Hobson's Choice
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Links Are Back Up
Yes, I finally did it. I finally put the links back in the blog.
2:12 p.m. - 2006-11-19
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Knitting For Good
As you're doing your holiday knitting, consider adding a charitable project to your list. Save the Children and Warm Up America are currently teaming up to send handknit and crochet baby caps to the president. The aim is to give him a palpable reminder that 4 million babies in developing countries die in the first month of life so that he can consider adding more oomph to the U.S. Aid budget in 2007. To learn more, visit Caps to the Capital
Their deadline for caps is January 2nd. If your knitting/crochet basket is full, consider starting a project for Afghans for Afghans which has a March deadline to send handmade wool items to families in Afghanistan. On a long drive this morning with Chris and Eleanor, I started a baby blanket. I cannot tell you the heart-lift I've gotten from just starting this project. I feel as if I am doing something concrete to make amends for what my nation is doing in my name to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghans for Afghans is affiliated with the American Friends Service Committee, so you can know they're a charity you can trust and that your blankets will get there. 
1:52 p.m. - 2006-11-19
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Ta-ta's
So perhaps you're thinking that now Eleanor's 4, she might need a Barbie. I suggest that your thoughts should be more along the line of,"Oh, that poor neurotic Jenny and her need to have the biggest boobies in the Hobson/Green family. I guess I will have to refrain from sending Barbie into that household."
Actually, Eleanor and I have had a long talk about Barbie and how I had to wait until I was 7 to get Barbie. Eleanor's going to wait til she's seven, too. Or so she agrees at the moment. In the meantime, we will have many hilarious preschool conversations about Barbie.
-- Are Barbie's boobies as big as a car?
--Are they as big as Mommy's whole body?
--Are they as big as an apartment?
I asked Eleanor what she liked about Barbie, and she said that it was Barbie's pretty, long hair. All right! We can deal with that. We've discovered the Only Hearts Club dolls, which are the same size as Barbie and have equally glamorous hair, but are little girls. Because Eleanor can't read yet, I can tell you that she's getting "Lily Rose" for Christmas.
Check them out: Only Hearts Club
6:50 p.m. - 2006-11-18
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Wily
And so it begins for Eleanor: she joins the sisterhood of daughters who help their fathers Christmas shop for their mothers/wives.
I'll admit that I have not been totally above-board and enlightened when it comes to gift-giving and Chris Green. Or rather gift-receiving. I want the romantic dream. I want him to come up with fabulous, romantic gift ideas all on his own. I want to be surprised. I want to be wowed. I want to drop delicate, subtle, little feminine hints and see him pick up on them.
This is totally not fair. I acknowledge it. I sound like a Barbra Streisand movie from the mid-1990s. This expectation is not a fair burden to place on anyone. It certainly doesn't belong in a 21st century, life partners, gender-equality kind of marriage that generally we have. So despite my visions of sugarplums, I have tried to behave better in the last several years than in the first year or two of our marriage.
Nonetheless, while washing dishes this morning, I thought that in the interests of science and experimentation, I would drop the broadest possible gift hint just to see if he would pick up on it and what he would do with it.
So, I sighed deeply and said, "Oh, I am just so sad because our cereal bowls all have chips in them. They are the ones you gave me when Eleanor was a baby."
Chris said,"Well, this is the nature of bowls. They get old, and they get chips."
Eleanor said, "Dad, we need to get Mom some new bowls."
And I burst out laughing. I was not counting Eleanor into my equation, but there she is: the delicate, subtle little female who takes after her mother and who is apparently already attuned to my hints.
Chris said, "You know, I had no clue that was supposed to be a hint."
And so it begins; welcome to the club, Eleanor. It's fun, actually, helping your dad find great gifts for your mom. I've been enjoying it for many years myself.
5:45 p.m. - 2006-11-16
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On Wheels
Today, we saw the "Spay-Mobile" parked in the Kroger lot. Upon learning what it was, Eleanor had two insights:
(A)It's just like an ambulance.
(B)I bet it has a really small waiting room.
5:44 p.m. - 2006-11-16
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Something I could have lived without
Always Maxi-Pads now prints on the adhesive tape this saying: "Have a Happy Period."
I just cannot believe they market tested that.
Because I think I'm not alone in saying,"@#$% your happy period, Always."
6:46 p.m. - 2006-11-14
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Totally Midwestern
Despite Eleanor's being born in the Bluegrass and now being raised in the mountains, there's some evidence that the heart of a true Midwesterner beats within her.
If you ask her what she wants Santa to bring her, she will tell you, "New underpants." And if you press the question beyond that, she will say, "Whatever Santa chooses to bring me will be good."
Practical (underpants) and self-effacing (whatever he brings me...).
Yes, in 60 years, she'll be telling her grandkids, "Oh, sweetheart, just send me a hallmark e-card, and that will be just dandy. I don't need any presents. My best present would be to make you a tuna noodle casserole. But then you'd have to drive all the way across town to get it..."
Not so secretly, I am enchanted that she thinks Santa knows her so well that he will know exactly the right thing to bring her.
9:04 p.m. - 2006-11-07
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Sadness is...
Discovering that you're going to need a third skein of yarn to finish that scarf. And then discovering that not only does Knit Picks not have any more of that dye lot, they're not going to have any more of the yarn at all until January 7th. So even if you were even vaguely contemplating mixing dye lots in a Christmas present and hoping to get away with it, you know you can't mix dye lots and give the present several week late. Tacky, tacky.
So you rip it all out and start over on a narrower scarf.
What I'm knitting: aforementioned scarf for relative who shall remain nameless; eyeglass holders.
What I'm reading: Girl in a Box by Sujata Massey and The Early Birds by Jenny Minton
8:07 a.m. - 2006-11-05
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Ted and Heather, Appliance Gods
A great big blog round of applause for our fabulous neighbors Heather and Ted who figured out the 2-minute fix to our dishwasher problems. Turns out the electronic doo-hickey had gotten confused and just needed to be reset.
So bravo and chocolate chip cookies to our neighbors.
As my highly technical use of the word "doohickey" might indicate, we're not all that handy in this household. Sometimes it's kind of embarrassing to have handy friends because you can never quite reciprocate. As my friend Hannah (also married to an English professor) has noted: "What are you going to say? Next time you have an emergency with an 18th century poem, I'll send my husband right over."
But sometimes it's good just to be gracious and thankful. So thank you to Ted and Heather for their dishwasher wisdom.
8:00 a.m. - 2006-11-04
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Irony
Ares the cat obsessively wants to get out the second-floor office window. Why? To catch the squirrel who likes to hang out on top of the air-conditioning unit. I admire far-fetched dreams, but couldn't he kill just one mouse that's actually inside the house?
7:58 a.m. - 2006-11-04
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Hmmm
Fascinating Fact:
Sam's Club has a holiday catalog. So does Lowe's.
What I'm Knitting: Nothing. My head is stuffed full of snot.
What I'm Reading: Ditto. The blog is on vacation until this cold goes away.
1:42 p.m. - 2006-11-02
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Spoems
Oh, those clever spamsters. I kind of admire how they avoid detection in the stupidest way possible. I mean first they were just sending regular old emails, and then filters evolved to screen them out. Then they started using ridiculous-sounding but legitimate user names, and then filters evolved. Now they're trying to get through by using subject lines that sounds vaguely real. Some just don't quite get it. Here's a sample from my spam folder:
My darling... look Amoxil
Nice to see Aricept you again
Can you help me? Buspar here.
And my personal favorite:
My name is Cialis Softtabs. Can I ask you?
1:37 p.m. - 2006-11-02
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