I think we should have a poll. My sister-in-law, my sister-in-law’s sister, and I are planning to go see a movie this weekend. What should we see? Oscar-nominated Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? Oscar-nominated animated shorts? Rampart? This Means War, which my sister-in-law says got an intriguing review in Entertainment Weekly (the gist was that it was contrived fluff the reviewer nevertheless completely enjoyed)? Chronicle? Something else that’s still playing in theaters?

Let’s have a poll over to the right (below the ad). [Poll closed; see results below.] And give the reason for your vote in the comments if you can, because that can be so helpful for determining if we should take the advice or not (“I think you should watch X because it’s SUPER TERRIFYING! I barfed for WEEKS!” “I think you should watch Y because it made me really think about how awful the world is and how there’s nothing we can do about it!”).

Poll results:

I’ve had a policy at my house for awhile, which is that if I decide to drink in the evenings, I have to keep laundry cycling the whole time. I like the built-in safety of this: if I get caught up on laundry, I’ll know there’s a problem.

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I’ve been having dreams night after night about moving to a new house. After it got to the point of incredulous laughter (“AGAIN??”), I looked it up on a dream interpretation site, where I found that it means I’m going through a big life change/re-evaluation, which, no kidding.

But also, in that same category, I found a bunch of stuff about what it means if you dream about bathrooms, especially if there are no doors on the stalls and/or the toilets are filthy and overflowing. The dream-interpretation sites have INTERPRETATIONS for that, along the lines of your psyche is clogged or you need more privacy in your life.

But do you know what it actually means? It means your body needs to pee, and your body doesn’t realize it’s dreaming so it’s about to wet the bed, and your brain is frantically scrambling for ANY reason why your body CANNOT PEE right now. That’s what it means. So that kind of calls the whole dream-interpretation thing into question for me.

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Dilemma: Elizabeth’s spelling challenge words this week include “Dr. Seuss,” but the teacher has spelled it “Dr. Suess.” It’s spelled that way in more than one place, so it’s not just a typo. I’m not inclined to teach her to spell it incorrectly, but if I teach her to spell it correctly, she may get it marked wrong. …Actually, I guess this isn’t much of a dilemma, since the Worst Case Scenario is that she doesn’t get ONE possible BONUS point on her spelling test.

Still. It’s making me a little grouchy. I understand the source of the misspelling (it’s a hard name, even more so because the common nickname Sue is pronounced like the first sound of Seuss), and everyone makes mistakes (you’ll note I don’t blog about every “bring in their Valentine’s” and casual typos on every single memo/newsletter)—but this PARTICULAR word seems like a misspelling an elementary school teacher would be especially/professionally familiar with and therefore extra careful to avoid if she knew she had an issue with it. She’d think, “Oh, yes, Seuss—that’s a tricky one, and I can never remember how to spell it. I’d better make sure I’ve got it right, before I add it to the spelling words list!”

Swistle’s Dad writes:

We’re suddenly starting to plan for a Northwest road trip this May, to include Yellowstone National Park. I don’t know if you’d want to ask this on your blog, but we’re looking for advice on being in Yellowstone either May 9-10 or May 30-31. Does that three weeks make a big difference in weather? Do the crowds start picking up at the end of May, or not until later? Is stuff still closed or inaccessible in early May? Etc. Just an idea if you’re desperate for a topic.

I’m wearing Charlie perfume today. That stuff brings me right back to high school—but in the good way, not in the “OH GOD NOT THIS DREAM AGAIN!” way.

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Yesterday Henry was playing outside and broke a window. At least two children saw him do it, and no one told us. These are children who normally tattle such offenses as BREATHING TOO LOUD and “He’s thinking I’m stupid!!”—but when it’s something we really would like to hear about, nothing. So cold air poured in all night. Little belated Valentine’s Day gift for you, there, gas company.

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If you are browsing your sad empty weekend RSS reader, I suggest MO Mommy’s post Mutualism, which contains this excellent line:

People always say, “BE YOURSELF! Don’t worry about what others think! BE YOU!” But what if being me INCLUDES caring (and caring deeply) about what others think? THEN WHAT?

and this one:

The internet can make people feel anonymous, make them feel it’s ok to say things for the sake of an argument, when the argument itself misses the whole point.

Or, Marie Green was talking on Twitter about The Trephine’s post Some Divorce Advice From Me to You. It’s got advice if you’re getting a divorce, if you know someone getting a divorce, if you’re not planning to get a divorce, if you’re not even married. It’s part serious, part funny, part insightful—one of my favorite combinations:

Plus, anytime anyone asks about your ex and how it’s going, you can say, “Oh, he/she is great. A++++++++, would divorce again.” Oh, come on, that’s funny.

Or you might like to read Bebehblog’s post Opening Up, on the serious subject of psychiatric medications, but also funny:

Some days I wondered if I was crazy for NOT having postpartum depression. And then when things started to feel out of control I wondered if I was just exaggerating so I could fit in.

Rob has strep, so now I am the only one of the seven of us who hasn’t had it this winter. Waiting for his prescription, I thought of some Swistle’s! Awesome! Pharmacy! TIPS!! It’s one of my favorite things, when someone has worked in a certain field and can give Insider Info.

1. Wait for it. It’s not always possible, of course, but if it IS possible, waiting for the prescription (rather than leaving and coming back) is the best way to reduce the largest number of pharmacy issues. (Plus, waiters get bumped ahead of come-back-laters.) Most problems that halt a prescription in its tracks (insurance info not up to date, insurance won’t pay because they don’t realize this is a dose change or a replacement for a spilled bottle, person not in the computer or can’t be found in the computer) can be fixed in about 2 seconds if there’s someone there to help solve the mystery.

2. Don’t expect them to call you with these mysteries, or with anything else. They almost never will, even if they say they will. Instead, you will find out when you arrive to pick it up. I’m not going to defend this, because I am very frustrated when I’m the customer and it happens to me; I’m only going to tell you it’s the way it IS. It’s the sort of situation where it’s better to work with reality than keep struggling futilely against it. If your insurance persistently causes problems and you’re sick of showing up only to have someone say, “Um, that’ll be $193.50” and then have to wait while they call the insurance or fill the prescription they didn’t fill because it wouldn’t go through, or if your pharmacy techs keep saying, “Um, we haven’t filled anything for him before?” because they mistyped your child’s name, I recommend calling before leaving the house to make sure the prescription is ready and the insurance went through. You shouldn’t have to do that. But this brings us back to the subject of reality, and of working with it.

3. If it’s a refill, call it in ahead of time and pick it up later—like, the next day. On the spectrum of prescriptions, highest sympathy/speed/priority go to prescriptions written that same day for antibiotics, or for painkillers for someone recently injured; lowest sympathy/speed/priority go to refills that could have been called in but weren’t, or prescriptions written two weeks ago and brought in 15 minutes before closing time, and now the customer is saying they should have taken their pill this morning but didn’t. This is the perfect time for that “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part” sign, and will cause the resentment that inevitably comes from being forced to compensate for someone else’s choices while suppressing the related feelings. It’s not a good idea to get resentment simmering in someone preparing something you will be swallowing.

4. I think that the absolute most common pharmacy complaint I heard while working there is “WHY does it TAKE so long?” A prescription goes through roughly five steps of checks and re-checks and processing, some of which are to keep you from dying from a drug interaction, and some of which are to keep you from having to pay full-price for the medicine, and some of which are to make sure you have the instructions you need for taking the medication. Those are nice things, I think we can agree on that.

The more important reason it takes so long, however, is that you have to wait your turn. Most prescriptions are called in by a doctor or by a customer, or are dropped off to be picked up later—so there can be fifty prescriptions lined up and not a single visible customer waiting. A 20-minute wait means the pharmacy cut you ahead of a bunch of people who were there first but the pharmacy is willing to gamble they won’t show up in the next 20 minutes. A 30- to 60-minute wait means several people have already been cut into line and there isn’t room for another.

Which brings me to another tip: Having the doctor call it in doesn’t necessarily help. I think the image is of the doctor phoning the pharmacist directly, and the pharmacy springing into immediate emergency action knowing the customer is ON THE WAY! Whereas actually the prescription is put at the end of the line. And sometimes, the doctor chooses to leave a message on the pharmacy’s voice mail instead of pressing 4 to speak to the pharmacist directly, and sometimes those messages don’t get checked for awhile. And sometimes the doctor puts the prescription in a pile to have the nurse call in later. It’s a system riddled with flaws and solvable issues, I agree. After working in a pharmacy, I usually choose to bring the prescription in myself, or else when the doctor says “I’ll call this in” I say “Tell them I’m on my way.”

5. Know your insurance. Ha ha, I’m just kidding: it’s not possible to know your insurance. I’ve read our handbook again and again, STRAINING to understand, and I still get surprised all the time by what they will/won’t cover. By “know your insurance” I mean “realize that insurance can be confusing and kind of unpleasant, and that the bills are submitted by one computer talking to another, so even if they WEREN’T unpleasant, things are likely to get screwed up.”

Here are the most common insurance issues:

• Usually a covered medication is covered only every X days. So, for example, if you take a daily pill, and your insurance covers it, the most likely is that they will pay for it again when you have 5-8 pills left. If you try to be smart and prepared and fill your birth control prescription a week or 10 days in advance, they might reject the claim.
• This also means that if there is something irregular about the time you’re refilling it, it would be a good idea to mention this to the clerk so he/she can override the insurance’s rejection. If I knew that a customer was doing an early refill because they spilled their medicine in the sink, or because they were going to be traveling, or because they needed a second bottle for school, those were all problems I could fix. If I didn’t know, all I could do was write “Insurance says too soon” on the bag.
• If a medication is more expensive than usual, most insurance companies will set up hoops. For example, the doctor might need to call them and tell them YES, he/she really DOES mean the prescription he/she wrote. Or they might want you to take a cheap medication first. Or they might just deny it until you or the pharmacy clerk calls them and says “Hey, remember what YOU’RE supposed to do? You’re supposed to PAY for this.” Since most of the time we don’t know how much medications cost, I recommend thinking of any new medication as a potential hassle.
• A very common thing for someone with a rejected claim to say is that their insurance company “won’t let them have” a medication their doctor wants them to have. A clarification is in order here: the insurance company WILL let the customer have the medicine, it just won’t PAY for it for them. The customer will have to pay for their own medicine, but of course they may have it.

8. Some pharmacies are not well-run or well-staffed. I can talk all day about how customers have to realize blah, or should understand snah, but there are pharmacies where you can go in with your prescription for antibiotics and wait for an hour when they said it would be 15 minutes, and then get the wrong medication and have them tell you your insurance won’t cover it when actually the pharmacy just didn’t make sure they had the info entered correctly, and then ring you up wrong and also say they already gave you back your insurance card when they didn’t—and it can pretty much happen that way every single time. I had co-workers who were…well, let’s not use words like “incompetent” or “rude,” let’s just say that not everyone works in the field to which they are best suited. In those situations the only real tip is “Switch pharmacies,” which is (1) a tip you could come up with without a former pharmacy technician, and (2) not always practical.

Going through the kids’ valentines, I kept getting startled at something I’d SEEN ON THE INTERNET. Like, I JUST saw the “I dig you” favors on She Likes Purple, and there was one in Henry’s valentines bag! And someone else used Etsy candy bar wrappers! And someone else did that idea where you take a picture of your child holding out his/her hands, and then spear a lollipop through the photo hands like they’re holding it!

I was so amazed! I was like, “How did all of YOU find the internet??” For all I go around assuming everyone is online, I guess I assume no one is online. My life could be TEEMING with bloggers and I wouldn’t even know it!

I’d like to access the brain of the internet, if I may. I have the sad task of returning a cat to the shelter whence she came. The other cats will not accept her, nor does she want to have anything to do with even their friendly overtures. The other cats have now begun relentlessly tormenting her and preventing her from using any of the litter boxes. (Every time I scoop a box, the other cats come RUNNING because they think she’s trying to sneak a pee.) When she walks from one room to another, she has her tail tucked and she walks slowly and carefully, looking around constantly and expecting to be attacked—expectations that are periodically confirmed. She is not living a happy life right now.

We’ve consulted with the vet and various online resources, as well as studying all the pamphlets from the shelter, and we’ve tried a number of expensive and non-expensive solutions with results that seemed promising at first but have all come to naught. This is not working. It’s a bad match. Which is sad because we love her and want to keep her.

The sad part is entirely ours: when I feel like this is too hard a task, it is comforting to imagine her in a house where she can go where she wants and not have to worry about being attacked; where she can go to the bathroom without the equivalent of someone slamming open the door while she’s mid-pee. The shelter is a no-kill shelter (the kind that charges you to bring in an animal, and sometimes doesn’t have room for new admissions), and they do a wonderful job of taking care of animals in both short-term and long-term care. (Our adoption contract specifies that we have to return her there if we don’t keep her.) She’s a wonderful cat, and I think she’ll get taken quickly: she’s great with children and with people she doesn’t know, and she’s a sweetheart, and she’s pretty.

Here’s the part of the internet’s large and extensive brain I’d like to access: Do you have any tips for bringing an animal to the shelter? That is, as a former pharmacy technician I could suggest you not say “What takes so long? Don’t you just have to grab a pack off the shelf??” (answer: “No”), and as a former daycare caregiver I can say we definitely believe that babies poop in the car on the way to daycare but that we believe it more if the parent then changes the diaper, and as someone who has done some dating I can explain that “It’s not you, it’s me,” “I hope we can still be friends,” and “I LOVE you, I’m just not IN love with you” should be avoided. What I’m hoping is that some of YOU have inside information about animal drop-offs. What’s good/bad to say? What will communicate our good-person status and remove some of the disappointed-in-you disapproval from the faces? What will make it clear that this is a decision we agonized about and tried many things to fix, rather than that we are people who went “Meh, this didn’t turn out to be 100% easy and awesome so never mind it’s just an animal”?

I changed my screen saver to a slideshow of all the photos in iPhoto. On one hand, this has been a GREAT idea and TONS of fun: it’s common for me to end up surrounded by children and Paul, all of us watching the computer screen and saying “Ohhhhhhh, that’s WILLIAM! He’s HENRY’S age there!” and “Ohhhhh, Elizabeth, look at you in your little DRESS! Awwww, your hair was still so short then!”

On the other hand, it’s been a TERRIBLE idea and has led to TONS of morose brooding and even LEAKING TEARS. What has been the POINT of all this child-rearing work, when they all just grow up into unrecognizable, smelly, messy-lived ADULTS like all the rest of us? Rob already bears almost zero resemblance to his childhood self; the two don’t even seem CONNECTED in my mind. One was my baby/toddler/child Rob, and then that ended—and now a new person is here, coincidentally named Rob.

What has been the point of all the money and time and stress, when what we’re getting out of it is people who grow up and feel superior and critical (“I’LL never do X like MY parents did!”) and wish they didn’t have to visit us? YES, it’s true that when I think of any mistake that my parents made (NOT THAT THEY EVER MADE ANY, or that they read this blog), my mind immediately adds that every human parent by absolute unavoidable definition will make their own batch of mistakes based on their own temperament, and that it is not only unreasonable/ridiculous but also very unpleasant and whiny and immature to require one’s own parents to have been the first unflawed human beings. (It will not surprise you that this mature viewpoint came to me more firmly when I was myself a parent, with my own behavior up for future review and criticism.)

And YES, it’s true that not only do I not feel obligated/stressed about visits to my parents, I in fact deliberately moved to a house three-tenths of a mile away from theirs because I WANTED TO, even though I hate the weather here and loved it where we lived before. So it’s not like I think every child grows into an unappreciative and distant adult. BUT. It’s not like they grow into a darling cheek-squeezable cutie-pie whose attempt at saying Mommy comes out like “Bah-boo,” either. I’ve been leafing through my journals and seeing how there are TONS of cute things to record about the early years, and then it drops off pretty sharply. The only things I write about Rob now are things like “Rob got his braces on today” and “Rob is now the same height as me.” There’s no impulse to photograph his widdle toes. (Also gone: the incredible exhaustion/frustration/”Please let no one touch me for TEN SECONDS” of those widdle-toes years. But that’s been replaced, with no accompanying toesies.) (And it’s not like I want the toesies years back, or to live them again/instead. I don’t know what I want.)

I’ve been upset, as you know, about the end of the child-bearing years, and I’d been soothing myself by thinking about how there are still lots of things to look forward to, among them grandchildren. But now I think “Sure. And then the grandchildren also grow up into adults.”

Everything is feeling very BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE to me right now, like all the good parts have just been a set-up.

This morning’s preschool time benefited greatly from OpportunityThink. It’s NOT that the whole time was used up by errands. No.

Instead, it’s that I had the opportunity to call the pediatrician about William’s ouchy ear without having to say, “Henry, I’m on the phone. Shh, honey. Honey, SHHHH. Sweetheart, I am ON. THE. PHONE.”

Then I had the opportunity to take William to the pediatrician without having to say, “Henry, sit in the chair, please. Henry, remember what we talked about, about how you need to be quiet so Mommy can hear the doctor. Oh, honey, get off the floor. Off the floor, please. Honey, OFF THE FLOOR, oh that is gross, you are having a bath in hand sanitizer when we get home.”

Then I had the opportunity to sit in the pharmacy waiting area with a book and without having to say, “Henry, sit in the chair, please. Henry, IN the chair. Feet OFF the chair, please. No, we are not buying that. Honey, remember we don’t talk about other people when they can hear us. Seriously, stop that. No, we are not buying that. I said NO, Henry. Sit IN the chair. ON your butt, please. Okay, it was funny the first three times, but now stop saying ‘butt.’ Quiet voice, please. Just a few more minutes. Because we have to wait our turn. Honey, just be patient please, we are almost done.”

Then I had the opportunity to take William into the school office without saying, “Henry, hold my hand. You have to hold my hand. Stop careening, please. Shhhh, sweetheart, children are trying to learn. Okay, stop saying ‘butt’ now. CAREFUL, honey. That’s HER pencil. Leave that there, please. Don’t touch that, please. Oh, god, don’t LICK that please, are you kidding me?”

Then I had the opportunity to go to the grocery store without saying, “Fine, you can walk, but you have to watch where you’re going. Watch where you’re going, honey. Henry, you almost smashed right into that lady’s cart. No, I’M going to hold the list. No, we’re not buying that. No, we’re not buying that. No, we’re not buying that. Because we don’t need it, now be quiet for a minute so Mommy can concentrate on this decision. Honey, shhh a little. You really can’t keep saying ‘butt,’ sweetheart. Do you need to go into the cart? Okay, then stay on OUR side of the aisle. OUR side, honey. No, no candy. No, no doughnut. Honey, we are almost done, please be patient.”

Then I had the opportunity to put away the groceries without saying, “You can have something to eat after I put away the groceries. AFTER I put away the groceries. Honey, I JUST answered that question, you need to LISTEN. I don’t think you ARE going to die if you have to wait a few minutes, no. Why don’t you play a computer game? Sweetheart, I’m trying to go down the stairs, you need to get out from under my feet or we’re both going to get hurt. Put that down, please. Let me past, please. The faster I can get this done, the sooner you can have a snack. No, that’s for with lunch tomorrow. Honey, you are driving Mommy crazy.”

Then I had the opportunity to write this post without saying, “Just give Mommy a few minute to write, please. Please let Mommy concentrate. Listen, you were totally happy playing with your knights until the instant my butt hit the chair, and then you wanted to talk to me. Yes, butt, I know, very funny. Yes, very funny. Okay, stop saying ‘butt’ now. Okay, you can sit on my lap, but please be quiet. Honey, I can’t concentrate, and if I can’t concentrate I can’t finish this. Sweetheart, could you please go play something else? Stop doing that. Stop doing that. That’s why I told you to stop doing that. Can you pick that mess up now, please? Henry. Henry, come on, I just want FIVE minutes. Five minutes is not unreasonable. Why don’t you draw Daddy a picture? It’s spelled b-u-t-t. Oh, how nice, yes, now let Mommy concentrate. Honey. Sweetheart. Yes, I see it. Okay, now let me just finish this and then we can read your book.”

And now I have the opportunity to go pick up the little booger from preschool.

This is one of those posts that will be extremely boring to everyone except the people who, like me, are searching EVERYWHERE online for the answer, and are finding nothing but a bunch of sites where someone has asked the question and has received a bunch of answers that are useless. USELESS.

So. This is in answer to the question: If you are playing a game on your Mac, and the game takes up the entire screen, and you want to go back to your desktop but you don’t want to have to quit the game to get there, how do you do it? And the answer is: command-H.

The mnemonic is that H is for Hide; you’re hiding the window with the game in it.

This was such frustrating information to find. I was getting so tired of having to quit/re-launch Sims every single time an email came in or I wanted to check something online, but I couldn’t find the answer to what seemed like an easy question. I found one million answers to how to do it in WINDOWS and/or on a PC, but not on a Mac. And there were even questions where the person SPECIFIED it was a Mac, and asked NOT to receive answers for PCs, and people were STILL saying “I dunno, man, but on my PC it’s ____”—and then falling into bickering irrelevant arguments about which PC keyboard was the “standard” one! And this was ON A SITE ABOUT MAC PROBLEMS!! So when I finally did find the answer, I wanted to put it where I (and possibly others) could find it, when it’s been awhile since I’ve played Sims and I’ve completely forgotten and can’t believe I didn’t write it down.