Too Much of a Good Thing?

So by now you've all heard that Ms. "Eight for the Price of Seven" Babies already had six littles waiting for her at home. If you're a reader of internet news story comments (as I am, despite it usually driving me to enraged distraction), you've also heard a fair amount of condemnation directed toward a woman who placed herself and her newest babies at such a great risk with so little necessity, given that she already qualified for a group discount at Chuck E. Cheese.

Why does this story bug me so much? Ostensibly, this woman has family support (although no husband/baby father has surfaced), so perhaps there's the requisite fourteen villages around to help raise these kids. Grandpa's headed off to Iraq to make money to feed everyone, so assuming they indeed have a huge house in an undisclosed location, these children will not be burdens on society.

And it's not that the number fourteen is really all that obscene. Certainly, it has become that nowadays, with most North American families staying safely close to the national average of 1.86 and only a few venturing out into 4 or 5 carseat territory. But in the olden days, kids in the double digits was pretty standard, no? It's only in the last few generations that Jon and Kate and their eight or the Duggars have become sideshows solely by virtue of their size.

No, I think what bothers me most is that this story points to a changing cultural attitude towards having children, one that has only become possible due to medical advancements of recent years.

Now, I think reproductive technologies are awesome, both of the "assist you with having babies" kind and the "assist you with not having babies" kind (at least, the ones that prevent the babies in the first place. The ones that send babies back to heaven before they've even had a chance to look around down here - not so much).

To those who rail against fertility treatments, saying that it's up to God and not Science to giveth and taketh life, I say, "thanks for lowering my healthcare premiums as I assume then that you won't be undergoing chemotherapy when you get leukemia."

To those who judge women who avail themselves of medical assistance to get pregnant, asking why don't they take in one of the millions of orphaned children who need homes instead of adding one more mouth to feed to the world's roster, I say, that based on what I've seen, current adoption processes seem uniquely designed to ensure that people who want them don't get babies, and that if IVF is cheaper and/or less potentially heart-breaking than the emotional minefield of adoption, it's tough to blame someone for choosing it.

But it's all a bit Pandora's Box-ish, yes? The power to give life is a great one, and with it comes great responsibility. And a great number of ethical questions. Implanting embryos is not like buying jeans at Costco, where you buy a few sizes because there aren't any changing rooms, and you bring back the ones that don't fit, so I certainly respect those who determine to carry all their babies to term. But is it any better to continue to implant multiples and then drastically increase the chances of pre-term birth, given the tremendous health risks for all involved?

In addition, medical intervention has made it possible to push the natural boundaries of conception. On the one hand, good stuff - being able to have a say in the timing of one's maternity leave makes it much easier to get a career going before taking a hiatus. On the other, do we delude ourselves into thinking we have more control than we do, resulting in more and more women delaying their first child into their late thirties and early forties, ironically leading to even more issues with fertility and thus more need for costly and dangerous pregnancies?

Moreover (and I think this is what I find so disconcerting), stories like this one point to the way that our society of consumers has turned children into just another item of consumption. Celebrities collect children like passport stamps and turn babies into accessories. TLC and Life Network show round-the-clock episodes of J&K, The Duggars, A Baby Story, and so on, and viewers take notes in the same way they watch HGTV to be inspired about bathroom renos and Food Network to see what that crazy Paula Deen will do with butter this week.

Ultimately, having a baby is becoming less and less about two people playing doctor and more about people making doctor appointments. It's becoming an industry. An industry that declares that babies are the must-have item of the season. An industry that advertises itself as the bringer of miracles, on-demand, without giving people a chance to read the fine print of tremendously high costs. An industry that fosters the idea that more is better and that turns wonderful and life-enhancing technologies into tools for the highest yield.

So it's not so much about the number "14," it's not about Jon and Kate, and it's certainly not about people who use fertility treatments. It's about a society that leads a woman who already has six children to decide that she should have a few more zweiback in the oven and that sets up an expectation that having a baby is like going to the supermarket - you can pick out what you want, when you want it, and you can buy in bulk.

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Hooray, It's the Weekend! Or Maybe Not.

It has totally felt like Friday all day. I hate it when it feels like Friday on a Thursday.

I did it to myself by going grocery shopping yesterday. Yes, such a creature of habit am I that grocery shopping is a "Thursday thing" and I messed up my internal clock entirely by doing a "Thursday thing" immediately following a "Wednesday thing." And so today I have been doing "Friday things" like thinking longingly of sleeping in tomorrow and not bothering to put my kids to bed. Sigh.

It's felt like a busy week, which might contribute to my sense that I've done five days' worth of things in four. And is it just me, or is it about time for spring to show up? How can it only be the end of January? Today my boss accidentally typed "goog" instead of "good" to me (yes, we IM from three cubicles away - we are total geeks in my office), and suddenly I needed to be at BDI eating a goog. Alas, I am not.

Plus I'm getting tired of this recession. It's amazing what anxiety about one's finances will do. We have the same cash flow stream we had a year ago and we have less of it flowing out into the coffers of the private school, so in theory, we're doing awesome.

And yet I worry. I hate reading the newspaper every day, only to find out how many more people have lost their jobs. 500 people yesterday at Target HQ alone. My bus seems like it's getting emptier on my commute.

Blech. It's cold and dark and scary out there. Oh well. At least I get not one, but two Fridays this week.

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Is the Patient Supposed to Buzz Like That?

The Husband's away on a business trip (Orlando, lucky bum), and we all know what that means in the Peitricia Mae household - a special type of crazy leading swiftly to a rollercoaster descent into madness.

That The Boy is currently serving a "no screen time until approximately 2011" sentence does not make this easier. Without any television/computer/video game time to lull us all into semi-catatonic states, and with the temperature plummeting once again, it becomes a tad difficult to keep everybody occupied.

Although they do come up with some, shall we say, inventive ideas. Witness The Girl's ... "craft" above. I'm not quite sure what to call this. Or why the horse has no front body other than that there was more horse than cardboard.

Yesterday I tried to be somewhat responsible, so I set the oven timer for 15 minutes and made everybody clean. I had no idea they gave out awards for being the Worst Mother in the World - but my mantel is sagging under the weight of last night's sweeping win.

Tonight I raised the white flag and we hit Noodles & Company followed by Target. Our task: find something cheap, fun, and indoors that does not use pixels.

Oh yeah...Operation! I love that game. We never had it when I was a kid, but I'd beg my friends to let me play. This one even has sound effects, so the dislocated femur and the abundance of flatulence have that real life feel.

Fortunately The Husband's home tomorrow, so it will have been a brief foray into this desolate swamp. Now if I can only get through Saturday morning without the luxury of sending The Boy down to watch cartoons....

Finally, some gratuitous cuteness for you. The kids have taken to sleeping in the bunk beds lately because they like each other's company, and the other night we went in for a final tuck-in and realized that they really do like each other sometimes:

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Cost Benefit Analysis

Moving three summers in a row to chase enrollment in immersion schools = (150 boxes packed and unpacked) x 3

Tuition at one of these schools = 1 delayed house downpayment

Amount of tears shed over three "first day at a new school"s in three years = Buckets


The Awesome that came home in The Girl's backpack yesterday:


Priceless.

(Seriously - it's a chapter book...with no pictures...en francais...and it's The Babysitter's Club. I suddenly totally don't resent one single sacrifice we've made in the past three years.)

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Fear Hope Itself

In his first inaugural address, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself...." Taking the oath in 1933, a time of desperation and darkness, a time invoked so often recently, he knew that trials, particularly sustained ones, bring terror.

He saw clearly that, in addition to pragmatic measures to try to bring some relief to the downtrodden and weary, a similar relief from the pounding fear in the face of the wolves at the door was necessary, perhaps even moreso.

I was reminded of his words yesterday as Barack Obama told the listening masses around the world that "on this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."

Indeed.

America is a fearful nation. The wolves are once again at the door and seem to have been out there for some time. The economy is in shambles; if you haven't been laid off, you know of a couple of people (or three or four or eighteen) who have - I know I do. Stores display signs screaming of rock-bottom prices in a desperate attempt to generate revenue - and those are the lucky ones where the lights are still on.

Healthcare is broken and its cost is skyrocketing even as Americans are least able to afford it. Precious resources - both monetary and human - continue to be squandered abroad in wars nobody wants, yet the security threat level at the airport never drops below orange.

Disharmony and distrust are everywhere, with deep suspicion (or even hatred) the too-frequent reaction to anything or anyone different, be it someone different in terms of politics, religion, economic standing, sexuality, or race.

With such an outlook, where it's every man for himself, where the ship is going down and there aren't enough liferafts for everyone, is it any wonder that America declared War on Terror?

How reassuring that sounds - as though being terrified is a state about which you can do something. As though we merely need to heed the second part of FDR's declaration, in which he continues "....that nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

How very tempting it was, then, to see post-9/11 security as a question of retreat vs. advance, and how many decided that the best defence was a holy "good" offense. How quantifiable to be able to point to x number of bodies shipped overseas to mete out justice and y number of prisoners awaiting that same justice in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and others. How decisive an advance it was to topple Saddam, assuming it was as easy as toppling a statue.

Yes indeed, America declared war on its fear. And is losing the battle, if the daily headlines are any indication.

Which is why another of Obama's lines speaks even more resoundingly to me: "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

For too long, Americans have been presented with only two outcomes: kill or be killed. Opponents of this War on Terror have been denounced as unpatriotic traitors, eager to sacrifice freedom and truth for some misguided pipe dreams.

Now, finally, Americans have a leader who dismisses this binary viewpoint, one who believes that neither retreat nor advance solely for the sake of getting first blood will do much more than perpetuate the fear.

Did you hear it yesterday? It was the sound of millions of Americans exhaling with relief after holding their breath for eight years, wondering what new enemy tomorrow would bring. Do they still fear? Certainly - there is much of which to be afraid.

But, finally, there is someone who invites them to choose to advance with hope, instead of merely to advance.

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Happy Birthday, Baby Beluga!

How is it possible that you are six? That you are now on the downhill road towards ten? That as soon as I got used to you losing teeth and riding a bike, you went and joined the world of playdates and girlfriends?

You have grown faster than I could keep up with this year. For the record, it is not my fault that you look like a hobo; no sooner do you get new pants than you promptly stretch overnight and turn them into capris. Your ankles and wrists are continually on display, despite pants and shirts that fit fine the day before.

You have grown in maturity as well, often faster than either of us were prepared for. We both felt your growing pains as you tried to negotiate your way through the minefield that is the adult world, and I had to remind myself that the public nudity, fighting, and swearing were not as much being bad as they were the result of coming up against stuff that's bigger than you are and not knowing how to handle it.

Not that you haven't given us a run for our money. As suspected, we've had a number of conversations with your teachers. You've gotten to know the time-out step pretty well, and have had toys placed atop the fridge until you choose better behaviour on many an occasion.

And yet, the result of all of this boundary-pushing has been to enlarge your spirit, not to change it. You've added a new sensibility, a new way of engaging your world, true, but you are also still my baby. You still love a good snuggle, and you still prefer to shed your tears on my shoulder. You insist on our nightly routine that includes a personalized Raffi song, back-rubbing, wiggle-noses and about ten other ways of saying "I love you."

You try to out-do me in love, and every night when we tell each other "je t'aime beaucoup" and we each say "beaucoup, beaucoup, beaucoup..." until one of us gives up, you try to be the last one standing, often pulling out the ol' "beaucoup infinity" to triumph.

But you can't win on that one, baby my boy. The more you push me, the bigger my heart gets. It will always be just a bit bigger than you are, surrounding you and holding you even as you stretch it.

Happy birthday, Mr. Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails! May "6" be another growing year - I'm ready for it.

P.S. This one's a day late, I'm afraid. That's what happens when birthdays are on the Friday of a week with something up every night including a birthday party the night of.

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It Was Like Herding Cats

The Boy had his birthday party last night. Oh. My. Gracious. W-I-L-D!

Somehow we've managed to get away with never having a "friend" birthday party for him before. Last year he had just started school, and before that he was in daycare, so either because he didn't know any of the kids or I didn't know any of the parents (a bit of a pre-requisite when your kids are too young to be trusted to go through the whole give-invite-get-invite-to-parents-rsvp cycle), the official tally was The Girl = 3 and The Boy = 0 when it came to ye olde kid craziness.

Makes me wax nostalgic for my good old days. Our parties were always right after school; as we lived 1/2 block from the school, all the kids just walked over to my house. We hung out, opened presents, ate hot dogs and had cake. My mom made *awesome* cakes, and they always had money in them.

Parties these days are much different. If a party is at a kid's house, it's often not enough to just have the kids come over and hang out; The Boy went to one where they had a cartoonist. Even more frequent are the "event" parties where everyone meets at some sort of kid-friendly place; The Girl's entire class was invited to the aquarium at the mall last year, and The Boy's headed over to an indoor bouncer place next weekend.

We tried the event party this year for the first time. It's a bit of a trade-off, these parties. On the one hand, you avoid the whole "clean the house like a madwoman" for a week before (unless I'm the only one who thinks it matters that 6-year-olds might find dust on the bookshelves) and the whole "what am I going to do with 11 kids for two hours" conundrum. On the other hand, you pay a substantial amount for this convenience, but if we divide it over the past three years' dearth of parties for him, it all works out.

The kids had a great time playing in the indoor play structure and eating pizza and cake. I'd show you, but I have not one picture. Nope, the camera was there but unused as there was simply too much craziness. So, take my word for it, 'k?

We also had a good time connecting with the other parents. We might live in a snobby suburb, but so far we've found all the people we meet on an individual level to be quite nice. Maybe we're just snobs who have found our true home. One father commented when I thanked him and his wife for all their help and for staying to chat that, "hey, we're all going to be together for 12 more years, better get to know each other."

Which sounds fabulous, although tough for me to picture given our propensity towards moving schools.

Nevertheless, it will likely not be the last time I see these kids. But I'm thankful that it'll be another year before we do this again. I suspect the leftover pizza and cake will last until at least December.

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Virtual Hot Shots for the Chilly Canucks

Ahh - remember Hot Shots? Those things were awesome.

First, to warm your bodies (as requested):

SPINACH LASAGNA BECHAMEL
Printed from COOKS.COM

SAUCE:
6 c. milk
1 c. butter
1 c. white flour
Salt and pepper to taste
1/8 tsp. nutmeg (don't skip this - it makes the sauce)

LASAGNA:
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 c. onions, chopped
2 lb. spinach, frozen, thawed and drained (I used fresh - much nicer)
3/4 c. chopped fresh parsley
1 lb. ricotta or cottage cheese
2 eggs
2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
2 c. grated Mozzarella cheese
1 pkg. lasagna noodles

Sauce: Heat milk until hot but not boiling. In another pan melt butter. Whisk in flour, cook 3 to 4 minutes, stir constantly. Add milk gradually. Stir until sauce thickens.

Lasagna: Saute garlic and onions in oil until translucent. Stir in spinach and 1/2 cup of parsley. Set aside. Mix rest of parsley, ricotta or cottage cheese, eggs, 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese. Cook noodles al dente. Better yet, don't cook the noodles. Just layer the raw noodles in the pan as you would if they were cooked.

Oil a large pan, layer ingredients in following order. First, 1 1/2 to 2 cups of Bechamel sauce, 1/3 of noodles, half spinach mixture, all of Mozzarella. Next 1 1/2 to 2 cups of sauce, 1/3 of noodles, all the ricotta mixture, the rest of the spinach mixture. Finally, 1 1/2 to 2 cups sauce, remaining noodles, the rest of the sauce. Sprinkle 1 1/3 cup of Parmesan on top.

Bake covered at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Uncover for another 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow 10 to 15 minutes for lasagna to set before serving.

(Hey, if you can't go outside, might as well stay inside and carb-load.)

Second, to warm your souls:

Six months from now, we'll all be complaining about the heat and wishing we were going down waterslides.

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Okay, Seriously - Anyone Alive Up There?!

Is it just me or have temperatures in the Great White North (well, the centre of the continent part) remained steadily south of minus 20 for close to four weeks now?

I track your weather beside mine on my little desktop icons and, while my usual response is to shake my head in disbelief at how cold it is up there while thinking better you than me (accompanied by just the slightest of snickers noting the difference between "balmy" Minneapolis and relatively more frigid Winnipeg), I am starting to become concerned.

Not that you're not up for the challenge, of course. But today, when our temps plunged to an as-yet-unseen -21, and the wall of glacial air hit me as I went outside, I thought, my word they've been doing this for over a month. By the time I got to work, I'd achieved that spinal compression that accompanies a Manitoban winter - the one derived from hunching over while trying to maintain one's core warmth for months at a time and that leads to 'Tobans looking a bit like the missing link each spring as they once again become homo erectus - and wondered whether any of you have stood up straight since November.

One day of this and I've become a complaining, whining, shivering mess who wears her mittens in the office. And yet you all soldier on, muttering curses to yourselves while yelling "it's a dry cold!!" in defiance against the dark, unfeeling night. Weary but not broken, you faithfully plug in your cars, hold indoor recess, and still enjoy a slurpee for a nightcap.

Toques off to you, my friends! Relief cometh on the weekend, where my trusty weather icon tells me you'll be up to a balmy minus one. Hopefully we're headed back there as well; I've become too soft for this and I don't think my family can take the whining for much longer.

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I Defend Your Right to Stupidity

Canadians are not smarter than Americans.

It pains me to say this. For many years, I've laboured under the assumption that, blessed with a better education system and a necessarily broader worldview than our southern neighbours, Canadians could lay claim to, if not a higher average number of IQ points, a better track record of putting them to use.

I had this sense that Rick Mercer's "Talking to Americans" was an accurate snapshot of the differences between the countries - on the one hand, well-meaning and awfully nice but just not-so-smart folks and, on the other, witty and intelligent people with perhaps the slightest (yet understandable given the circumstances) tendency towards condescension.

Coming to America has challenged this assumption. First, I have come to realize that not all Americans are mindlessly patriotic warmongers. I've met people who have helped me to see that loving one's country does not mean excusing it, and that the stereotypes I accepted as reality were about as accurate as the "I left my dogsled at the border" ones.

Accompanying this elevation of my opinion of Americans had been a simultaneous downgrading of my opinion of Canadians. Whence this plummeting status, you ask? From a place one would least expect it, a place with an impressive pedigree and accompanying sophistication.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The news section of their website to be exact. About a year ago, the powers that be over there took the ill-advised ("ill-advised" in that I was not consulted) step to allow comments on their news stories. No longer content with reducing Radio 2 to appeal to the lowest common denominator, the news service directors decided in their wisdom that Canadian readers needed a voice, and that this voice would be an integral and important part of the dynamic conversation that results from people interacting with the breaking news stories of the day.

It's not.

In fact, far from being an avenue of intelligent, thought-provoking discussion, the comment forum is often little more than a cacophany of uninformed pontificating. It descends all too quickly to the blind leading the blind or ad hominem attacks directed towards the people discussed in the article. Though there are indeed examples of erudition and well-spoken words, they are often lost among the sneers directed towards other regions and self-righteous soap-boxing based on blatant misreadings of the article/issue at hand.

What gets my proverbial goat the most is the howls of derision that go up whenever the commentor disagrees that a particular story is newsworthy: "How is this news!? I can't believe our tax dollars are paying for this drivel/CBC should be ashamed of itself for posting this" is a common theme, particularly in some of the op ed pieces. You know what? My tax dollars paid for your public school education and you seem to be similarly squandering my investment, so let's just call it even, shall we?

As angry as they make me (even as I can't stop staring - they're like a train wreck and I continually find myself reading them even as my pulse starts to race and I get all sweaty with ire) and as painful as it is to come to terms with the truth, I have come to the realization that, ultimately, comment sections - whether on CBC or on TMZ - are good things.

First, it's a bit like the old proverb "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Except that before all doubt was removed, I thought that Canadians were, as a whole and across the board, smarter than everyone else. Which in turn led to a misguided sense of superiority and compromised my abilities to appreciate my current country of residence and its citizens.

Second, voice is important. I may not agree with the voice, I may roll my eyes, and I might even become so angry I can hardly speak. But the typing fingers at the other end of the comment that infuriates me belong to a person. A person who, in all likelihood, has a vote and a say in how the country is run. (Which is actually more than I have at this point.) A person whose opinion should not be discounted, even as I disagree with it. A person who simply cannot be reduced to a few words typed on a page.

And so I say with Evelyn Beatrice Hall, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Well, maybe not death. But you get the idea. I won't be writing to the news directors and begging them to remove the comment section for the good of all Canadians and our reputation everywhere.

Instead, I'll continue trying to ignore the ones with which I disagree and restrict my own comments to this relatively private space, where my own uninformed pontificating, sneers, and soap-boxing have a restricted audience and will be less likely to damage international perceptions.

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Yes, You ARE in the Right Place...

...and no, you did not take a wrong turn. (Betcha double-checked the address in your browser, though.)

prairiegirltransplanted has gone all TLC on you and gotten herself a fancy l'il makeover. Pretty, yes?

Card-carrying member of the Mennonites that I am, I nevertheless must indulge in a bit of pridefulness on this one. I did this All. By. Myself. The only input our in-house IT specialist (aka The Husband) had on this was his response to the "which one of these do you like better" question.

(For the record, I did take his advice.)

All this from the Luddite girl who refuses to change her email provider for one that allows her to store more than eight messages, who can't work the camera on her cell phone, and who has to ask her kids for help figuring out the remotes. Peitricia Mae = Old dog + new tricks.

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2.5 Hours of Sleep Does Not a Complete Night Make

GAH! What a week. I get a big FAIL in the "Successfully Manages Work/Life Balance" column, and we aren't even two weeks into the new year yet.

I do get an A+ for successfully demonstrating that my skillset does NOT include project management, however. Something I pretty much knew already, but greeting a boss's request to take over the reins of a large project with, "meh, I don't think that's really me, you know?" is quite possibly a career-limiting-move. So, I muddled through the best I could, which, for the delightful combination of procrastination and perfectionism that is Peitricia Mae, usually means being so disorganized that I can't even begin to think about how to delegate tasks to others and just doing the work myself at all hours of the night.

But it's done and out the door. And with job security somewhat tenuous these days and upcoming performance reviews, there are worse things than adding 20 hours of overtime to one's weekly tally.

In addition to spectacular gains to my mighty Programmer's Hump (you know - that Quasimodo-ish mound on the upper back that ripens over time on those of us whose day jobs consist of hunching over keyboards), my week also included an ESL class and hosting supper for 10 when small group was at our house. Again, not a total loss, as I now have a wicked recipe for spinach lasagna with bechamel sauce.

But, of course, the Littles don't care one bit about my work to-do list and don't really appreciate that my time spent whisking white sauces or teaching Japanese students the meaning of "no rhyme or reason" is all about community-building. All they know is that I'm not home, and on Thursday night The Boy burst into knife-to-the-heart tears and sobbed, "Don't go to work, Mommy! Stay here with meeeee!!"

Sufficiently guilted beyond the point of reason, I announced I would take the family out for supper last night (not entirely altruistic, as grocery shopping also got sidelined and so the alternative was pancakes with hot dog relish) and that it was kids' choice.

Oh, I tried. I steered. I suggested. I gave out options. But, in spite of my best endeavours, we ended up here: You can totally see how much F-U-N The Husband is having, can't you? The kids had a blast, though, and they remembered to put all the veggies on the vegetarian pizza this time, so if you ignored the crust, sauce, and cheese, it was decent pizza.

Then the kids decided they wanted a sleepover, so they went to snuggle in The Girl's bed with a little bit of DS playing before sleepy-time.They're playing Monkey Clanz. It's a game where you adopt pet monkeys and dress them up and feed them. Oh, and you can have play dates with another player's monkeys. Which sounds quite innocent, until you find out that when two monkeys become Very Good Friends, they have a baby. Yup, "SmallLittle" was born today (my kids are simply awesome at making up appropriate names for pets) and the wanna-be-breeders are currently setting up two other monkeys in anticipation of more babies. The DS is now sitting in a corner while the kids go watch TV - they're giving their monkeys some alone time to become better acquainted.

So an exploding inbox on one side and monkey sex without the sex on the other. Just another week in the life, folks.

(P.S. Speaking of inboxes, my webmail account was full to the brim for part of this week and I think some emails were sent back. If you sent me something and don't get a reply in the next couple of days, I'm not ignoring you. Please re-send as necessary.)

(P.P.S. Yes, I know that there are creative solutions for such email trials and tribulations such as moving to Gmail or periodically cleaning out one's inbox. I find that it's really much easier to avoid all that work and panic every couple of months or so.)

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Out of Office

I am currently out of the office and will be returning to the blogosphere at such time as my when did my inbox have babies?! work schedule permits.

If your request is urgent (or you simply deem it so), please consider the immortal words of Herbert the Snail's father:

Haaave PAY-shuntz (pause)
Haaave PAY-shuntz (pause)
Don't be in SUCH (pause) a hurrr-eee
When yoooo get (pause)
Im-PAY-shunt (pause)
You onnnly start (pause) to WORR-eee
Re-memmm-ber (pause)
Re-memmm-ber (pause)
That God is PAY-shunt,too
And (pause) THINK (pause) of all the
Times (pause) when OTH-ers
HAD TO WAIT FOR YOU!

(Consider yourselves Music Machined)

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Ring out the old, ring in the new

And thus begins the last year of the Naughts - Happy New Year, everyone! May this be a year of peace for you all.

A present for you to celebrate the Year of the Ox: The Husband created a Munchkin Montage from the past year. And I, technological wizard that I am, figured out how to actually post it.

Enjoy!

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