hoist · with · her · own · petard

Simon and I are peacefully spooned and sleeping in. (He is the cuddliest of the cats. Felix never really got the hang of sitting on people in a relaxed and painless way, and Angus is still too full of the energy of youth to chill out properly.)

The baby kicks Simon. Simon raises his head for a moment, puzzled, then settles back to sleep.

The baby kicks him again. He raises his head and looks around, then settles.

The baby gives him one more good kick. He starts out of his doze and gives me a bewildered look, as if to say, Woman, what have you been eating?

We have (probably) less than a month to go...I wonder how the guys are going to react to having a new and mysteriously preferred contender for lap time.

Hey, dumbass. Before you try to use my debit card number to buy a large item from a company I've never heard of, how about making sure there's enough money in my account to cover it? And the international purchase fee and the overdraft fee and the account fee? If you hadn't overdrawn me, this might have gone unnoticed for DAYS. But I see red numbers and I flip the hell out.

Also, before you try to use my debit card number? Please go die in a fire. Thank you.

There's only one line into the office of the California Secretary of State? REALLY?

(busy signal)

(busy signal)

(busy signal)

Traditional hand-crafting is dying out in England, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of system in place to preserve it.

At first I thought: how, in this day and age of hobbyists, recreationists, and greater ease in pursuing obscure crafts than ever before, is this happening?

The hobbyists and recreationists mostly aren't pursuing those obscurities as careers, is the answer. And the Internet may make more information more available to more people than ever in human history, but how many of those people (like me) keep "meaning" to take up some kind of craft and never find the time, or don't have access to a community or teachers, or think it's simply too much trouble? Out of those who surmount all those obstacles, how many would be willing to try doing it for a living, with the field endangered as it is, with no promise of fame or fortune and no guarantee of job security?

It's dismaying that apprenticeship is not being used to preserve this, and other skills. Are interns the new apprentices? Aren't there a lot of jobs out there that can't be learned through theory and instruction alone? There's got to be some way that people are learning to run machinery and make things and maintain physical systems. Maybe they're just not called "apprentices" anymore, but going through the same process.

The cynical side of me worries that when civilization collapses, no one will know how to hand-turn bowls or make barrels or scissors!

It's very windy here. Stupid power flickers, all I want to do is see pictures of Emily's children. Can you allow that please?

Should have brought some kind of low-tech entertainment. Book, jacks, needlepoint.

It's the first, again, and fortunately none of the tenants have tried to play a "I decided not to pay rent this month APRIL FOOLS!" joke on me. Because it makes me ragey just to have to sit here and deal with them without the humor, thanks. That is nothing new. But what IS new is, today I gave Bossman a departure date. May 14.

How lovely to think of being able to travel and sleep in and keep the house clean and garden and so on.

But how depressing to think of not being this spunky, valued, competent Girl Friday anymore. I've done pretty well here. And now I'm going to let that go.

The choice was: keep working and funnel all the money I made to daycare, not getting to hang out with my kid, or stop working and get to hang out with the kid. It's a no-brainer. But it's bittersweet.

I subscribe to the newsletter of an online wine dealer because we got all excited about wine while in Australia last year. The usual pompous "full-bodied with a cherry finish and hints of walnut and rose" sort of description was a little far-fetched, perhaps, but I could wrap my mind around it. Sure. Hints of walnut, I get that. Maybe. (swirl, sniff, sip)

How, though, can a wine be "angular"? I think the shark has been jumped.

Paddle to the Sea was one of my favorite stories as a child. It also taught me how to tell the Great Lakes apart. (Note to self: must find copy so as to inflict story on Noodle.) It is probably also a source of my intense dismay at the thought of things that are small and lost, because Paddle went through some pretty rough stuff in there, but that's my fault, not Holling's.

How delightful to happen across this today after not having thought of Paddle in years.

I think I'm in love.

Like spiders, Republicans, and patchouli incense, contemporary design is something that is simply not allowed in my home. Except in this deliciously cutting manner.

The Deutsch and I decided that the remodeled bathroom would be white. White to show off the lovely colors in the slate shower and the ash vanity and contrast with the dark gray grout between the Arctic White hex tiles on the floor. I knew there was a bewildering blizzard of "white" paints out there, so I planned to neatly sidestep the question by asking for "plain white". Primer white. Whitewash white. The white that sits there patiently in all those gallon cans lined up on racks in the hardware store, waiting to be blended with a few drops of color to become one of the fancy-pants whites. I knew this would not be easy, and I would be scoffed at, and there would need to be some perseverance. I wanted to be like Sue in The Interior Life, bend the paint-counter guy to my will, and paint the walls a color that would provide a perfect setting for the furnishings and fixtures for which we are paying through the God damned nose.

I was nixed on this by the Deutsch, who informed me that that base white is not necessarily what I think it is--any thoughts on this, dear reader?--and brought me a selection of paint chips. Mind you, this is only a selection:

Mayonnaise
White Blush
Capri Coast
Indian White
Moonlight White
Easter Lily
White Chocolate
Minced Onion
Mountain Peak White
Cotton Balls
Bavarian Cream
Alpine White
Winter White
Calm
Classic Gray (this is a white?)
Winds Breath
Titanium
November Rain
Intense White
Gray Owl

Those are just the WARM ones. From ONE brand.

Horizon
White Wisp
Paper White
Moonshine
White Heron
White Ice
Vanilla Milkshake
Icicle
White Diamond
Baby's Breath
Winter Snow
Pure White (it looks slightly gray to me, but maybe that's just snowblindness on my part)
Chantilly Lace
Snow White
Ice Mist
Distant Gray

OH MY GOODNESS. We are not through yet:

Calm Beige
Linen
Birch Park
Classic Coral
Algonquin
Chinchilla
Micro Tan
Premier Peach
Somoya
Distant White
Casa Blanca
Bone White
Antique White
Light Navajo White
Fine China
Beachside
Contemporary White (that's right out)
White Mosaic
Dusty Ivory
High Hiding White (intriguing)
St. Cloud
Gentle Buff
Safe 'n Sound
Quiet White
Gently Gray
Heavenly Sand
Savannah
White Marsh

(huff huff)

They're...closing in...I feel so...deliciously warm...maybe I'll just sit and...rest for a minute...

Props to the Yarn Harlot, who handled this elegantly by asking the paint purveyors at her local store to just choose one, until they caved and sold her a random white, a white so minutely different from all the other whites that her confidence that it wouldn't matter was vindicated. If I get too much guff from the local guys, I may go this route.