Grumpy cat

This week... I am so so so so grumpy.

Sorry. 

Generally I've been getting grumpy around 5 pm and then something resets the next morning. But today nothing reset. I actually woke up grumpy.

I blame the onset of really bad allergies and I also blame the growing suspicion that my baby is going to be late. Darn you, baby.

I still love you, though.

Just a small rant, of sorts.

(I know it's a tiny bit scary but...Lars makes this face all the time.)

I took Lars to the doctor today for his 12-month checkup and it was fine, he got his shots, he's doing great, whatever, but I was slightly annoyed that the doctor (a new one whom I'd never met before) emphasized 5 or 6 times during the 15-minute visit--always with a big smile--that I "need" to take away Lars's binky "cold turkey" "right away." Really? Because, I completely disagree. I mean I don't completely disagree, because obviously pacifiers aren't exactly the most healthy things for babies, but I just felt like it was a weird thing to mention so many times. Secondly, she instructed me to retract his foreskin to clean it every day (sorry for using That Word again). In other words, I'm pretty sure I will not be going back to that particular doctor.

One thing she had going for her was that she was the first doctor I've talked to who speculated that his 104-degree fever which required hospitalization in December, could possibly have had something to do with the 7 vaccinations he had received the day before.

I wish I could find a doctor for my kids whom I see eye to eye with, who takes a holistic approach, maybe who leans more toward the crunchy side than most, while also very much a medical doctor who has a real degree and prescribes real medications, and who also takes my insurance. Heck, I wish I could find a doctor for me like that too.

I want to emphasize 2 things, (1) being that I am forever grateful to be living in a time when technology and information exchange facilitate the opportunity for such healthy living for most Americans and (2) being that I have been so fortunate thus far in that I haven't had to bring my kids in with a serious medical issue except for the one time with Lars. So far, for the checkups and occasional sick appointments and with my own medical care, I have generally just been doing research myself and coming to appointments ready to discuss options. But with the doctors I have seen in my life in general, I feel like there is an element of trust there that is lacking. Going both ways. What to do?

Aging is the best

Ah, Youth

"You're closer to 40 than 30, you know." "J.D., I'm 28." (one of my favorite Scrubs quotes)

I feel like I am prematurely aging. I know I'm still hanging on to my 20s for dear life. But recent events make me think that others might not know that. Observe...

Who can forget the airport security guard last fall who thought my sister Hannah was my daughter.

A coworker asked a while ago how old I was and when I said 29 she was shocked. "Really, you're only 29?" As you can imagine that has echoed in my head...not unlike the jack in the box sequence from the movie Elf, with the shrieking laughter and visual distortion. YOU'RE ONLY 29(...9...9...9)?!?! She later said she thought I must have been older because I have 3 kids. Nice save. (she is 30) I'm sure I didn't sound indignant at all when I added "I JUST turned 29, by the way." Actually I blamed my haircut, which, while not particularly matronly, is very short and sometimes that's associated with age. Probably time to update the ol' highlights.

I want to clarify that I have nothing against aging. I actually love aging. Aging is the best. I have loved every age I have been so far and don't expect that to change. I just don't want people to think I'm 10 to 20 years older than I am. It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Like my fleeting youth was so fleeting that it has now completely escaped me, sooner than it might have if I would just grow out my hair and shop at Forever 21 more often.

Since I can't do much to combat my premature outward aging other than upping the sunscreen dosage, I am trying to stay young at heart. I'm a little behind the times on the pop culture, but sleeping until noon, eating 3 bowls of Rice Chex in a row, and watching the Brady Bunch marathon still sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday. If you're only as old as you feel, then every Saturday I am 14 because that's what I felt like doing then and that's what I feel like doing now. The difference of course being that I don't actually do it. If I did, it would probably lose its charm. I like to think so anyway.

Chocolat?

In trying to think of a pithy "chocolate" reference for this post title all I could come up with was...

Ever wonder how my mind works? There it is.

Anyway so I was going to write about chocolate, kind of. Using a movie quote which really has nothing to do with chocolate except that sometimes when I say "chocolate" I say it the way Mr. Burke says "Choco-lat?" in the movie.

The post isn't really about chocolate either. Specifically I was thinking I'd write about one of my very weird pet peeves which I only discovered recently. Matt loves to "experiment" with recipes which is fine with cooking, great really and he makes amazing dinners, but I get clammy hands when he does it with baking, and it drives me up the wall when he does it with box mixes for cake or brownies. The other day he made brownies from a mix and along with the requisite water, oil, and egg, he added oatmeal and chocolate chips. What?? The result (even though I'm sure he added additional water) was that it had the same fake-chocolatey taste of box-mix brownies with none of the perfectly fudgy consistency that I cherish box-mix brownies for. It was spongy and way too sweet, like a cake from a really cheap cake mix.

Not that any of that kept me from eating three pieces, because it didn't.

A rant about running

Today I went running for the first time in 2 weeks. And by "went running" I mean had the soul sucked out of me on a treadmill at the gym, because that is what running on a treadmill feels like, to me. Especially at a gym. I only went because I finally realized that the snow on the sidewalks just isn't going anywhere.

You see, the once a week that I force myself to run (minus last week...downed by snow), I much prefer dragging myself outside, breathing fresh air, pushing my gigantically heavy stroller and periodically checking in with the young'uns. (Yep, there's a tree, I see the doggie, here's a cracker, you dropped your mitten.) Definitely makes a person feel more alive to do that than to huff and puff in a stinky gym, tuning out Nancy Grace*, avoiding touching the treadmill's greasy-looking heart rate monitors while staring at a digital clock counting down the minutes you have left.

However, the monstrous masses of snow which will not melt until--hang on a second while I calculate--May 16th, are currently keeping me from jogging on the sidewalk or street. And I am unlike the people who are going jogging on the street anyway right now, in that I value my life and the lives of others. (Seriously people. STOP running down the MIDDLE of four-lane streets. Take Kojo Nnamdi's advice: if you need to exert yourself so badly before the snow melts, pick up a shovel and clear a sidewalk instead.)

Anyway, so today I ran on the treadmill and shared stale air with about 18 other sweaty people that I don't know. Then, I went swimming with my kids while Matt had his turn on the soul-sucking treadmill.

And now, I feel like this.

Worn out and going to bed early tonight. But (even if it was a treadmill) this is still the best kind of tired.

* Seriously Nancy Grace is always on when I go to the gym.

Lost your mittens! you naughty kittens, now you shall have no pie.

(Theo at age 4 weeks with makeshift sock-mittens on his hands)

After preschool on Monday the co-oping mom said to me--very tactfully but with a very concerned look on her face--"I hope Theo wasn't too cold today when we went to the playground; we couldn't find his hat and mittens in his bag." I replied lamely (as I replay the memory I am imagining a bad-lie monotone), "Oh no, I don't know where they could be, maybe they're in the car." She assured me, "Well, we weren't outside for too long anyway because big piles of snow kept dropping off of a tree. But he did say his hands were cold."

Hat and mittens hadn't even crossed my mind that morning, despite the fact that snow was on the ground and also apparently falling from trees in piles. I'm idiotic, but it's true. My only defense is that I can never convince Theo to wear either of these things even in the coldest of weather--even once we're outside--and he never admits to me if he gets cold. (40 degrees outside and he asks me to take off his coat. "Sorry, Theo, it's too cold. Aren't you cold?" "NO!") I'm assuming he picked up snow and realized how cold it was. The closest I can ever get is a baseball cap on him, and actually that would have been worse if he'd shown up in a baseball cap and no mittens. Then I couldn't even have lied about it.

I hadn't even put his snow jacket on him; he was wearing a peacoat. I am so embarrassed and annoyed that my first instinct was to lie to this mom. Lying makes me feel bad, and I'm so bad at it. Couldn't I have just admitted that I had completely forgotten to bring him a hat and mittens, that I was impressed with myself for getting him to preschool in the first place after the morning ruckus, that I'm from California and when it snows I just don't go outside? Perhaps I could have also mentioned that his only pair of mittens are knitted and are of no use when handling snow. No, instead I told a completely unconvincing lie and now this mom knows that (a) I am a liar and (b) I don't dress my kids warmly. No, I'm basically asking for my kid to get frostbite on his hands and/or get hit on the head with a big pile of snow.

I don't know what's gotten into me, I guess it is confession week on my blog! I hate lying and I am terrible at it...I guess this is just a reminder why not to do it. Bleah.

Also, you'd better believe I'm putting a warm hat and a pair of (knitted) mittens in Theo's preschool bag Right. Now. and they're staying in there until May. Unless Theo remembers how cold snow is and actually agrees to wear them one of these days.

Doodly doo

One day in the checkout aisle at Target, when Theo was a baby, I found a Doodle Pro (I always forget and call it Magna Doodle) with a magnetic back, meant to stick on a locker or desk or fridge. Theo loved it so much I got another one when Ida was old enough to enjoy it. They were maybe $6 or $8 each. They paid for themselves a hundred times over. Do you know how many times a one-year-old can put one of those on the fridge and then pull it off again without getting tired of that activity? I don't either because my babies occupied themselves endlessly with those things.

At some point in the past year we misplaced both Magna Doodles, and I think it was while we were traveling. Or maybe while we were at church. Or maybe at the doctor's office or in the car or pretty much anywhere, because it was the perfect traveling toy and now I can't find it anywhere except Ebay, and so of course now that they are apparently discontinued I have lost them both.

I could just buy a boring old travel-sized Magna Doodle but I want one (two, actually) with a magnetic back and it just bugs me that I can't find any. Sorry for being whiny. But sometimes when I post about these things on my blog, you magically find them for me: e.g., Berry Blossom Teen Spirit. (I have had about 15 gifted to me in the past 2 years. AMAZING!) Or, a Raggedy Ann for Ida to match Theo's Andy. (One of you found one, and I bought it. Ida loves it.) There's nothing you bloggers can't find--right?

What would you say?

Yesterday as we prepared to leave the store, I told Theo I was going to take him out of the shopping cart, so he stood up. Then I got distracted by Ida and told him to sit back down. He took that as a suggestion to stand on his tiptoes and grab a glass jar from a high shelf. He was in the large part of the cart, the part where the little pictures on the plastic seat of the cart show you that you're not supposed to be sitting in the first place, let alone standing.

Very bad parenting moment. Terrible actually. If I saw someone's kid doing that, I would probably walk by and think to myself, "Tsk. That kid is on the verge of falling backward out of the cart."

A severe woman, dark hair in a bun, eyebrows drawn on fiercely with a blunt, black pencil, approached me in the narrow aisle. "What do you think happens when he falls backward out of the shopping cart?" she asked loudly.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I said, what happens when he falls backward out of the cart and lands on his head?"

I stared at her awkwardly and felt extra blood rush out of nowhere into the veins of my face. Equally loudly, I sang, "Well, obviously I haven't found that out yet!"

"I'm serious!" she replied with big eyes, wagging her finger and shaking her head."He's gonna hurt himself and it's not gonna be pretty."

"Okay, well...THANKS!" and I walked away, my hand on Theo's head, pushing him back down into the cart in one motion.

Instantly I wanted to rewind. I'm like Kathleen Kelly--the perfect mean thing to say never comes until it's too late. Which is probably a good thing. When she had asked me what would happen, I wished I had said:

"It's funny you should ask me that. Last week he fell backwards out of the cart and got a concussion! There was blood everywhere! We had to wake him up every 45 minutes that night to make sure he wasn't unconscious, or dead!"

Or maybe:

"Well, probably I will rush to his aid and feel terrible, and you will stand there congratulating yourself."

I left the store soon afterward, and almost as soon as I got into my car I wanted to turn around and find her again. I wasn't even mad at her, though--she was totally right, even if she had been really awful about it. I was mad at myself for the way I had answered. I mean, if I was going to be rude I could have at least been funny. You know, something really funny like yelling, "What are you, the shopping cart police? HA, HA!" then knocking over her cart and running away really fast.

Really though, I wished I had called attention to her smugness in a polite way so that maybe she would stop terrorizing us idiot mothers. Because I know that my answer just made her feel even more smug. I earnestly wished I had said:

"If you were concerned about my son, couldn't you have called it to my attention without sarcasm and a lecture? You could have said just as easily, 'Hi, I'm concerned that your little boy is going to fall out of the cart,' and I would have said, 'Oh gosh, you're right, thank you.' "

I don't get many rude or smug people approaching me with "advice"--nosy people maybe, or people who genuinely want to be helpful, and usually I thank them or ignore them. I am never sarcastic or rude to strangers. Seriously never. Even to the rare ones that are really rude to me. If I feel a siege coming I will run and hide (and possibly cry). Something came over me, though, when this lady clearly wanted to make her point by embarrassing me. And I did feel very embarrassed. Not chastened, not grateful, just embarrassed.

I mean I'm sure she wanted Theo to sit down and was worried about him, but why did she have to ask me that question, like I was a 7-year-old horsing around, like I didn't know what would happen if he fell out. And why did I have to answer her so loudly and rudely myself? Did I want to prove to her that I was as mature as a second-grader?

I guess I am glad I learned this now, so that when I'm offended like that in the future I will say what I want to say and be an example to my kids. Maybe I will even remember this feeling when Teenage Theo needs chastening. Maybe.

As I drove home I thought that maybe she was kicking herself much the way I was. Maybe she wished she had approached me differently too.

Nah, probably not.

The mail, the mail, it never fails

So about 2 months after I subscribed to Domino magazine for a school fundraiser (really the only reason I ever subscribe to magazines), it was shuttered. I was sad but not too depressed since I already spent way too much time on OhDeeDoh and Apartment Therapy. And actually, at around the same time, I deleted both of those blogs from my RSS feed in a massive RSS feed cleanout. My RSS feed only has a few blogs now and I have been much happier for it.

I thought briefly about contacting the publisher and requesting a specific replacement magazine (like...I don't know...Self? Not a ton to choose from), but then several more months went by and I got nothing, so I figured I was out $15, and my stack of mail to go through would be a little shorter--not a problem. Then I received a package the other day which included this letter:

Dear Subscriber,

As you know, we have made the decision to discontinue publishing DOMINO magazine.

In its place, we're happy to welcome you to GLAMOUR, a sister publication of DOMINO, and to honor all issues due to you under your former subscription.

We're confident you'll enjoy GLAMOUR, especially if you haven't seen it lately. Like DOMINO, it's geared toward smart, style-savvy women just like you and packed with information and inspiration.

I love that they assumed that because I like pictures of people's homes, I would like to know what $150 jeans are "best for my butt" and how to "read my man's mind."

"Especially if you haven't seen it lately." So does that mean that Glamour is no longer filled with salacious quizzes and sleazy advice and underwhelming interviews with "stars"? I gave it a flip. Yep, looks like the same Glamour I remember from 8th grade.

I'm trying to decide if it is worth it to try to get...I don't know...Architectural Digest instead. (which is where dominomag.com redirects to now.)

Probably not. Too much work. Instead I will probably just dump it straight in the recycling bin along with such treasures as Vitality (my health insurance magazine), 10-15 various catalogs, and the AARP magazine that we occasionally randomly get in Matt's dad's name.

While we're on the subject, how is Glamour still being published but Domino's not? Lame advertisers.

A break and a request.

(If you're not interested in my complaints, scroll to the bottom of this post for today's Reader Challenge! Reading between the whines, you might call it. )

(Oh heavens, I am my parents' daughter.)
Unfortunately, I need a short blogging break. Actually, I need a short break from a lot of things, but blogging is the easiest to let go of. Between sick kids, increased hours for Matt at work, increased hours for me at work...for which I'm NOT getting paid...yet (I say "yet" because the possibility of near-future payment is really the one thing that's keeping me hanging on here...barely...as much as I love the work), church callings, and welcome-to-summer! humidity, I have been letting go of many things that matter.

When I feel overwhelmed, my first stage is Denial. I find myself eating Frosties for lunch, leaving my scriptures completely untouched, starring every e-mail instead of responding, buying and selling strollers, staying up late watching movies, letting the garbage pile up until Matt finally takes it out himself because he can smell it when he walks in the house, and spending my nap times reading "tragic blogs" (as Matt calls them) instead of normal things I could do, like: taking a nap myself, or eating a normal lunch, or cleaning up this dump.

If you're worried about me, don't be. This post will show up on Tuesday but it's actually Monday and I'm writing this after taking Ida's temperature and, you got it, eating a Frosty for lunch. Things always look worse when people have fevers and my stomach is full of sugar. I have lots of pictures to post and stories to tell, so I'll be back on June 1. If you're bored until then, I won't recommend any tragic blogs for you, but instead I suggest eating a good meal for me. Then--

here's the important part of this post!--

leave a comment with your favorite healthy, yummy recipe. It can be a meal or a snack. Nutritious is good, fast is good, filling is good; please bless that your contribution has these three things. (Or at least one out of three.) I need menu-planning help and I need it now. I'll be checking back daily so you'd better have something tasty for me!

Oh and feel free to post as many recipes as you want! What should my comment goal be? Is 20 recipes too much to shoot for? What about 50? (probably kinda high.) Help me get there with just one recipe from your arsenal! I believe in you!

See you next week!

Ah, the sweet joys of frugality

This isn't the first time I've blogged about the joke that is Parade magazine. (Remember the Benazir Bhutto catastrophe) And yet I continue to read it every week.

I just wanted to share a headline on yesterday's cover, "The Joys of Frugality." Matt pointed it out to me and I am still laughing/rolling my eyes.

The article, which is actually called "Finding Joy in Frugality" (a little better, since it acknowledges that if you want joy in frugality you're probably going to have to look for it--"I'll go shopping in my closet! Again!"), actually does have some good tips--but really..."The Joys of Frugality"? Perhaps next week's headline will be "The Joys of Scraping Together Enough Cash to Pay the Electric Bill." Or maybe "The Joys of Eating Canned Tuna Every Day for Lunch." I just feel like with a little bit of thought maybe the editor could have come up with something slightly less...winsome.

Oh Christmas card, Oh Christmas card

Last year, the place I used for our Christmas card photos (One True Media) took 3 weeks to process my order. I received them the day before we left for Utah for Christmas; finally I had just gotten some crappy wallet prints from Walgreen's (I needed 3x5s but most local places won't do those. what the.). One True Media refunded my money but it was still annoying and too late anyway. This year, the place I used for our Christmas card and Ida's birth announcement (a local store) took several days longer than they said they would AND they used the wrong image on the announcement. They refunded my money but it was still annoying. And too late anyway.

So, maybe next year, rather than pay money that I am likely to get back along with photos I don't want, I will just draw pictures, or have Theo draw pictures, or maybe turn my bathroom into a darkroom and develop my own prints. I guess I would need to buy a film camera for that, and also learn how to develop film.

The photo for this post has nothing to do with anything except that I like it and I have no new ones loaded to share. They're all still on my (digital) camera.

It's a neighborly day in this beauty-wood

I know I have listed my neighborhood complaints many a time.

Allow me to do it again.

1. Smokers--3 smokers in my unit. The smoker above me smokes inside her apartment so it comes in through my AC vents. (Luckily I think we resolved this last summer; here's hoping. AC comes on in May.) The smoker next to me smokes on his balcony so it comes in through the screen door on balmy days. He also enjoys summoning all phlegm from within his deepest, most inner bowels and expectorating it approximately every 5 minutes. The smoker below me is actually the "companion" to the lady who lives there, and she has no qualms about smoking in the actual stairwell on her way out to the car.
2. Parrots--1 very loud parrot in the apartment across the yard. Not kidding, this is the loudest, most loquacious parrot you've ever met in your life, and its owner loves to (a) leave her windows open, (b) take him for very slow, deliberate walks all around the grounds. Don't worry, you can hear the bird even if they are on the complete opposite end of the property. I am pretty sure the bird never sleeps, and also never stops whistling.
   
3. TVs--1 very loud TV in the apartment just below ours. My nocturnal neighbor leaves it on All Night. You may think I'm kidding, but just come visit and you'll see. I have also taken care of this, twice, by knocking on the door at 3 a.m., which by my calculations has given me about 8 months of peace at a time. I think she slowly turns the volume up every month or so until I snap. It's time to take care of it again. Don't worry, we're friends. Although to be honest that makes it much more awkward.
   
4. Gardeners--I estimate 6-8 gardeners who work on the property. Sadly, ever since my parents' gardeners killed their apricot tree I have been more than a little suspicious of gardeners. We live on a gorgeous property with luscious trees and grass, but I still think the amount of maintenance is excessive: these guys start up at 9 a.m. twice a week and I am not kidding you, it is 4:20 p.m. and they are still going strong. My question is, couldn't the condo association be saving money on these guys? They raised the condo fee 13% this year due to some major problems with the plumbing last winter. And yet we've got these leisurely gardeners who, I would guess, are paid by the hour. Ever since 9 it has been nothing but lawn mowers, weed whackers, and edgers. Nonstop, I tell you. And they all seem to be right outside my window. How does this take 8 hours? How does this take 8 hours? Would I care if I didn't have a napper? Probably not as much, but still a little.
   

Can I help it if I have high standards?

Hurrah, hurrah

There are ants living in my dishwasher. Well, below my dishwasher, or next to it, or something. Anyway they come out through the dishwasher and invade my kitchen. After a good scrub-down and some doses of Raid, they are gone for a few days or weeks and then they come back if I miss so much as a SPECK when I clean up after Theo eats. This did not happen last spring. Maybe because Theo wasn't eating real food yet then?

Why do they do this? It's not like I did anything to them! I mean besides killing all their friends and relatives who came before.

Of course they are harmless, except that it's disgusting to have ants in your kitchen. Would I rather have cockroaches, certainly not, but that doesn't mean I can't complain about ants.

I just randomly remembered when we went to Texas for my brother's wedding 8 years ago and found in the middle of the night that our hotel bed was infested with red ants. Awesome!

I thought about putting an ant picture on here, but looking at the options grossed me out. You know what ants look like anyway.

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you

Problem:

Our apartment stinks like cigarette smoke.

I have had it up to here with it.

I know for sure that our next-door neighbor smokes, and it seems like maybe the stink in our place started at about the same time he moved in.

But, I am pretty sure he only smokes on his balcony, which is annoying when I'm out on the balcony, but he's not home that often. Matt and I are thinking maybe that it is the lady upstairs. The smell seems worse when the air conditioner is on, so it is probably coming through the vents.

She has lived there since before we moved in, but I don't remember the smell during the fall, winter, or spring. So I can't figure out why it wouldn't come through when the heat is on, but it does when the air is on. Hence the reason I initially thought it was New Guy next door (we think his name is Lee but he is not very social), who moved in at the beginning of summer, at about the same time the A/C came on.

I asked the manager of the complex and he was no help--"Oh yeah, I have the same problem in my apartment, our neighbors smoke too, I think you just have to live with it"--and I think the answer I'd get from our landlord would be the same answer when the carpet stunk like dog urine when we moved in: "I'm not charging you very much for rent" (although he did reimburse us for cleaning the carpet).

I have air fresheners in every room but, not surprisingly, it only serves to mask the smell somewhat. I keep the A/C off as much as I can, but it doesn't help enough. Matt changed the filter for our vents tonight but we don't think that will help much either. And so, I am left fuming inside with annoyance and anger toward our neighbor upstairs, Lynn, whom I have only talked to once. She is not too social either and I never see her leave the place.

So the dilemma: Do I say something to her, and what? I am sort of thinking I might. When our neighbors downstairs blared their TV all night long every night for weeks, I finally knocked on their door at 3 a.m. one night when I was 9 months pregnant and the blaring stopped for good. So I am tentatively thinking I might go upstairs one day this week, talk to Lynn, and sort of casually and politely say that we are trying to figure out where the smoke smell in our apartment comes from, without accusing her or anything, maybe ask her if she has the same problem and what she has done about it.

What do you think? Too much? Not enough? Like I said, I have done this before with the door-knocking at 3 a.m. and it was effective, no more TV blaring all night and those neighbors still seem to like us OK. So maybe if I go up with a baby on my hip and try to feel out the situation, I can come to some sort of solution or at least stop resenting the neighbor. Not like she's going to quit smoking--but at least maybe then she would think about how smoking in her apartment is affecting her poor little baby neighbor downstairs and his poor little mother.

What would you do?

Googledy-goo

Question: (Dwight voice)

Does anyone know how to put a noindex, nofollow code into a new Blogger template (so that Google will leave me alone)? It won't let me.

And so for the first time in my LIFE I have been getting s+p*a=m comments. On posts that are totally old, but it's s+p*a=m nonetheless. This seems to have started with the deadly combination of Blogger-Google earlier this year.

And I'm not into the word verification thing, so maybe those days are just over. Thanks a lot, Google.



Please advise.

A quick rant

I am sorry, I know that all of God's critters have a place in the choir but I have HAD IT with smokers. Inconsiderate smokers anyway, but that's a little redundant, my apologies to all of you thoughtful and considerate smokers out there that I have not yet met, or realized I've met. Three cheers for you. (I mean that.) Public smoking never bothered me so much as it did when I was hugely pregnant and now as I lug around an infant. I want to say, "Hello!" to public smokers, "Hello! Impressionable young brains and lungs here!" They dangle their cigarettes inches from Theo's face as he passes in his stroller. They blow their smoke in my general direction when I'm waiting in line.

Maybe these actions are not deliberate but they FEEL deliberate.

And now I am realizing that there are a handful of balcony smokers in our neighborhood. Our air conditioning does not turn on until MAY 7TH and so therefore in order to keep ourselves from suffocating we must open all the windows, but the irony of the not-suffocating measures is that we let in the delicious scent/toxins of cigarette fumes along with the humidity.

Fortunately Theo is still happy as a clam, unaware of the death trap that is cigarette smoke. He's busy enough trying not to choke on his own drool that I don't think he thinks about not choking on the air. But I'm annoyed enough for both of us.

(Thank you, done)