>As I mentioned yesterday, Jack recently started throwing tantrums (but only when he doesn’t get what he wants). There was some screaming, arching of the back, legs kicking and what-have-you. Luke was never one for a rolling around on the floor kicking and screaming type tantrum so I was sort of interested to see one unfold. And by interested, I mean I planned to put Jack down, walk away, and appear to be ignore him. That backfired, of course, because as soon as I put him down, he took off and tried to get right back to what he was doing in the first place. (Banging on the keyboard and randomly blaring songs on itunes. First the Beatles, and then Liz Phair.)

All this is to say, I am now a veteran of all sorts of meltdowns. I am now acquainted with a Jack-style meltdown, I have dealt with Luke’s special brand, of course my own personal meltdowns, and Dave’s occasional loss of composure.

But the real problem for me, for the past several days is the complete economic meltdown. I’ve taken it quite personally. Flat on my back, wondering if it’s time to wean so I can get me some of those sweet, sweet muscle relaxers. (“Try four.”) Yes, ye old back pain has returned and I am blaming it on the Dow’s worst drop in it’s 112 years.

Short story long, when I moved to Boulder I started to buy into the idea that the Western medical “take some antibiotics” method isn’t always the answer . So I started seeing a doctor that was known to be very into alternative medicine, and when I went there for back pain she asked me if I had money problems. “Well, my husband is in grad school, and I am the breadwinner and my company is going through layoffs. so I am a little worried, why do you ask?” According to her, back pain is linked to worries about money. Hmm, OK, great. She had some interesting ideas, but I stopped seeing her when I realized, sometimes you just have to have antibiotics. But fortunately for me, she recommended a good chiropractor first.

Just the other day I ran across my back pillow (from the lumbar yard) and I was thinking it had been so long since I had even a twinge of back pain. And merely days later as the economy was falling to ruins and 401k statements were arriving in the mailbox, I could suddenly not stand up straight. The pain, my God the pain! Damn you greedy-wall-street-fat-cats with your risky investment-causing-econonmy-collapsing-anniversary-ruining-back-pain!

So let’s just all hope that the 900 point gain today is a sign of good things to come and that as the Dow climbs, the pain lessons. Or at least that I can stop worrying about it.

>These go to eleven.

From misc

>MetaMegan joined Facebook this week, making her the second last person on Earth to join, her friends and family said Sunday. “I just wanted to see what it was, but I can’t really figure it out” she was heard to say, stating one of the three excuses people over 30 mention when explaining why they have joined a social networking site developed for college students. Other excuses include, “I wanted to look up old boyfriends” and “my 2o year reunion was coming up and everyone was getting in touch via facebook.”

Mentioning that you do not really understand how Facebook works is another common Facebook related utterance according to Dr. Magoo, Sociology Professor at Ohio University. “People like to say they don’t really understand facebook for several reasons. In the over 30 crowd, there is a reticence towards seeming overly enthusiastic about something that may in fact be too ‘young’ for them to fully enjoy. A pretend ignorance can also be a defense mechanism used to explain a low volume of friends. People of this generation grew up programming their parents VCRs, but there is also always a possibilty that they may, in fact, not really understand how Facebook works.” The professor continued, “The case of MetaMegan, a technologist, who installs, documents, uses, and trains people in different software systems on a daily basis, is probably a case of the first situation, also known as Too Cool for School Syndrome.”

“Ooh look, I am up to 23 friends!” Metamegan was heard to say late Sunday night, but she rarely has been known to post a status because she “doesn’t really get what she is supposed to say.”

>Better pictures and video from our adventure yesterday can be seen here.

>I have spent the past week working on an essay for a memory book about a good friend who died last year. I have mostly been laughing and smiling about the many funny memories, but there have been some tears too. And I had been procrastinating writing the essay for more than a month, so I couldn’t be blogging about how annoying it is that “insert trivial annoying detail here” when I should be writing down memories of my friend for her children to read. But the essay is almost finished, so you can expect that I will be back to my regularly scheduled programming very soon!

One piece of info to make you jealous! Guess where Jack and I were today?


And by today, I mean yesterday, since I just noticed it is after midnight.

>So, there is a recommended amount of worms per square feet of worm bin, and a standard amount of pounds of food per week per pound of worms per square foot of worm bin. But the worms I bought came in a standard amount, and I already had a worm bin, and measuring my food waste just seemed like a lot of work, so I decided to wing it. And it turns out, I had the wrong amount of food per worm, and my 13 year old worm bin is sort of not that great and the worms were unhappy. I know! Who could have predicted a worm problem? It came out of nowhere.

If you are every going to dig around in a worm bin that has major problems, I highly recommend having a few glasses of wine with the ladies and going to a museum exhibit about purses first. (Mom – I need to talk to you about some purses we used to have laying around.) The exhibit was great. And later, the wine really made the whole digging around in my worm bin thing possible.

The problem seemed to mostly be from too much moisture, both because the bottom was sagging and not draining properly, and also, possibly, from too much food. So I dug deep, and put worms with bedding and food in one bucket and worms with just bedding in another bucket. Then I scooped out a ton of water from the bottom with my perry nuclear power plant mug (high school field trip souvenir) that happened to be laying nearby. The I put half a roll of paper towels down, covered it with the food, and covered the food with the non food. (People who are grossed out to come in my house can be reassured that this process took place in the garage.) Now, I still need to repair the bin to provide a platform for the worms so the water can leak down to the bottom, but I already have a plan in place for that.

>*** Subtitled: Why is Milk? Becows. ***

Oh, we had such a fun weekend! Playing non-stop with the cousins, staying up too late, skipping naps. It was hard for everyone to go to bed last night and face the new week. Tears were shed, fears confessed, condolences sought. But enough about me.

No friends at after school care, and milk anxiety were the big problems last night. But Luke now has a friend at after school care AND he got milk at the cafeteria. And all was right with the world.

Alas, bedtime arrived and the milk anxiety returned. “I don’t want milk!!! They’ll ask me if I want hot lunch and I’ll have to say “No thank you!” and water is good for you!”

Fortunately, Dave put Luke to bed and handled the situation as follows: “You can choose whether or not to get milk. We would prefer that you get milk, but we can’t always be there to help you make decisions. So it’s your choice.” Then he told me not to mention milk. When I went in to give Luke a kiss goodnight he said,

“Did Daddy tell you it’s my choice?”

“About what?”

“The milk!”

“Did he tell you what we would prefer that you choose?”

“Yes. And I choose not to get milk.”

“OK.”

“But I might change my mind. I’ll make up my mind tomorrow.”

I could feel his resolve crumbling under my motherly, guilt-inducing, loving gaze. Yes, Dave and I make a good team.

>

>I watched the speech tonight and it seemed different from any other political speech that I can remember. I felt a weird feeling that was hard to identify at first, but it turns out to be optimism!

>In college we had a few different and hilarious (to us) voice mail messages. For a while, our voice mail said:

You have reached 1-900-909-WORM.
If you’d like to talk to a worm, press 1.
To listen to worms talk, press 2.

This is when I was a hippie granola botany major and learning all about vermiculture. We planned to open a microbrewery, and we’d have a bunch of benches with places for people to sit, and the benches would be worm bins where we composted all the hops and barley. Our first beer was going to be called The Great Wide Chasm Worm Stout. Ah, Tony’s Tavern, so many plans were hatched there. Well, I gave all those plans up for an exciting career in administering databases, but I did just purchase a big bucket of worms from the Colorado Worm Man.

We had a worm bin for the first year after college, and it was great. Worms ate all our leftovers. But then we moved into a really small place, and then a slightly bigger place, and then a much bigger place, and as of yesterday, I can cross “start worm composting again” off my list of things I have been meaning to do for the last 12 years.

Love to cross stuff off that list.