Yesterday we took Per to the first ever Lego Kids Fest, a benefit of living near the US Headquarters. It appears that they are trying out the idea of a traveling festival, much like the ever-popular (at least around here) Day Out With Thomas, where kids can see all sorts of Lego creations and giant models, build stuff, and then take home their own Lego sets...which of course they bought at the handy retail store. We lucked out twice, because we thought to ask some neighbors if they were planning on going. They ended up having an "in" who got us half price tickets, which in and of itself was pretty darn good, but also meant that we had our tickets on hand when we got there...which turned out to be very VERY important.
( Long review with PICS! )

Overall, we had a fabulous time, and would go again given the chance. We really enjoyed looking at everything, and Per--who had lately been playing more with YuGiOh! and Pokemon cards--got back into the swing of playing with all his favorite Legos. It definitely was a fun day for the entire Wezl household.

Today happens to be a day off for both Per and I.  I won't go into all the horrific details of the early morning, but it involved dead things and cat puke, and it all took place before 7am and more importantly, before coffee.  I have announced to Dean that he will have to suffer through some abomination like "A Christmas Carol 3D" to even come close to the mental trauma that I endured.

A couple of weeks ago, Per and I both came down with the piggy flu.  Per was out of school for 4 days, I ended up out of work for the week.  The next week, I felt a thousand times better, but it definitely takes a while to get fully back into the swing of things.  Last weekend, I raked leaves for 3 hours, and you'd think I'd run a marathon.  I could barely lift my arms later that night.  For two weeks, the house was sort of a no-man's-land, as we only did the most basic chores to keep things running.  I've been woefully behind on my side of the chores--luckily Dean offered to tackle the biggest projects in exchange for some quiet time.

So here I am with a relatively free day ahead of me, and finally I have enough energy to consider tackling some chores.  The problem is managing my expectations.  In my head, I will work diligently all day long, and the house will be spotless, and then I will take a few hours to do some personal work, and after all that, Per will go to bed quietly at 9pm and I will settle down with a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, and watch my newest indulgence, Glee.  The reality is that the day will be a balancing act between getting stuff done and keeping Per occupied enough so that he doesn't start messing up places that I've already cleaned.  And don't get me started on the likelihood of Per hitting bed calmly after a day of goofing off.

So yesterday was Gluten-Palooza.  Up until yesterday, the results of my gluten-free test had been inconclusive.  No major "Wow I feel great" feeling, but I was feeling okay and enjoying some weight loss.  After the third week, I tested out eating glutens again, but I had a moment late the next day that I wasn't sure if I should attribute it to stress or to the glutens that had been consumed.  And then on Tuesday, I broke down and nibbled some chicken at work with breading, only to find out that there was blue cheese in the stuffing.  So, while I had some discomfort and bloating, I couldn't tell if it was the dairy or the glutens.

Which brought me to last night.  I decided to run a major test.  Since I've mostly been gluten-free, I figured that any large consumption of glutens would cause a big reaction if they are the problem.  I ended up eating a ton of bread.  So far, so good.  No pain, no bloating, no other reactions.  My stomach is a little jumpy, but it's been that way since the blue cheese (and the fact that I missed lunch today isn't helping much).

Conclusion?  I don't *need* to be gluten free.  However, I like the way I've slimmed down, so I think I will continue with the easy choices.  I will continue to have Rice Chex and the yummy gluten-free crackers with my cheese.  I don't mind the pancake mix that we got, but I'm not going to use the rice flour again.  But, it's going to be a heck of a lot easier eating out or going to other people's homes! 

Hey all!  Regarding the video for Jon that I'm working on:  I'm looking to get some video clips of leaves blowing in the wind, or coming down off of trees to be able to use as motion reference.  I'm also looking for images of leaves on branches, probably maple leaves since they have the nicest color in the fall.  Also if I can get an image of a leaf trapped in the corner of a building, blowing around.

If you are out and about, and see something, can you take a quick shot of it for me?

So how's this for weird?  I've now been mostly gluten free for about a week and a half.  There *was* the beer that I had already drunk most of before remembering that it contains grains, but other than that, I've been really good about my diet.  We even experimented with some GF pancakes which were pretty yummy.  Anyway, I haven't changed the amount of food that I'm eating.  And, despite adding some more veggies into the mix, I haven't really improved my diet tremendously.  I still drink a glass of wine at night and I eat plenty of fattening foods like chocolate, cheese & ice cream.  (My beloved Coconut Milk ice cream, that is...)  Surprisingly, Cocoa Pebbles happen to be GF, so I've eaten plenty of those too.

Yet, somehow in the past week and a half, I've managed to LOSE weight.  Dean and I don't have a scale in the house, so I couldn't begin to tell you how much I've lost, but the pants that I bought 3 weeks ago that were comfortable are feeling somewhat loose now.  I am in shock at how quickly it's dropped off--I usually don't lose this easily unless I'm doing my P90x regularly.  (And shamefully, I haven't been doing that any time recently...)

Overall, I haven't noticed any major improvements outside of the weight loss.  Nothing as drastic as many of the GF sites describe, although I did find information that says it can take up to three weeks for your body to get over the glutens and feel better.  So I'm going follow the suggestions I've read and wait a week or so longer, and then try eating glutens again.  If I am sensitive, it will make me feel horrible, but I'll know for certain to knock them out for good.  The funny thing is that if I don't feel horrible, I'll probably continue to try and remain mostly GF, but just not be militant about it--I have to admit, it's nice to slim down a bit!

The other day I was reading the paper, and came across an article on Celiac Disease.  To be honest, I never gave two thoughts to grain consumption, other than to think "Yes, please!", but I was surprised at how many of the symptoms matched up with me.  Intestinal distress--check.  Easily bruised--check.  Fatigue--check.  One of the things that struck me the most was that lactose intolerance is often a side effect of Celiac disease--if you keep eating the wrong grains, the body responds by rejecting something completely unrelated. 

Well, in total non-scientific fashion, I decided to try out a gluten-free diet for a few weeks, and see if I feel better.  In some ways, it's pretty easy.  I generally eat meat and a vegetable for dinner and try to eat salad for lunch.  In some ways it's surprising.  Who would think that Cocoa Pebbles is an "approved" cereal???  In other ways it's pretty challenging.  You forget how much stuff has wheat, flour, breading, etc.  Like I said to Dean "Oh, I could have Chicken Parmigiana"  Nope, has breading on the cutlet...

The one thing that is inspiring me is that if I keep it up, there's a good chance I will be able to eat dairy again.  That's worth trying it out!

So, I'll warn you right now.  This is going to be a pretty long update, but I think you may find it interesting if you've been following along at home.

( Video update )

Our neighbors are cutting down a few trees, including a couple on our property line, so they asked us to keep our cars out of the driveway and parked on the street while the work is going on.  This afternoon, it was raining, so work had stopped.  Dean pulled his car in, but I was enjoying a nice relaxing Friday afternoon.  We'd fired up the wood stove to ward off the chill of the rain, and I was reading the brand new Entertainment Weekly that had just arrived.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door.  A woman was standing there, pointing to her SUV which was in Cool Neighbors™ driveway and to my car which was in the road.  I assumed she was asking me nicely to move my car so that she could get out, so I said "Oh, no problem!  I'll get my keys and move it."  She replied "I'm sorry!  It's already too late!  I hit it backing out!"

As luck would have it, she happened to clip the door that Dean had dinged waaaaaaay back on the 3rd day I owned it, which was pretty funny to us.  Of all the doors she could hit, we're very happy that it was the one that already had a scrape.  I'd hoped that the damage was just another scrape or two, b/c frankly I really would not have bothered doing anything about it, but she did give it a pretty good whack.  But as luck would also have it, her husband works for a big dealership in the area, and they have a body shop on site, so it looks as though we'll just have them fix it rather than deal with the whole insurance process.  I did take photos of the damage and of the scene, and we do have all their information, but it seems pointless to go to all that trouble (and force their insurance to go up) for a relatively simple fix.  We are thinking that we'll get an outside estimate first, to make sure everything's taken care of properly.  

The poor woman was beside herself--it was her first accident ever in over 30 years of driving.  Much like the last time my poor little Civic got blasted, I felt worse for her than I did about my car.  Honestly, as long as the motor works, I don't really pay much attention to my car, so a ding here or there doesn't bother me at all.  As I said to her, it just a car--no one got hurt.  Of course, also much like the last time, Merc is in retrograde!

The guys at work are going to have a field day laughing at my "invisible" car.  The long-standing joke with my Civic is that it's so small everyone overlooks it.  On the good side, cops never seem to pay attention to it.  On the bad side, trucks always pull into my lane when I'm driving.  When I got rear-ended the last time, they were laughing that the other driver shouldn't be at fault because there was no way for her to see my invisible car.  Now they're going to insist that it's my fault again, since I should have known better than to park the invisible-mobile right in front of the other driveway!

Last weekend, we actually sat down to watch movies each night.  It's not often we both are free and in the mood to watch films, so it was quite the treat.  We ended up checking out Persepolis and then we indulged in watching one of our favorites, Amadeus, which we usually don't have enough time to watch.  It was an intriguing contrast, as while both films initially seem worlds apart--one is a highly graphic animated film based on a popular graphic novel while the other is a lavish, big budget film that takes enormous liberties with the "truth", we found ourselves comparing the two at length.

Even though we watched it second, I'll start with Amadeus.  If you are one of my younger friends, you may never have checked out this film.  It is wonderful, although you should realize that many of the important plot points are fudged or fabricated to suit the dramatic arc of the story.  I do love to use this film as an example of when younger actors get so caught up in performing an elderly role that they don't realize they are physically moving too spryly.  As an animator, I tend to enjoy observing things that "don't fit" right.   F. Murray Abraham's movements during the elderly Salieri sequences start out appropriately slow and limited, but then he gets into the dramatic moments, and he forgets that an older person can't just shed their limitations when they are riled up.  But, outside of that little interesting geeky observation, the sets, performances and music are all wonderful.  And even though I've seen it probably 5 or 6 times, I'm still seeing new stuff each time I watch it.  Like when Dean pointed out a very young Cynthia Nixon.  

Now, we were both interested in Persepolis.  It had surfaced on almost every "top 10" list of last year as an amazing film, and we thought the artwork was incredible.  The story--a young girl coming of age in Iran--also seemed very compelling.  After watching the film, only one thought kept popping to mind, which was "navel-gazing".  Here was a story set in a completely fascinating (and unfamiliar to many Western audiences) situation--the revolution in Iran, followed by the oppressive reign of the Ayatollah.  On top of that, the main character had so many different yet incredible people in her life, and had apparently explored many different philosophies during years of self-examination.  Yet, as viewers, we felt like we were being forced to stay in the shallow kiddy pool when we could see all of this depth sitting right there begging to be explored.  For example, at one point she becomes friends with some disaffected European kids who sit around spouting off about nihilism and other schools of thought from seats of privilege.  One can imagine that eventually listening to people who've never truly experienced any sort of real oppression or deprivation carrying on would eventually become highly irritating to someone who's gone through it.  But the film gives this incredibly short shrift, dealing with the situation in essentially two quick scenes and just stating it bluntly rather than demonstrating it with any finesse.   Later the film chooses to focus on a series of relationships, which once again had potential to showcase how her specific experiences were affecting her life.  Only the film never truly explores the relationships, just presents them as "And then I had this relationship.  And then this is what happened."  By the end of the film I was wondering just how bad the 2008 cinematic season was if this was one of the top 10 films.  I suppose people got caught up in the stark animation which *was* breathtaking at times, and the early part of the tale which was able to walk the balance b/t personal experience amidst history much clearer than the later portions of the film, and just ignored the second half.  Although, given the raves for WALL-E, which essentially had a similar structure (i.e. great first half, sucky second half), this might just have been a trend for the year.

Anyway, the reason why we began comparing Persepolis to Amadeus was that while both purport to explore a creative individual's life in the middle of a fascinating historical period, Persepolis was content to never rise above the selfish individual realm, while Amadeus chose to make a much larger statement about creativity and humanity.  Granted, Amadeus was fictional, and could thus warp the plot to greater serve this goal.  But what we found frustrating about Persepolis was that the author never seems to even try to provide any larger understanding of life in general.  It's like we, as the audience, are supposed to say "Wow!  You are simply the most fascinating person I've ever met!  I'm so glad I got to hear about your life for two hours!" when the author does little more than read off a list of events from a calendar.  I think--perhaps simply because there WAS so much more about her and her life begging to be explored--the shallowness of the film really grated on our nerves by the end.  (I should note that we are interested in checking out the graphic novel, to find out if this flaw was caused by a clumsy adaptation to film or if it was inherent in the source material.)  So, while ultimately we were rather disappointed with Persepolis, it did provide us with quite a few interesting conversations around the wood pile!

Last night Dean and Per were home alone.  After an indulgence of watching "Iron Giant" (which usually elicits the snarky reaction from me of "I liked that film SO much better when it was called "E.T."), Dean was tuckered out and wanted to go to bed.  Per, who takes after me in terms of schedule, was having none of that.  It was a Friday night, and he was ready to stay up until the sun rose!  Poor Dean, who--if we were both free to pursue our favored schedules--would be rising an hour or so after I went to bed, finally found a compromise.  Per would be allowed to stay up reading in his room, as long as he was quiet enough that Dean could sleep.

About two weeks ago, emdem0429 had held an Usborne Books party, and I'd purchased a beautiful Science Encyclopedia for Per.  I'll start to sound like a schill for their products if I describe it too much, but it is a gorgeously laid out, very visual (yet detailed) encyclopedia that covers a lot of advanced scientific topics in a very accessible way.  (As a side note, I chose the "cheap" version, and was pleasantly surprised that it was not a cheaply glued paperback, but was a solidly built hardcover edition)  Last night, Per instantly chose the encyclopedia to read.

So, Per's in his room, happily reading the encyclopedia, while Dean is drifting towards sleep.  In the haze of exhaustion, the following conversation takes place.

P:  Dad!  What color flame would you like to see?  Green or Red?
D:  ...green...

(a moment passes)

P:  Daaaad...do we have Sodium?
D:  ...yes...I mean, no... You know, you need to ask your mom.  She knows a lot more about chemistry than I do.

Luckily for all, Per fell asleep without trying to show Dad how to make green flames!

You may have noticed that I've been posting some stuff on other sites regarding a music festival being put on here in CT.  I'd really appreciate it if you went and followed it either on FB or Twitter (or both!!!), and if you're in the CT area, mention it to your friends as well.  It's the Silk City Music Festival, and it's going to be an afternoon of local CT bands playing original music.  I've gotten to hear some of the bands that are under consideration, and I truly loved what I was listening to--it actually blew me away to realize that I've overlooked so much great stuff going on here at home.  I'll talk more about the bands when they are officially chosen, but I honestly would want to go, even if I wasn't "officially" involved.  Even if you can't possibly make it here for the festival, I'll be putting up links to interviews and mp3s of all the different performers, so there'll  be a lot of great stuff to check out!

I didn't notice.  I was paying too much attention to the stupid dramaz in our section last night!

( Yes, I said DRAMAZ!!! )

Many of you know that I'm a reformed sinner about many things.  I no longer drink soda or excessive amounts of coffee, I actually go to the dentist regularly, and my finances are relatively in order.  I even exercise somewhat regularly, if a bit sporadically.  Of all of those, the toughest challenge has been, without a doubt, my finances.  I had many horrible habits that, combined with unemployment and a move, conspired to put me in a pretty bad situation.  

Because I know myself, when I decided to clean up my finances, I didn't choose a "cold turkey" route.  I knew myself well enough to know that if I tried to go on a starvation budget and toss all my money towards debt repayment, I'd backslide within just a few months.  As a matter of fact, that had happened to me many times in the past.  If I possessed strong financial discipline, I wouldn't have gotten into a mess in the first place.  Goodness knows that intellectually I could have told you why all my choices were stupid.  Instead, I worked very hard to create a sustainable system.  It's been a lot slower than many people's paths--it took me a long time of trial and error to decide upon the best method for me and I still have three years to go before I'm free and clear.  But it's allowed me to learn how to responsibly spend at the same time.  For example, I'm typing on a relatively new iMac computer, which I paid cash for.  In the past, I would have just thrown it on a credit card, and added it to the pile.  But now I've learned to save up money for purchases beforehand, so that I can pay for things outright.

I bring this all up because lately I've been noticing that I've been more tempted to fall back upon old, horrid habits.

Yesterday, I was sitting at work feeling restless, and with a pressing urge to spend money on something, anything.  I had nothing other than chores to look forward to this weekend, and I'd just come off a vacation where, because of careful budgeting beforehand, I'd been able to indulge our family for four straight days and do lots of fun expensive stuff.  So I was having trouble readjusting back to the 'drudgery' of work and home.  I wanted to go buy something so that there would be something "different" to do this weekend.  Because I've spent so much time focusing on my own personal psychology of purchasing, I was able to recognize that there was nothing I truly needed or even truly wanted.  I decided to avoid being in stores, and instead came home and treated myself to a nice long bath.  Afterwards, I pulled out a book that a neighbor had lent me.  It turned out to be fascinating, and I ended up having a great evening that cost me $0.  But I couldn't help but notice how easy it would have been to go drop a chunk of money that I really didn't have on hand to spend on something I really didn't need.

In the same way, Per has recently gotten really into Pokemon cards.  (Yes, if you don't have access to an 8-10 year old boy, there is *still* an active fascination with Pokemon)  He naturally loves getting new packs of cards, and directs most of his "free" money towards getting more Pokemon stuff.  But while he always looks for ways to get additional cards, he seems to have a sensible detachment to his mania.  If I explain to him that he can only afford a certain pack, he doesn't beg to take money from his other savings (long term & charity) to cover the difference.  Nor does he ask us for loans.  [Indulgent Aunties and Grandmoms are another story, but isn't that the privilege of being an Aunt or a Grandmom?  You get to treat kids to things they don't normally get to look forward to. ]  ;)  While Per has been pretty level-headed, I've noticed that I'm feeling the urge to "help" Per get a cool Pokemon collection.  I have to remind myself that this is Per's interest, not mine, and that a collection is only good if you can enjoy all of it--if it becomes too large and unweildy, it just becomes clutter and wasted money.

I bring up both of these situations to show how easy it is to slip and fall back upon bad habits.  In both cases, I've managed to hold strong, but I recognize how simple it might have been to convince myself that there would be no harm in indulging myself or Per now and then.  And theoretically, a $4 pack of cards or a single moment of treating myself really wouldn't be that destructive to my overall budget.  The problem is that if I repeatedly give in to that urge, I will not only stop making progress, but I will most likely backslide.  The method I've developed is that, much like Per's "Free to Spend" budget, I give myself some money to spend on whatever I want.  I think the problem I had this past week is that with no specific goal in mind, I don't have a focus to my spending right now.  So it's easy to want to spend it on whatever catches my fancy.   I think that when I am waiting to buy something in particular--i.e. my computer or my camera, it's a lot easier to hold off on the little "Latte" purchases than when I'm just aimlessly wandering about.  I suppose I should set a new goal soon, so that I can have something to aim for again!



 

So today marked the official onsale date for a bunch of Guster shows.  You can tell I've been on Twitter a lot lately, b/c I nearly wrote @guster, expecting a hyperlink to magically appear.  A couple of days ago, there'd been a presale for Amex card holders, and I'd bought some fine and dandy loge seats, but I'm an addict to the thrill of the hunt, and could not help but take a few cracks at seeing what I could grab hold of.  Not only that, but I also tried to help out my Boston-bound friends, by seeing what I could pull up for that show.

In both sales, I stumbled out of the gate.  On the Boston show, which was being sold out of the Live Nation web site, I screwed up the verification question.  I swear, whenever I'm just poking in to see what's around, I get verification pages like "bear apple" that take a millisecond to type.  But when it's a pressure-filled "real" sale, I end up getting stuff like "$1,325,000,000 exegunt" full of symbols, slightly misspelled words, and other obstacles to navigate around.  The one thing I will say for Ticketmaster is that they'll pass you through the verification process if you are reasonably close to the words--"beat applw" will go through 90% of the time for the "bear apple" example.  But the Live Nation page was much tougher, and kicked me back for some unseen error.  On the NYC show, the page refreshed in a weird position, and I stumbled for a second trying to get everything ready to submit.  Not horrendously long, but just long enough to push me back in the queue.  Neither show yielded anything worth taking, either for me or for the Boston folks.

Normally, I would have probably packed up and headed home shortly after deciding that there wasn't anything good to buy, but I ended up having a delightful chat with muppetfromhell  as I drifted aimlessly around the internet, looking for images of the Beacon's loge to see how my seats stacked up with the random back orchestra seats that I could pull up.  She was in the middle of knocking sense into me (i.e. do not BOTHER with back row orchestra seats when you have decent loge seats), when suddenly she messaged me "SECOND SHOW!"  Guster had added a Saturday show to the mix.

I stumbled and fumbled back to Ticketmaster, and quickly pulled up Row CC (3rd row) for us.  I opened another browser window, and looked to see if there was anything else popping up, but it was getting progressively farther back, so I went back to purchase the tickets.  But the window said "Time has expired".  YIKES!!!  I quickly and desperately clicked the "Search again" button, willing the CC tickets to magically reappear.  Ugh, even further back!!!  Right at the moment I was about to lose it, I realized the expired page had been from the previous Friday night searches.  The CC tickets were still safe in sound on another page.  Phew!  I went through and purchased them.  On a whim, I requested 1 ticket, and what should appear but one lone AA ticket.  I was marvelling over it and planning to "catch and release" it, when I realized that since he's small, Per would probably be allowed to stand up front with me.  So I bought it, figuring that if the stage is too high, he can sit "back" in the third row seats, but otherwise he can go right up front with me.  I think Per's going to really enjoy the show.  He's always liked Guster, and his favorite instrument is the Congos.  And poor Dean's only seen Guster once, so it's going to be a huge treat for him too.

So on Wednesday, we went to see the HSO perform the music of Billy Joel.  It wasn't quite as magical as the ABBA night, but was still a ton of fun.  The main factors taking it down a notch was that it was the middle of the week, and I was going into the show headachey and exhausted from a very long night the evening before.  
( Sparing your Flist from the lengthy details... )

 

One of the drags of being educated in television & film production is that you notice stuff that the average person misses out on.  Case in point, a new Febreze commercial that's running in our area right now. 

If you catch the commercial on your television (the YouTube is a little compressed, so it's harder to hear), it's pretty obvious that the boy's dialogue was "looped", which means that they went back in post-production and re-recorded it.  You can tell because the tonal quality of the audio is way off compared to all the other dialogue, and because the dialogue does not naturally line up with the boy's lips as he talks.  Usually looping occurs because there was a sound problem on the shoot--say a crackle kept appearing on the tape, or because it would be very difficult to capture decent sound--say you are filming a series of loud explosions with the actors in the foreground.  But in this case, every other performer's voice is from the shoot, which leads me to believe that the producers didn't like the young man's performance for some reason.  Perhaps his voice sounded "too young" to be having girls come over or perhaps he had a very slight lisp that the producers didn't like.  Who knows?  But every time the commercial comes on, I find myself becoming fixated on the fact that his voice was rerecorded and just does not line up with any of the other performers.

BTW, I should mention that one of the things I liked least about being in television production was when young performers had to be judged critically.  While I understand that they have willingly chosen to get involved in a very difficult industry where you are continually judged (and generally continually found wanting), it was always so horrible when we had to let a young performer know that their voice had matured too much for a role or that we needed someone who sounded a little different for the character.  It really is almost never a personal decision--the producers generally LIKE the kids they've hired, or else they wouldn't have hired them in a first place.  But even so, it always sucked.

I have a major decision to make in the next few days, and it's really bumming me out.

Any day now, the Hartford Courant will realize that I have *not* renewed my subscription, and will stop delivering the paper.  If I want to continue receiving the paper, I need to go over to the website and bring my account up to date.  

If you are like pretty much all of my friends, you've never gotten into the habit of reading a newspaper.  You get most of your news from either tv or the internet.  I can pretty much point to exactly why that happened.  When I was a freshman at college, there was no "special rate" for college students.  So the choice was to pony up full price for whatever newspaper you chose, or to go without.  Given that you could get an extra beer for that money, pretty much 99% of the students went without a paper.  I, on the other hand, having grown up in a utopian household where we got THREE papers daily, would buy at least one, if not two papers daily, and mooch as many others as I could find.  I'd scrape my coins together every morning and start the day off with a paper and my coffee.  I was definitely the exception to the rule.

When we got out of college, home delivery actually cost more in NYC than going to the newsstand and grabbing a copy.  So even more of my friends gave up the habit, as it became too cumbersome to swing by the newsstand each morning.  I developed an internal map of favorite newsstands, and routinely knew how to find my favorite paper at the time--NY Newsday--which was not always an easy task.  You see, the Times, Post & Daily News were all readily available, but fewer newsstands carried Newsday.  I liked it b/c it had the most comics and the most even toned reporting.  None of the "smug" of the Times, and none of the hysterical screaming of the Daily News or the Post.  (I should note that I have ALWAYS boycotted the NY TImes for their ridiculous ban on comic strips)  At some point, Newsday returned to it's more regional Long Island roots, and I had to shift to a dual combination of the Daily News & the Post.  I tolerated it b/c between the two, I got almost 5 pages of comic strips, with very few overlaps.

Moving back to CT was a relief because I was able to subscribe to the Courant, which had long been a favorite paper of mine.  Since 2002, I have woken up each morning to a cup of coffee and my beloved paper.  One of the proudest days of my life was when Per started asking for the comic pages on Sundays so that he could read them himself.  So, you may ask yourself why I didn't rush to renew when I recently got the notice.

The problem is, as with all newspapers, the Hartford Courant is in dire circumstances.  Over the past 7 years, I've seen most of my favorite columnists axed and the paper dumbed down to where half the stories are AP stories that I've already read online.  They spend money and effort on graphic redesigns to mask the fact that most of the indepth reporting is no longer there.  It seems as though no one in charge at the Courant understands the vital truth.  I don't read the paper for little factoid paragraphs that I can read on the front page of CNN.com.  I read for interesting local articles about people and places here in my neighborhood and surrounding communities that I wouldn't otherwise hear about.  I read for indepth examinations of the politics here at a state level and for local takes on world events.  I read for coverage of local teams like the CT Sun, and for the high schools where my friends kids go.  It's a little bit of a chicken/egg situation.  The paper claims that they're forced into the staffing cuts by decreasing revenues, yet the cuts they've made make the paper that much less interesting for subscribers in an internet age. 

So here I sit with a dillemma before me.  Do I plunk down the chunk of money to continue my subscription?  Or have we finally gotten to a point where I'm just wasting my money for the privilege of reading my comics and news in the living room each morning?  I think only those with similar newspaper habits will understand the pain I have contemplating this choice, and why I continue to agonize over my decision.  I literally keep going back and forth over it--I know I love to have my paper in the morning, but do I really get anything of value for my money?

At work, I was finally relocated to my new cubicle home.  This has been an affair lasting for months, with multiple false "Move Now!" alarms, and plans being revised from day to day.  As a result, the people in charge of laying out the cubes have been on our floor almost non-stop for the past two weeks, and they keep sticking their noses into our cubes, asking if everything if okay or not.

Our work uses these plastic name plates, and they have special holders on the cubicle walls.  When I got to my new cube, I had inherited an ancient tag holder that didn't sit on the top of the cube like everyone elses does.  It attaches on the side.  The problem with this is that, were I to attach my name plate there, it would stick out into the entry way, as the holder could only handle the name plate at one angle.  I'm sure *normal* people could learn to navigate around the name plate (and in fact, I do believe that's what the previous tenant did), but I know myself too well.  I'd end up smacking into just about every day, and having a ton of bruises to show for it. 

So, instead of attaching my plate normally, I attached it perpendicularly.  It looked fine, and I was happy with it.  In our office, half of the people have ditched the plates in favor of much more creative name tags anyway, so it certainly didn't look out of place.  Or at least that's what *I* thought.  The facilities people fixated on it.  It drove them insane.  They must have come by and examined it about 4 times between yesterday and today.  Can I get my drawer installed under my desk?  No.  But they would not rest until my name was displayed horizontally.  Finally, this afternoon, they either found a new holder, or figured out a solution, so now my name is horizontal, positioned to the side of my door.  And thus, the facilities people are happy and satisfied, and are now leaving me alone.

Did I mention they still haven't installed my desk drawer?!

Today was Per's 8th birthday party.  (If you're keeping track, he doesn't actually turn 8 until next week, but b/c of the holiday, it's hard to throw a party then)  Per decided he'd like to have a Bakugan themed party at the local hibachi restaurant.  Because this is a pricey sort of outing, we limited him to 6 friends, although only 4 could make it.  In the immortal words of Top Gear, "What could go wrong?"

( Why do I wonder where my gray hair comes from? )

So, yes, I survived.  But you'd better believe I'm pushing for the "1 friend, big outing" type of party for next year!!!

Friday was the first day of summer vacation for Per, and I decided to let him enjoy a time-hallowed tradition.  On Thursday, he was allowed to stay up as late as he wanted.  On Friday, he was allowed to sleep in.  When he woke up, there were no major rules.  He could go back to sleep, watch tv, play video games, go outside, eat snacks--whatever he wanted, within relative reason.   I realized that one of the best feelings to me was that feeling of release at the end of the school year--of finally not *having* to be somewhere or do something.  Poor Per doesn't really get to enjoy that freedom during his summers.  On Monday, he starts camp, and once again, he'll have to be on a schedule, and coming and going to strict times on a clock.  Sure, there's no homework, and what he's doing is more fun, but it still means he can't just sit around and do absolutely nothing.

So Mom and Dad gave him a brief respite.  We left him to his own devices and did not tell him to do anything other than feeding the beasts.  I think it really was a great day for him.  When I got home, he was playing Legos with Dad and was bubbling over with sunshine and happiness.  We had discussed going to see Transformers, but it was raining and I got home late, so we decided to extend the nothing day into today.  Once again he's free to let his brain melt into a puddle watching cartoons or eat what he wants.  The great part is that I'm doing the same thing.  I slept in until 7am (yes, that's almost 2 hours more than I usually sleep).  I would have slept longer but the cats disagree with this freeform living.  They want their food as soon as they see the sun.  Now I'm going to go soak in the tub a little bit, and then later on we're going to go catch that movie.

Tomorrow is a (slightly-early) 8th birthday party for Per.  Luckily it's off at a restaurant, and we've only invited a few good friends, so it's hopefully not going to be a complete madhouse.  And next week is another short week at work.  Even though it's now the busy time at work, I still love the summer!!!