re-entry

We've been back about a week, and it is great. We arrived in the height of last week's snowstorm (which nobody remembers, after this week's). You know how houses have smells, and you don't notice the smell of your own house unless you've been away? I was relieved to notice that ours smells mostly like... wood. In a nice way, I think. I guess. Anyway the girls went beserk, running around remembering stuff and hollering their discoveries at each other: "LOOK! The play house! The piano! The PINK TOILETS!" (Yes, we have pink toilets... the house was built in the 80s, and we've had more important improvements to make since we bought it in '00, but the pink toilets are SO on our list.) They were especially happy to get in their own little beds. They liked sharing a room out west, but neither of them says they will miss sharing a bed. Evidently the Bean steals the covers.

In the morning we went right to the service station to address the tire pressure warning light that, along with the icy roads, had me stressed out all the way home the day before. I'd put air in the tires, but it kept coming back on. I've been assured that the tires weren't dangerously low and that those warning lights are more trouble than help. It hasn't come on since, so I'm happy to forget all about it.

We next hit the post office to pick up our mail and notify them to resume delivery (incidentally, if you've got an ongoing home improvement project - and who doesn't? - ask the post office for a change of address packet. Inside is a coupon for 10% off at Lowe's, which can be a fair bit if the project is enormous, as ours tend to be. There, don't say Noted & Blogged never gave you anything), and -- what was this sentence about? Oh yes -- then stopped for lunch at The Bee-Hive Tavern. I can't make up my mind about that place. The food is always good, but sometimes I don't get a particularly friendly vibe there, especially if I have the girls along, which I both understand (lots of kids behave badly in restaurants) and resent (mine don't, and I'd appreciate the benefit of the doubt, at least at the front door).

On to the grocery store, which, of course, has been significantly reconfigured in our absence, and will take longer to get through till I've got the new pattern down. We were almost done when the Bean just completely crashed. Out of the blue she said "Mommy I feel terrible," and had a distinct fever. We left right away to get her to bed.

Rest and ibuprofen had her on the mend, but not well enough to go to school on the 23rd. The Peanut was raring to go, though. The last thing she'd done at her west coast school, on the day before winter break there, was wear pajamas to school and watch The Polar Express. She was ecstatic to learn that on the last day before winter break here, her class would be doing the same. Must be a nationwide 1st grade tradition. So she put on her PJs with cupcakes on them, and off we went.

After school she said she was glad to be with her old friends again, but that "it felt like I was famous, and I didn't really like that." I guess they made a huge fuss of her, because the Peanut seems like someone who would dig fame. Anyway that's much better than having her feel lost in the shuffle. She also reported, in detail, what everyone else had on their pajamas. Kids are really interested in other kids' pajamas. I'm sure her classmates went home and told their parents the Peanut has cupcake pajamas.

All in all, getting settled in has not gone as smoothly as I'd hoped. The snow, the girls being sick (the Peanut has since come down with what ailed the Bean), a couple days in a row of constant sibling bickering that had me fit to lose my ever-lovin' mind, unpacking, laundry, a newly broken dishwasher door, and trouble getting to sleep before 2:00 AM... I'm tired. Really tired. And there is still our postponed Christmas -- not my favorite holiday even under normal circumstances -- to prepare for.

The big picture, though, is all good. We are safe, sound, and content -- and tomorrow, we are leaving the house No Matter What. (Please melt, please melt, please melt.)


Oh! Before you go, because you were doubtless wondering, here is the cheesiness that was in my head yesterday:



Today's earworm is a distinct, a-u-t-omatic improvement I think. I love me some artist-formerly-known-as, and boy, did I play this album a lot in its day. This "video" is just the song playing to a still of the album cover, but you get the song anyhow.

SOTD

This video doesn't say "oooh, fun" to me, but hey. It's still the song of the day even though these kids should get off my lawn.



Also: you may have noticed word verification is back, for commenting. I'm sorry to have reinstated it but I was getting an awful lot of spam.

SOTD

I don't know why. If I knew why, it wouldn't be the song of the day.

But I found a really cheesy video for it. Behold:

two in a row

today's earworm

When I worked as an environmental consultant in Brattleboro, Vermont, there was a young woman in the same office who was having boyfriend trouble. I can't remember the details -- it seemed like there was no kind of trouble I wasn't having myself, in those unhappy days -- but he didn't treat her as well as he ought, and she left him, though it broke her heart to do it.

He made things right, they reunited and eventually married. This was the song they first danced to at their wedding. I'm surprised I remember it actually, as I had a few week-old Bean with me at the wedding who spit up repeatedly, requiring many exits from the reception and three complete changes of clothes, and I could probably have used a change myself by the time the night was through. Those early weeks of nursing are not for the faint of heart.

Anyway, it was a lovely song then, and it's lovely now.



My friend and her husband live in the White Mountains now, own a building company, and have three boys. The youngest are twins. I expect that's not for the faint of heart either.

We're not in close touch any more, but I hope all her days are best days, still.

For those playing along at home

Greetings from the Mountain Time zone. Just a quick post to say I am safe and well and so happy to be crossing this great land. With all the visiting and sight-seeing and resting my tired eyes I have just not left time for blogging.

I do have a persistent earworm to pass on this morning:


You're welcome.

Now to Mount Rushmore!

SOTD

SOTD

No particular reason this song should've been plaguing me at zero-dark-thirty this morning -- I haven't heard it in who knows how long. Still, there it was. And thanks to the Great and Powerful Series of Tubes (RIP Ted Stevens), here it is for you, too! This is a weird little video. The blazer! The turtleneck! The standing basically still on top of a box! The turtleneck!

SOTD

Today it was the ballad part of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Specifically, the lyrics "I don't wanna die... I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all..." which have always upset me for some reason, ever since I first heard the song as a kid. I must have had some kind of disturbing dream to have those lines on endless loop for most of the morning. Not a good feeling.

Anyway, video:

SOTD

Been a while since I subjected you all to my Song of the Day -- that song that somehow manages to be stuck in my head before my eyes are even open in the morning.  Some days don't have one, but a lot do, which seems strange to me since I don't go to sleep or wake up to the radio or anything like that, and sometimes I can't remember when I even last heard the song outside my own head.

Anyway, today: 

Curse you, NPR! Well, sort of.

So I've recently made a change to my morning routine -- one that improves my mood, broadens my horizons, accentuates the positive, eliminates the negative, etc. etc.: When I turn on my bathroom radio, I don't listen to the whining, sneering blowhards on local commercial talk radio any more. I put their station on for the top-of-the-hour news and weather, then switch to NPR's Cape and Islands affiliate for the end of their local newscast (the self-proclaimed Cape Cod news station devotes so little time to actual news that you can listen to their entire newscast, switch stations, and still catch some of WCAI's) and then NPR's "Morning Edition."

I don't miss the local blowhards one bit. They are always annoying, and frequently stupid, and there is just no sense starting the day listening to them. Changing the station has been a good thing all 'round.

Today, Morning Edition had coverage of the White House state dinner for the Prime Minister of India. What a night that must've been! So I'm listening to the President's and Prime Minister's toasts, and to the reporting about the event (it was held in a giant tent with a transparent ceiling! which made me think of Hogwarts. Excellent.) The segment wrapped up, and my attention turned to getting the girls up-dressed-brushed.

The next thing my ear caught was some music between stories, or part of a story, I don't know. This is dreadful, awful, evil music. One wee measure of this song will plant the whole awful mess in my head for days. DAYS! If I even hear words that remind me of this song, I must immediately and with whatever mental strength I have left focus hard on something else -- anything else, to prevent this invasive, fast-growing, carnivorous vine of a tune from taking hold of my poor brain.

NPR played this song at my most vulnerable moment. I hadn't had my tea. I hadn't even dried my hair. My defenses were down and I was struck head-on. And now, friends, I am consumed with the fire of vengeance. I shall use this mighty blog (humor me) to perpetuate and amplify this horror, with video!



GAH!! The cheesiness, it burns! And yet, I can't look away. (Did that clarinet player wink?) And neither can you! And I bet you'll be singing that godforsaken song hours, maybe days from now, because NOTHING CAN ERASE IT.

MWAHAHAHAHA!

And yet, even with this poison in my veins, I still have no regrets about the station change. That this is still progress shows just how bad the local blowhards are. Were. So long, blowhards.

On the day that you were born...

Come back baby, you'll find a change in me.

Arguably, one of the changes I should make is to get to know more music that was produced after, say, 1983. Whatever. I love this tune, and I'm declaring it Song of the Day even though it wasn't the morning earworm (a song stuck in my head from before my eyes even opened). Au contraire - the morning earworm was the theme song to Star Trek: TNG. Yeah, I don't understand it either.

Anyway:

Everybody oughta make a change
(by sleepy john estes)

Change in the weather, change in the sea,
Come back baby, you'll find a change in me.
Everybody, they ought to change sometime,
Because sooner or later we have to go down in that lonesome ground.

I changed suits, I changed shirts,
I changed, baby, just to get shed of the dirt.
Everybody, we ought to change sometime,
Because sooner or later we're going down in that lonesome ground.

I changed honey, I changed money,
I changed, people, just to keep from being funny.
Everybody, they ought to change sometime,
Because sooner or later we're going down in that lonesome ground.

Change in the ocean, change in the sea,
Come back baby, you'll find a change in me.
Everybody, we ought to change sometime,
Because sooner or later we're going down in that lonesome ground.

today's tune

Playing in my head this morning, before my eyes were open, and with no reason at all I can figure:



As songs go, this is not a terribly painful one to have on endless loop. I actually like the studio version a lot better (this sounds like a record playing too slowly), but that video has embedding disabled. Feh.

song of the day:

The song in my head all day today has been Nine Inch Nails's Closer.

I like this tune, but with the kiddos around, it's not exactly the kind of thing I'm playing lately. So where it comes from as the latest earworm in my head, who knows.

I must be reading too much news about the not-so-honorable Governor of New York.

every morning

It's been a long while since I plagued you with the song that's currently plaguing me. Not that there haven't been some doozies.

I don't know how these songs get on endless loop in my brain, but they do, and sometimes I wish they would stop.

This one is of the recurring variety. When it comes, always unsolicited, it stays for days.

I like the song OK but the video's lame.

tidbits

Here's a kind of spirograph thingy. Eh.

In case there was anyone left in the known universe who doesn't think Tom Cruise is crazier than a shithouse rat: be aware he's building a bunker for when the aliens come. Course, maybe he'll have the last laugh. I dunno though, my pantry is preeettty well stocked from that time the canned tomatoes (no salt added, natch) went on that crazy sale, and also from the time I thought Stop&Shop was going to quit stocking cans of Goya low sodium red kidney beans and I bought every single one they had. What can I say -- I have high blood pressure and I make a lot of chili.

Check out the astronomy picture of the day. I'm going to put the link on my sidebar. Cool.

Also: the earworm of the last few days, to go nicely with my headache (which is just abating over the last couple of hours, tyvm), has been that "Tub Thumping" tune by Chumbawumba, or whateverthehell that band was called. I say was, because somehow I can't imagine they're still crankin' out da hits.

Musical Abuse

I have been suffering, my friends.

Two days ago I had the refrain from that Depeche Mode song "Blasphemous Rumors" stuck in my head like chewing gum underfoot.

Yesterday, it was "Edelweiss." I tried to spread the misery to Mr. Sandy, who, (although German!) professed never to have heard it before.

This morning I went to church to confess my sins, just in case it'll help.

The post that wasn't

I think Life in Hell was probably the funniest comic ever. OK, The Far Side was pretty damn funny. OK OK, Dilbert is also very good, though context matters. Once you leave the cube farm it loses some of its ooomph. I know a lot of people adore Calvin and Hobbes. It just never grabbed me.

This was going to be a longish post about "the culture wars," but I got distracted... hey look, something shiny!


BTW today's stuck-in-the-head song is Bob Marley's "Stir it Up."

Today's Musical Menace

Lord help me, the song of the day is One, from A Chorus Line (click at your own risk).

Why, why? I've never even seen the damn show.

Gaaaaah, I hate musicals.

Today's Song

could definitely be worse. I've got Jumper, by Third Eye Blind in my head.

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend...