health insurance, we could OWN A SECOND HOUSE) (well, okay, we couldn’t pay the taxes or the water bill or the utilities or whatevs, but STILL) (and maybe we could rent it to a doctor in exchange for free check-ups), but now we have a $2000 annual deductible before the dubious benefits (we haven’t seen them yet, but the copays always go up and the covered services always go down) kick in.

This is difficult to accept. Health insurance, like life insurance, is a gamble you WANT to lose—but it’s still difficult. I did some quick math and found out that even if I had paid cash for all my c-sections, we would STILL have paid less for health care than we have paid for health insurance. That utterly sucks. And yet I’m too chicken to drop the health insurance: something could Happen, and THEN WHAT?

Anyway, that whole thought process made me get all squirrelly about money, and that’s when the Recession Worries finally kicked in. And yet, I am having exactly as much effect on the situation as when I WASN’T worrying about it. Yay.

One of my favorite artists, Amy Quarry, is doing a pretty amazing giveaway:

I am feeling generous with the sunny weather I am experiencing in my corner of the world, and wanted to spread some of it around. So…I am having a giveaway featuring your choice of ANY TWO ITEMS currently in my shop. You can enter this giveaway one of two ways:

1. If you have a blog, post a link back to either my shop (www.amyquarry.etsy.com) or website (www.amyquarry.ca) (feel free to use any of my pics too).

OR

2. If you don’t have a blog you can post a link to me in your Twitter or Facebook status.

(OR if you are totally not a part of the internet world, just write me a comment on this post (http://thefrontroom.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/spring-has-sprung-giveaway/) to explain, and maybe tell a friend about me for the good karma!)

Winner will be chosen via random number generator on Friday April 3, 2009 at noon pacific time. I should be able to see all the links in Technorati but if you want to make sure I get your entry you can also post a comment or send me an email at thefrontroom(at)gmail(dot)com.

Good luck everyone and happy spring!

I’m linking to it not because I’m throwing my hat into the ring to win (I ALREADY won an Amy Quarry package, if you recall, and here’s the post where Elizabeth models the dress), but because I am a GENEROUS PERSON and want YOU to win.

See my helpful sticky note on my monitor?

It is in the hope that this year for the first year ever, I will not immediately believe that (1) my radio station is switching to an all-polka format, (2) Google is offering a dating service, (3) someone is pregnant, or (4) etc.

Don’t celebrity women realize the rest of us KNOW “running around after my kids all day” is not what keeps them a size 0? If “running around after my kids all day” made people thin, wouldn’t….well, I mean, wouldn’t things be very different than the way they in fact are? Office moms would be plump. Stay-at-home moms would be lean. Moms of more children would be thinner than moms of fewer children. Nannies and babysitters and daycare workers would also be thin. Parents would be thinner than non-parents. Women would be having children—or begging to borrow their friends’ children—as part of a diet plan. There would be expensive retreats where you could go for a week for spa treatments and to babysit.

Are the celebrities perhaps LITERALLY running around after their kids? Like, jogging in place next to them all day long? And then not eating any food?

Perhaps you’ve noticed I say “OMG” a lot. In my head I mostly pronounce it “Oh em gee” or “Ohmg” (like the meditative “om,” but with a g-sound at the end). It’s a writing thing: I don’t say “Oh my god” out loud very often, and when I do I often say “Oh em gee” to show I am aware I am not 16.

I don’t allow my kids to say “Oh my god,” and it was a little tricky to explain to them WHY. I had to give it some thought.

If we belonged to a religion that had as one of its commandments that we shouldn’t use our deity’s name frivolously, then I could use that as my reason: it breaks a commandment, it’s a sin, so we don’t do it. But we DON’T belong to such a religion, so for us it’s not commandment-breaking or sinning.

If the expression were “Oh your god,” I suppose we’d want to be careful not to say it around people who had a god, in case they winced at someone else breaking the rules of their religion. I wouldn’t order pork sausage while out to lunch with someone I knew belonged to a no-pig-eating religion, either, because I wouldn’t want to make them wince—even though, of course, there’d be nothing at all wrong with me eating pig, since I don’t belong to that religion.

But no, the expression is “Oh my god,” so it shouldn’t offend anyone else: it’s totally clear I’m not talking about their god. At most, they might think, “My goodness, she certainly has a lenient god!”

It’s like saying “Oh my stars!” even though we’re not referring to any particular stars, and even though we don’t personally own any stars, and even though there might be a religion that reveres the stars and doesn’t want to speak lightly of them in colloquial expressions. We don’t belong to that religion, so we’re allowed to say “Oh my stars” without sinning or breaking rules or being disrespectful to someone else’s stars. If I were friends with a star-worshiper, I’d avoid the expression, because why create tension when it would be just as easy to substitute the harmless “Oh my god” instead?

Or it’s like “Oh my sainted aunt!” You don’t have to have an aunt to use that expression, let alone one who’s been officially sainted. If you DID have an aunt who was a saint, using the expression wouldn’t be saying anything disrespectful about her—but it’s possible you’d choose not to say it anyway, just to avoid confusion. (Your sainted aunt: “What?” You: “Oh, no, nothing, Auntie!”)

I couldn’t use “because it’s a swear,” either. A swear is a “bad word.” A swear is a word like “sh*t” or “f*ck”: you can’t really say those words in a context where they’re not bad words. But “oh” and “my” and “god” are neutral words, and their meaning is derived from context. If you’re not using the name of your god frivolously, you’re not swearing. In fact, even if you ARE using the name of your god frivolously AND that’s against your religion’s rules, you’re STILL not swearing: you’re sinning and/or and you’re breaking a commandment, but you’re not using bad words. One of the funniest things I’ve read lately is that Lora’s son refers to Jesus as “that guy with a bad word for a name.”

So if it’s not a religious rule they’re breaking, and it’s not a swear, why am I telling the kids they can’t say it? It’s because I think they’re too young to use good judgment with that phrase, or to give an explanation for their usage of it if an explanation is demanded of them. Obviously no one should be monitoring someone else’s religious compliance, especially if the monitor doesn’t even know the monitoree’s religious situation, but we all know of people who DO feel the urge to do volunteer police work, and I don’t want my children confronted by such people if I can help them avoid it.

I don’t let the kids say “crap,” either: “crap” isn’t a swear, but it’s in the Careful Zone. I say “crap” comfortably as a sassy sort of word, but I wouldn’t say it in front of my child’s teacher, or in front of my grandparents, or in a job interview—unless I was using it deliberately and with some thought behind it and I intended the impact I’d know it would have.

I don’t think my kids have that kind of judgment yet. In fact, I am pretty goddamned sure they don’t, so what I’ve told them is that “Oh my god” and “crap” is language they can choose to use or not use when they’re older and can weigh the impact of it. Until then, it’s “Oh, man!” and “Dang it!”

So! I DID transfer the blog yesterday, as I said I would. I can’t believe I followed through, but the evidence is right before my eyes. Anyone encountering trouble with the updated version? Anything look weird or not working or whatever? Not that I’d know how to fix it.

Third and last Grand Canyon letter from my mom:

Hi Kidz,

We had a nice final excursion today to an unmarked destination point D and P [friends who’d been there before] found in a guidebook.

On the way we stopped at a regular look-out point where there were more ledges — however, fortunately with a sloped shelf that would break one’s fall after a hundred feet or so, as you see.

Anyway, back to D’s unmarked destination. We only found it by following the guidebook instructions, which were to first find a particular Park sign and then to measure with odometer 1.25 miles past it. We then pulled into a totally unmarked little flat dirt area — beyond which was a locked gate with a sign saying “Use of site by permit only,” which would certainly have kept me away, but the guidebook said, “Your hike starts at the locked gate.” So we proceeded along a dirt road (well, a dirt swath wide enough for cars).

We walked on this road for a mile through woods so clean and quiet it reminded me of the Woods Between the Worlds. [That’s another Narnia reference.]

At the end we came to a small clearing right up against the canyon rim — with picnic tables, grills, etc. The guidebook says that after May 15, there might be weddings going one here, since the site is available for such things for a fee. No weddings today, but I have one question for people who have weddings in this spot: How does one keep children from going off the ledges?

THIS one, for example. I will say that beneath this ledge — out of sight — was like a STEP — another horizontal rock sticking maybe 12″ out beyond the ledge you see at my feet. However, beyond THAT was a several thousand-foot sheer drop-off. This type of drop-off was all along the whole picnic site — no signs, no rails, no nothing. I’m picturing children racing madly about.

 

Say kids, why don’t you go climb that tree there — the one hanging out over the bottomless abyss?

 

Or how about a nice game of tag? That rock over there could be Home Free.

 

Well, anyway, I did spend a fair amount of time thinking how inappropriate the site was for a big family wedding. I showed Dad where I felt the 8-foot chain-link fence should be installed before any child allowed on the site.

The one disappointment we had is that there was a cool platform-like point of rock sticking out (no doubt where the bride and groom stand for the significant moment) that I wanted to explore, but unfortunately, some RANGERS were out there having some kind of class. We waited probably a half hour longer than we would otherwise have stayed, hoping they’d go so we could go explore, but they never budged.

Last thing we did was to walk out and watch the sunset from the trail. The wind had picked up, and we huddled back against the rock side of the trail. People were coming up the trail just under the wire before darkness — it was nice — not crowded at all.

The sun was setting from behind a big cliff, not over the canyon itself, but it was still pretty — cold and eerie in a nice way.

Nice day. We’re off first thing tomorrow.

Love, Mom

I’m going to have to update this blog to the new version of Blogger. I’ve been putting it off a LONG time because I don’t actually HAVE to—but it’s time. So if the blog doesn’t seem quite right for a day or two or three or FOREVER, that’s why. Sigh. Let’s see if I actually DO it now that I’ve SAID I’ll do it.

I got another note from my mom about their trip to the Grand Canyon. (First note is here.)

Hi Kidz,

We had a great morning exploring. We took a shuttle bus along the rim. It was still early, so not crowded — the bus was only about half full. You can get off at any stop and then just get on a later shuttle — they run every 15 minutes or so. We got off at a stop where no one else got off, and we found we were the only ones there. It was great — silent on the trail.

We stayed and strolled around maybe a half hour and then hopped a shuttle and rode on. By the time we got back to the starting point, there were already long lines of people waiting to catch the shuttle, so timing is everything.

It’s just so odd how the land goes along perfectly flat, and then just drops off. I keep imagining what the first settlers must have thought when they came upon it. Dad suggests, “Like, whoa.” [Swistle suggests: “Oh sh**.”]

One thing that surprises me very much about the canyon is the ledges. The trails aren’t real narrow — maybe 3 feet across — but there aren’t railings and the drop-offs are frequently sheer and of the sort that if one were to step off it would be certainly fatal. Families walk along with little children running ahead and peering over without anyone seeming to be the least alarmed. You may think I’m exaggerating and the drop-offs must not be QUITE that sheer or deep, but ask Dad — one slip and that would be that. [Next sentence contains Narnia reference:] There were several spots where I thought about the cliff Eustace fell off of — the kind where there’d be a long time to think about one’s error if one stepped off. Eventually one would BUMP along, but there wouldn’t be any stopping for a real long time.

Here, for example. The trail goes through that rock tunnel on the left. To the right the trail edge drops off exactly like what is visible to the right in the photo. And it’s about as far down as if one were on a tall building. I watched children no older than the twins running ahead of their parents on this very stretch. Not to mention slightly older children pushing and shoving and arguing as they walked along, no parent in sight. I admit MY technique would be a little extreme in the opposite direction — without a word of discussion, I would scoop the children up, put them into their car seats, and leave the park.

It’s hard — impossible, really — to photograph a ledge that one is standing on, because with the camera pointed down, the cliff edge looks horizontal. One has to show something in the distance and say, “It’s LIKE this.” Okay, the trail often runs along the very edge of places LIKE this one:

When we FIRST got on the trail, I would think as I approached it, “What an optical illusion! Haha! It looks like the trail is running right along a sheer cliff!” Then I’d look over and freeze, like Eustace. It’s one of those ledges where the upside of falling off would be you wouldn’t need to bother to retrieve the body.

The trail is horizontal, I’m happy to say — not sloped. The trails are very nice — flat and with a little line of stones running along the ledge. But I’ll say this — if I took a class of my students on this trail, I would return with fewer children than I started out with. The trails are very good: wide …. flat … secure. But disconcerting to think, “Haha … looks like if you stepped off the trail you’d go straight down, haha!” and then find out that’s exactly what would happen like for maybe a couple thousand feet.

One sees mule droppings all along the trail (and there’s a mule pen at the top for the mules to wait in for the daily mule train), and as we walked along we imagined being up on a mule. I notice the mule prints tend to be about 6″ from the ledge (and signs say to let the mules pass on the drop-off side). No. Thank. You.

By the way, the Q&A poster on mule rides has the Q “Do mules ever trip and fall?” with the answer being Very Seldom. But yes, it has happened. But that so far no human has ever been killed. Only the PACK mules have actually, well, plummeted through space. They said they use particularly steady ones for humans. So don’t worry.

Another thing I think about is that story a couple years back about the woman who was posing on a ledge for her husband to take a photo of her when she stepped back and fell. Of course one assumes her husband gave a little push, but looking at the ledges, one realizes how very little push would be needed, and how confident he would be that she wouldn’t live to tell on him (which she didn’t). It actually surprises me that people are trusting enough to pass strangers on the trail, since the smallest push from anyone along at least half of the trail would have fatal result. One thinks of these things. Well, SOME of us think of these things!

Love, Mom

My favorite parts:

1. “It’s one of those ledges where the upside of falling off would be you wouldn’t need to bother to retrieve the body.”

2. “I’ll say this — if I took a class of my students on this trail, I would return with fewer children than I started out with.”

3. “I notice the mule prints tend to be about 6″ from the ledge (and signs say to let the mules pass on the drop-off side). No. Thank. You.”

Where do we stand on the issue of legalized medical marijuana for people stuck in a house with snotty-nosed, coughing, crabby, screaming children? We’re pro, right? I know we’re pro when it’s barfing, obv, but it’s pro for snot, too, right?

My parents are on a vacation to the Grand Canyon. Here’s a letter from my mom, for those who want to participate virtually in the splendor:

Well. We’re at the Grand Canyon. We’ve been to the rim and walked along it, and taken a little trail down into it a bit, and it is indeed large and view-riffic.

But the crowds! The teeming masses of humanity! The bumper-to-bumper cars inching along mile after mile! I’m far more amazed at how crowded it is than I am at any grandness.

Checking in to our enviable “deep-within-the-national-park” lodge room was like finding a seat for the Super Bowl. We found the last possible parking space in a vast parking lot and walked with throngs of people to the registration center, where we joined a line pouring out the door. Forty-five minutes later we reached the registration desk (with four clerks, like in a TJ Maxx except WAY slower) who told us our room wasn’t ready yet. Since it was 4:30, we wondered when it would be ready …. by bedtime, we hoped? She didn’t know, but said to check back in 30 minutes. We asked if we would need to go through the line again and she said “yes.” So we asked if we should just go to the end of the line again now since it was at least a 30-minute line, and she said yes. We actually went away for an hour before we tried again, but we did go through the line again, when finally our room was ready.

Everywhere we’ve been so far has been filled with throngs of people (including one very tall man I keep seeing again and again who has passed us about 5 times and I’ve noticed him because he’s wearing a micro-mini skirt and has shaved bare legs). We’ve checked into our room and are now going to walk back to Grand Central Station where they have an over-priced but convenient mega-mall-type food-court.

Love, Swistle’s Mom

Can’t you just SEE the stunning vistas? the astonishing beauty of nature?

I have two songs going through my head: puh-puh-puh-puh “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga (I love the dogs at the beginning: they’re all, like, “What. Evs,” sniffing the air and almost YAWNING as a leather-clad, masked, dripping, intensely slack-mouthed woman comes crouching-and-posing out of the water)—and why don’t I just start a new paragraph for the other song going through my head, because I have lost my grip on this sentence and we might as well start fresh. I’ll wrap up by saying I liked the song better before I saw the video, which just about SPRAINS something trying to be sex-XAY.

The other song is “Be Happy,” from, um, Wow Wow Wubbzy. One of my kids came home from school with a two-episode disc (yay, marketing to children! through schools! without asking parents first!), and ALL FIVE kids were SILENT except for the LAUGHING. It was GREAT. I immediately put two more discs on my Netflix queue.

What I like about the show:

1. The SONGS. OMG, I would totally listen to a CD of them in the car, even if the kids were not with me. I thought at first they were sung by my boyfriends Angels and Airwaves, but no.

2. It’s PBS-ish even though it’s not PBS. It’s relationships/feelings/life, like Arthur and Clifford and Caillou.

3. Some of the life lessons are really good, such as “People are different, and they like different things and feel different ways.”

What I don’t like about the show:

1. Some of the life lessons are dumb. Example: “Be yourself and you will be a success at everything and everyone will like you!” Or the lesson in the song that’s going through my head, which is that the solution to being sad is to be happy instead. It’s so easy!

2. I find the characters’ voices a little irritating. Wubbzy, male, is voiced by the same person who does Emily Elizabeth’s goody-goody voice on Clifford. Widget, female, has what seems like a fakey, put-on accent (I’m allowing for the idea that it could be the voice actor’s actual accent, but if it is, it doesn’t SOUND it), and she says “little buddy” too often.

3. As with many children’s shows, the example set by the characters is “If you feel left out or hurt, sulk self-pityingly until people pay attention to you.” The characters say things such as, “SIGH, I guess they don’t need ME anymore” in re lifelong friends who have spent all of 10 minutes playing with someone else. Then they go off and sit sadly alone, but well within view so they attract attention.

Overall, I like the show. I’m buying both discs I linked to above, to give to Henry for his second (SECOND!) birthday in May, because at some point the cost of keeping them for WEEKS from Netflix ADDS THE HECK UP. And I’ve had Pirate Treasure on my Netflix queue for ages (it didn’t release until today, which is why it’s on my mind; also, THE SONG THE SONG THE CATCHY CATCHY SONG), and now I have to send a movie back pronto so I can get it.

Edited to add: “Pronto”? Who SAYS that?

I referred to this once before…somewhere…but anyway I did a care package exchange with Lisa of It’s Pretty Okay. Oh, here it is: #4 in this overly perky post. Lisa is in a military family living in Japan, so to me this meant:

1) I could use the APO/FPO flat-rate priority boxes, which cost only $11.95 to mail no matter how heavy they are, instead of the usual $40-$60 for international mailing.

2) Cute stuff from Japan, SQUEEE!

And to her it meant:

1) Famous Dave’s barbecue sauce

And so it was agreed. Both of us got a little nervous about it (we both worried that the packages we were assembling were lame), but I think it went REALLY WELL, don’t you, Lisa?

You can go over to Lisa’s blog to see what I sent her.

And now I’ll show you what was in the box Lisa sent me!

This is the box when I first opened it and fluffed a few things out of the way of other things.

These are the WEEest little cookie cutters you have ever seen! The big green square? Is, like, 3/4ths inch square. You can use these to make the cutest ever kid meals. Paul used them last night to cut slices of cheese for the kids, and it was ADORBS.

I could not—COULD NOT—get a picture that shows this great purse to advantage. Here it’s flung over the high chair tray, and I swear this was the best photo I got of it.

Ice cream scoop and coffee spoon. Lisa says the ice cream scoops in Japan are TEH BEST.

Snackies! With little Japanese characters and pictures all over them!

Stickers! Origami paper! Activity books! Stationery!

Close-up of some of the stickers, because I thought they were soooooo cute.

Bendy giraffe straws and clothespins. Lisa says the clothespins in Japan are also TEH BEST.

Dream Toothpicks! Adorable container, and also another of the things that are TEH BEST. Look at the cute carved tops!

Things for the kids (what? the stickers weren’t for me?): pens that you write in invisible ink that only shows up when you shine the other end of the pen on it, a puzzle, a “Miraculous Ruler,” etc.