Randy and I spent the last few days in Mexico. On day one I made the enormous mistake of venturing into the ocean, an act that somehow alerted every mildly dangerous sea creature within a hundred miles that dinner was served. Seriously, if it had pinchers, tentacles, slimy sides, or a heavy book to drop on my foot, it showed up.
So while I'm recuperating, please enjoy Kate's latest cinematic masterpiece, Sock Zombie Episode II:
I have to warn you, though, the end is pretty graphic.
¶ posted by Erin on Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Maybe it's the Facebook that makes it efficient.
Randy and I spent July 4th in the lukewarm respite of my parents’ swimming pool, bobbing around like carrots in the hasenpfeffer, and watching my brother toss his three-year-old boy around like giggling kindling. Logan usually wears floaties—those inflatable donuts that fit around toddlers’ tiny biceps and are generally about as comfortable as swimming around in a couple of blood pressure cuffs—but this particular 108 degree day he declared he was Over It, ripped off the floaties, and steadfastly refused to put them on again. “NO THANK YOU!” It’s hard to argue with those kind of manners so okay, buddy, you win.
The problem, of course, is that a human child tends to sink in large bodies of water when left unaided. No seriously, write it down. I don’t know why the human child himself seemed to be the least concerned about this fact, jumping off the step with the confidence of an Olympic freestyle champion only to plummet straight down like he’s still wearing the medal. Over and over and over again. Not to the bottom, I don’t want to give the wrong impression here, like six adults stood around and let a baby sink all day, but he would have is my point. We tried to introduce beginning swim concepts; kicking, for example, which he’s pretty good at. Paddling, for another, which didn’t really take. The aforementioned floaties (now crushed and deflated on the sidelines) had always taken care of the upper body problem, and Logan’s quick fix was to hold my finger with one hand and hold his dad’s finger with the other and then “float” suspended between the two of us. Rendering the two of us nothing but very complicated, motorized floaties. Every once and a while my brother would let Logan attempt to “swim” a short distance, just to let him get used to the sensation of sinking and how his body should try to correct that. I deemed this particular exercise to be well above my pay grade; I am qualified for “Canoe!”, “Find The Moth”, “What’s In The Skimmer Now” and “Don’t Touch The Chlorine Thing” only. My brother—essentially the CEO of this parenting corporate hierarchy—can go ahead and handle “The Baby’s Head Is Underwater”. Everything worked out beautifully in the end, though, and it was heartwarming to realize that my brother has completely evolved into a loving and responsible father. And then my sister-in-law pointed out that he had somehow managed to squeeze his three-year-old son into swim trunks sized six months to a year, and that was somehow even more heartwarming.
In completely unrelated news, my contract with Verizon was up last week so I got to upgrade to the BlackBerry Tour—a phone capable of so many non-phone related tasks that I’ve yet to make an actual call on it. We thought briefly about switching carriers so we could jump on the iPhone bandwagon but eventually decided against it because:
1) Randy’s been with Verizon since 1987. Literally. 1987. He was the guy who shelled out $1800 for a cellular phone the size and weight of a toaster for the privilege of screaming into it for $3.99 a minute. Whenever we go into a Verizon store they let him wear a crown and fire someone. It’s hard to give up that kind of seniority.
2) We’re not Macs, we’re PCs. Specifically, an HP PC from Costco running pirated software and missing the equal sign key because Randy spilled a cocktail on the keyboard and got a little overzealous with the cleanup.
3) I’m too chronically clammy for a touchscreen. It’s weird and kind of gross, I know, but shaking hands with me is a lot like wringing out a leaf of lettuce. Does the iPhone work if instead of your hand you operate it with a wet washcloth? I’m guessing it doesn’t. I’m guessing I’d spend most of my time drying off the screen and shorting out the battery.
So no iPhone. But this Tour, man, it’s killing me. I know people claim smartphones can increase productivity and maximize efficiency but I’m not seeing any of that. I mean yeah, I’m logged into Google Talk eighteen hours a day and Sims 3 is running constantly in the background, sure, but somehow I doubt that’s everyone’s definition of “productive”.
¶ posted by Erin on Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 09, 2009
N Coordinates W Coordinates, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS.
I have this terrible suspicion that I’m close to really throwing myself into geocaching. I’ve never even been geocaching but just the same, I can’t shake this feeling that I’m on the brink of caching the shit out of everything I see. I mean, look: I’m stockpiling Altoid tins and golf pencils, there’s a topographical map in my car right now and let’s face it, all I know about topography is not to drive on the blue, and today at Safeway four kids lined up behind me in the condiment aisle because they all swore I was their camp counselor.
I don’t know, it’s just a feeling… but then again, this has happened before. How else do you explain my dalliance with badminton? The sixteen months I spent on our patio whittling what was supposed to be a walking cane poignantly chronicling my life but what turned out to be just a super skinny stick? The twenty-eight years I spent learning how to crochet?
Maybe it’s not that bad. I don’t want to sound any alarms or anything, you don’t need to password protect your GPS units, I’m not out there like a TomTom werewolf. I just wish I knew which way to go, here. I can’t decide whether I should stage an emergency hobby intervention or whether I should just give in and run out to REI for my fanny pack.
¶ posted by Erin on Thursday, July 09, 2009
