checking in

Just popping up to say "hi" -- as you can imagine, things are out of control busy here getting ready for our new assistant to make her appearance. Everything's good, just head-spinning busy. And if things come down to keep me from posting again soon, I just want to say happy holiday(s) of your preference to all!!

Macy's parade

FYI -- the CBS coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade absolutely blows. Stick with NBC, no matter how annoying it can get. CBS skipped tons of stuff -- they obviously didn't have the rights to show any performances, but they kept promising that (I guess in exchange) they would show "every float and and every balloon" which they most certainly did not. They even skipped one of the paid floats (Mr. Moneybags, a.k.a. Mr Monopoly), don't know how they got away with that! Anyway, our experiment with DVRing a different broadcast of the parade is over, over, over.

update

As you have probably all guessed, things have gotten pretty hectic at this point, thus the lack of entries. What's new? Well, most of what's new you probably know from Evan's blog. Poor Stripesy. That was a bad couple of days.

Ikeas everywhere are sold out of those cute SP�KA ghosts, phooey. (I'm hoping they got bought up for Halloween and will come back eventually.) I know this because we have been to Ikea twice in the last few weeks and now have a load of unassembled nursery furniture (more for me to do, phew!).

Lots of house stuff getting done, I found what may be the only actual plasterer in the area to fix Evan's collapsed office ceiling (everyone seems to only do sheetrock or commercial work), so that was cool, plus the guy did an amazing job. Got all the tree work taken care of too, so we don't have to worry about anything crashing onto our roof this winter.

Work is in bad bad overdrive right now, too many jobs too far behind, but it is all getting done. And housework/getting ready for baby is drastically behind, but enough will be done in time for us to manage.

And speaking of baby, Baby X is cooking right along, everything is going well and she's scheduled to arrive just under a month from now. Of course that really means anything from 2-6 weeks, so I'm trying not to obsess over the "countdown". It's hard not to though. Come on, baby!! Get here already!! Um...as soon as I've at least finished fixing up the bedroom, that is.

speaking of ikea

Checking for a lamp I thought I had seen, I stumbled across these adorable ghost nightlights! If they really are rechargable, I'm so going to have to get some (maybe blue and red...but then I'll feel bad for the green one...). I had my eyes on these Candeloos but I think the ghosts have them beat hands down! (Not to mention, there's a huge difference between $50 and $9.99!)

I love this guy

As you may have guessed, we've had a lot of discussions about parenting this year. And while of course you want your kids (or nephews or nieces or close family friends of the under-5 variety) to like things you like, and reject things you don't, we've already agreed that you can only take that so far. (There's a reason they came up with that whole "lead a horse to water" saying.) And we also agree that we can't stand parents who express themselves through their children and shove their kids in front of them like props in an obvious, look at how cool we are to have such "cool" kids move. But it's a hard thing to put into words. That is why I love, I mean LOVE this blog entry from the new-to-me Being Daddy site. If you have kids, want kids, think you just might have kids, know someone with kids, take care of kids, etc etc etc, it's an absolute must-read!! Not only could I never have said it better, I don't think anyone could have.

kiki!

Long-time readers will know that I've been a big fan of Kiki's Delivery Service for (gulp) over a decade now. For years, every time we were at the NJ Kinokuniya (sadly now closed, and the replacement bookstore isn't half as good) I'd look at the original Kiki novels and wish I could read them. Finally, last year, the first installment was translated and published in North American by Annick Press (where you can read a brief excerpt), and then finally, last month I got off my ass and ordered a copy. I'm giving it two thumbs up -- if you're a fan (not necessarily a Miyazaki fan, but a Kiki fan) you'll definitely want to read the original stories. And the translation is very good, at might not be precise but it reads really well and that counts for a lot as far as I'm concerned. The cover art is off-putting (the original book design was so nice!) but they did at least retain the original illustrations for the interior. Now I just have to hope they decide to translate a few more!

A funny aside -- in 1992 we were in London for UKCAC, and while walking around one day came across the London office of Yamato Transport. We loved the logo and scored some stickers of it from the nice office ladies (for years I kept seeing t-shirts of it in Japanese magazines, but never got hold of one!). It was years and years before we knew that there was a connection between Yamato and Kiki!

chivalry is so dead

First, I just have to say -- more belated thanks and hellos to everyone! Doing a two-day convention turned out to be a little beyond the limits of my energy. It's the first time I've really run into the wall of pregnancy-related fatigue and it took me out for days. Whew.

But today's complaint -- I had a regular Dr. appt today, and there was some huge problem that set everyone back by about 2 hours, so there was lots of tired and bored waiting going on. But that's not what was annoying. What was annoying was that most of the time we were waiting, there weren't enough seats. And it was amazing to see able bodied men (and women who weren't patients) studiously looking down at their magazines and newspapers so that they could pretend not to notice hugely pregnant women standing around the edges of the room. At one point there were actually four men sitting, and four pregnant women standing, and not a single one of them offered to give up his seat. (No, Evan wasn't one of them, he stood until there were finally free seats.) At one point an elderly woman stood up and offered her seat to a woman who was practically about to give birth and it still didn't shame any of these people into getting up. It's not just the children of today who aren't learning manners...Grrr!