incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

Yesterday afternoon, Chad's parents picked the kids up (both kids; their first overnight with the Pip without us there).

Last night, I stayed late at work, had a lovely dinner out, fought Quicken into admitting that my account was too reconciled, cleaned off my desk of a week's worth of mail, took all the ornaments off the tree and put them away, and then slept so soundly that my back is stiff this morning (apparently my body is no longer used to sleeping the night through and, I don't know, doesn't automatically move or something any more?).

The only bad things about this are (a) look how adorable they are! and (b) I am worried about inflicting the Pip's variable sleeping ability on people not used to it . . .

But as changes of pace go, on the whole pretty nice. Now, pack and dress and off for a whirlwind vacation.

This was going to be a multiple-things post but it has languished for about a week waiting for the other two things, so:

Thing the first: I got a haircut recently and now have this persistent strong urge to cut all my hair off. Not boot camp short, but instead of all lengths falling to my hairline/mid-jaw, I don't know, shorter: close to my head in the back, and maybe bangs again in the front? Having stared in the mirror while pulling my hair back, I'm not sure I actually have the face for this, but I might try it anyway: I'm planning to get another cut as close to my due date as possible, so if I hate it, well, it grows fast; I won't be spending a lot of time thinking about my appearance then anyway; and it would be so much easier.

(Some reference pictures: freshly-cut, from the side/back, and longer, from the front.)

Thing the second: I think the Decemberists win the award for making songs that I want to sing along with but that are inordinately difficult. Take "Calamity Song," for instance (video; lyrics (click the song title)). Bouncy, starts out pretty simply, and I even got "Andalusian tribes," in the chorus, without too much trouble (well, I don't know why, but I understood what the words were). But then the start of the second verse? "Hetty Green / Queen of supply-side bonhomie bone-drab / (You know what I mean?)"

Supply-side bonhomie bone-drab? Seriously?

BTW: those of you who like Infinite Jest need to watch that video even if you don't like the song, because it's the Eschaton scene (NYT article with more detail). (It's understandable as a video even if you don't know the book.) Chad found the section for me in the book, and I read it (well, most of it; I skipped the math footnote). So very much not my kind of thing, but I can see the appeal.

(I see it is available as an ebook, and wow, I would not want to have been in charge of that conversion.)

Power's out but our backup generator is working (hurray! So worth it!) and the phone lines aren't down yet so I even have Internet. The awesome neighbors helped me move every damn thing in the backyard yesterday, I have backup water and plenty to eat, the sump pump is working, and now all I have to do is watch the wind and rain outside (so far, on the bad end of a normal summer storm, but our yard already looks like a swamp and it's only going to get worse), do periodic leak checks, and stay comfy. Chad's theoretically still on his way back from his trip tonight (we'll believe it when we see it, but he has backup plans), and SteelyKid was already visiting her grandparents a couple hours west. So all is well here and I hope you all are well too, wherever you are.

PS: does anyone have suggestions for trees that are shady but not as shady as maples? We can't get anything ground-cover-ish to grow in a large chunk of our backyard because a couple of maples cast really dense shade for most of the day. I have been resisting getting rid of them because I love shade, but I think it's really time we had drainage rather than packed mud for a backyard. Would it be possible to replace them with something that is only partly shady, that would still let grass grow while keeping the yard from completely baking? We're in zone 5 if the Internet can be believed, btw.

So let me enumerate good things to keep in mind.

1. After much staring at my calendar, I believe I do not have to write a brief this weekend. Re-read things and put them in the back of my head to think about, yes, and maybe start writing, but I don't have to stay up until all hours making sure one gets finished.
2. I finished the first draft of the brief that was requiring me to stay up until all hours this past week, then comprehensively revised it in less time than my boss expected, and now I don't have to think about it until Monday.
3. Chad is home and planning to take SteelyKid out for their usual weekend morning excursions.
4. FutureSibling is, by all indications, exuberantly healthy.
5. I went to sleep at 9:45 last night.
6. Readercon next weekend = responsibilities and preparation, but also fun times to look forward to.
7. SteelyKid has an appointment with a highly-recommended pediatric dentist for just after Readercon, which I am not looking forward to, but if she is having teeth problems and they are contributing to the brittleness lately, then we have done something concrete that will help.
8. ETA: it's a rare day when there isn't some small bright spot. For instance, this morning SteelyKid told me earnestly, "You can put it (the pacifier) in the kitchen. I will not freak out." Which made me laugh and laugh (and put it in the kitchen cabinet out of sight).

Or, shorter version: less work, more co-parenting, good things ahead.

One of the ways that hormones mess with your emotional state is that you forget that hormones mess with your emotional state.

(Also, you should really go to bed before midnight, no matter how much work you have to do. Especially on nights when you reasonably expect SteelyKid to sleep poorly because she's apparently coming down with something.)

Minor occasions of nice or happy would be welcome.

Dear fellow drivers in winter weather:

Despite what you may have been told, driving in winter weather is not actually that complicated. Keep these two simple rules in mind and you will be fine:

1. You must change speed over a much longer distance than usual.
2. You must change direction much more slowly than usual.

(The observant will note that these themselves are simply applications of the fundamental rule, "You will have much less traction than usual.")

Everything else follows from these rules. HTH. HAND.

ETA: here's a corollary that I really thought would go without saying: do not brush snow off your car in the middle of a residential street immediately after pulling out of your driveway.

Work is now at whatever's past the "deluge" stage, to the point where the only thing keeping me from literally writing "have nervous breakdown" on my work calendar was that I wasn't sure how far into December it would be. So I will be very much less present on the Internet for the next couple months. I expect I'll skim LJ but not participate in conversations, ditch most of my RSS feeds, and probably stop reading Twitter and Facebook except for immediate family. So if you need me, e-mail.