The Diary of A Simple Man

A very nice weekend. On Saturday we took Sebastian to a penguin class at the zoo - he got to see them and draw them. I picked up a cap at the gift shop that actually fit my head, for a wonder.

Later, Sebastian and I drove up to Boston. We got choreg and lahmejun from a couple of Armenian markets in Watertown, then went over to my parents' place.

We had a nice family get-together at my sister and brother-in-law's new place (they have a harpsichord, which sounds amazing - I played the one song I know, and it came out great) and then drove home.

It was pretty late, but Sebastian stayed awake through the drive. He'd read the first Harry Potter book all the way to Boston, and finished it on the way home.

On Sunday we went to Foxwoods with Teri's mother. I hung out with Sebastian while they gambled. We went back and forth several on some people-movers (like the ones they have in airports). Then we spent some time at the arcade. After dinner at the Hard Rock cafe, we headed home.

I was pleased with myself tonight. Sebastian was watching a live-action Scooby Doo that he's seen before, but I insisted on a family movie night; we had Mary Poppins from Netflix. Neither he nor Teri had seen it before, and in no time he was laughing and laughing. Teri really liked it too, although she fell asleep before the end. Now Sebastian is interested in reading the Mary Poppins books.

Now everyone is asleep. My computer is still in the shop (I hope it will be ready tomorrow), so I'm going to sleep too. Good night!

Posted via LjBeetle

I don't want that incredibly annoying encounter in WoW tonight to be the end of my day, so:

Teri complained yesterday that the living room AC smelled bad. She didn't think I could do anything about it. So while she was out, I did some research.

Vaccuumed and cleaned with a toothbrush, vinegar & water; it's amazing how much gunk & fur was in there! Then a little Lysol. Now it has no odor and is much colder. Felt good to have accomplished something!

I also recorded some lullabies for Sebatian. I'll spare you having to listen to those, though. ;D

Posted via LjBeetle

Okay, I have a problem: as I mentioned earlier, my phone can simultaneously cross-post to Twitter and Facebook. I have a link set up for LJ as well, but it requires me to write and post separately. I'd say there's a crying need for someone to work out a way to add LJ as one of the "social network" options for Droids.

Today I also ran into the Twitter length-limitation problem when cross-posting. Although to tell you the truth, it may have encouraged me to make an improvement. On Facebook, the post looked like this:

An idiot in a white SUV was blocking the other side of the road. A truck came around the corner towards us and crossed the median to avoid crashing. The car ahead of us went into the brush. Scary!

But on Twitter, I had to edit it down to this:

Idiot in white SUV blocks 1\2 of road. Oncoming truck crosses median to avoid crash. Car ahead hits ditch. Disaster averted.

Teri thinks I should have mentioned that the truck was a large tractor-trailer, but there wasn't space enough for that. For a few seconds it was headed straight for us. I blame the young idiot in the white SUV; I don't know what he was doing, but blocking half the road in a dangerous area near a blind curve was a really stupid thing to do. Several people could have died.

What else? I set up Facebook on Teri's phone for her. Also showed her a few tricks, including how to make speed-dial links. I think she's getting more comfortable with the phone.

Doing okay with WoW. My top character is up to level 72 now. I still get killed by the Horde once in a while, but I'm trying not to let it get to me.

I read two more chapters of The Castle of Llyr to Sebastian at bedtime, and then had him turn out the light. I was going to sing to him, but he asked for a story instead. I told him about a time when I was very young, living in Belmont (Massachusetts) on Trapelo Road; how we'd go to the Pepperidge Farm Thrift Store, and then on to the Waverly Oaks park and playground. From there I moved on to the park across the street from Waverly Oaks, which doesn't have much more than a pond and a mill wheel, as I recall. I explained mill-wheels and different ways in which the wheel could be turned; windmills, animal-powered milling, and waterwheels. He was soon sound asleep.

I'd like to find a mill to take him to, so he can see how flour is made. Does anyone know of one in the general area?

I got another late start last night, and when I got on, nobody I knew was online. So I played my Tauren shaman, and did quite well. Didn't die once, and completed a lot of quests; I got up to level 13. I was particularly proud that I was able to sneak into a mine, kill a supervisor, and grab his clipboard; that required some careful movement!

I got a new weapon as a quest reward, a Goblin-smasher. I didn't realize that it was a two-handed mace, though, and that my skill in staves didn't translate. A little time spent killing 5th-9th level monsters soon brought both my Defense and two-handed weapons skill to the current maximum, 65. I'm not sure if I can train that.

I've shifted my home base to the main Tauren city. Quests are starting to point me to the Barrens. I went there once, prematurely, and it seemed very dangerous.

I'm still wondering how (or if) the quests will segue into "darker" quests. So far the worst I've done is kill some humans and dwarves who were desecrating our land with mines and stealing our water. I wonder if Tauren get "evil" quests?

I suppose the undead do. I'll try an undead character eventually. I imagine that will be too scary and evil for Sebastian to see, though!

P.S. - My mage has been taking the Deeprun Tram to the Ironforge area; that's where the quests seem to be more appropriate for him right now. Unfortunately I've died a few times. I'm also going to be bringing my main fighter over there, too.

I'd like to give Teri a short tour of WoW, starting at Goldshire, and then heading into Stormwind, the Deeprun Tram, and take a griffin back to Stormwind from Ironforge. I suppose it would just bore her, though.

Or there's a small chance that she might decide to try the game...nah.

Let's see...Teri and Sebastian picked me up on Friday, and we stopped at L.L. Bean. We spent more than I'd planned. We got a reasonably-priced backpack for him, and got it monogrammed with his initials for an additional $6; Teri hated the style Sebastian picked, and I have to admit that it's fairly awful. But he needs to be able to make his own choices and his own mistakes at least some of the time.

We also bought sneakers for him. And when I saw that I could get a good pair of sneakers for myself for $54...well, that's about as good a price as you'll find outside of Wal-Mart or Payless. And those ultra-cheap sneakers fall apart incredibly quickly. These sneakers have the L.L. Bean guarantee.
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Lastly, we stopped at a DVD store. I wanted to see - just to see - how much season 2 of Saturday Night Live cost. I assume it would be $60-$70, the same as season 1. And that was the original marked price. But it was on sale, marked down to $24.95. So were season 3 and season 4. I went a little crazy, so I bought season 2 and season 3. I'm looking forward to seeing some of those classic Franken and Davis sketches, among other things.

And now I should get some sleep. Whew! It's late!

We had the last Cub Scout meeting of the season last night. Thank goodness! It will be good to get a chance to rest on Tuesday nights. Although I also want to work out something for Sebastian and me to do on those nights, since Teri will still be at a meeting then.

Maybe we'll take a stroll.

We went to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus in Providence on Saturday. Teri hates the circus; she thinks that they're cruel to their animals. I'm afraid that she might be right. But at the same time, seeing a Russian circus was one of the more memorable moments of my childhood, and I wanted to provide that for Sebastian.

We picked up the cheapest tickets via Ticketmaster; they were $15. Teri decided that she wanted to come along too. Ticketmaster pissed me off royally by charging an additional $3.50 per ticket "convenience charge" (what the hell is convenient about that?) and $5.85 in assorted additional "screw you, we're a monopoly" fees.

That includes charging us a "delivery" fee for letting ME PRINT OUT THE TICKETS!

Ticketmaster is a monopoly and should be broken up. The executives who run it should be executed. Sorry, I might have lost my temper for a minute there.

Anyway, we went, and even though we were in the cheap seats, we had a good view of the circus. The Dunkin' Donuts Center is quite small, so even the upper-level seats get a closer view of the stage (or ice, during hockey) than you get in larger venues. We all had a lot of fun. It was a long show, close to three hours, but it was really well-done and impressive. Okay, there were some cheesy moments, yes. But circuses are primarily for kids, after all.

The one thing that bothered me and Teri was the tiger part of the show. Teri suspected that the tigers' spirits had been broken, and I could easily imagine that that was true. Sebastian was very excited to see the tigers, though.

There were more acrobatics than Teri and I had expected. Maybe B&B has been influenced by some of the new human-only circuses.

I was stunned to pay FIFTEEN DOLLARS for a snow-cone in a light-up circus cup. Stunned.

But we'll definitely go again. In the meantime, we're looking forward to seeing They Might Be Giants at a family show in Boston in May!

To sum up: we were rear-ended tonight in Franklin. We were in an intersection, waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear so we could make a left turn. A woman hit us pretty hard from behind. Sebastian started crying.

The woman drove down the street and pulled over. Then she drove about a quarter-mile down the road. After a while, she turned around and pulled over in front of our car. I'd called the police, and they showed up fairly quickly.

Teri had a headache, and my neck hurts quite a bit. Sebastian's okay. The back section of our car is detached from the body on the right-hand side, but it doesn't look too awful. I'll be filing an accident report tomorrow.

I talked to Allstate, our insurer. Lest anyone wonder: Allstate sucks, Allstate sucks, Allstate sucks. We're out a $500 deductible, and then after that they'll see if they can recover the money from the woman's insurance company and reimburse us. The Allstate rep was less than helpful.

We had a nice dinner tonight. There was a fundraiser at Chelos, a local family restaurant; 15-20% of the check for anyone coming in tonight with a special ticket would go to Sebastian's cub scout pack.

The place was filled with people we knew. It was a nice feeling.

When we got home, Teri and Sebastian went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. I went back out to the car to get a drawing that Sebastian had made; he wanted it. When I came to the back door, though, I heard a strange sound. What was it? It almost sounded like a cat screaming. Or was it Sebastian, imitating a cat scream? He does imitations sometimes. But if this was him, his skill was reaching new heights.

I opened the door and went in. The screaming became louder. I looked towards the dining room, and saw something terrible.

Widget, our new kitten (well, he's a bit large to be called a kitten now) had somehow gotten trapped between the back slats of one of the dining-room chairs. He was hanging sideways, flailing about in agony. The space between the slats was less than three inches across where he was. It looked like it was cutting him in two, just above his hind legs. Since two thirds of his body was hanging unsupported, he was helpless...and screaming.

I ran over and grabbed him, lifting him. He tried to sink his teeth into my hand; somehow I had expected that, and managed to turn my hand enough to make it a gash rather than a piercing. I tried to gently see if I could move him in either direction - how had he gotten into this fix? - but he was stuck. And still screaming. I thought of the large snips in the back shed that I've used to cut branches and saplings; could it cut through the slats? Would Widget live long enough for someone to get it and let me snip it?

The bathroom door opened. Teri rushed out and grabbed Widget too. She was thinking better than I was; "Lift him!" she said. The space between the slats was wider at the top of the chair, although the in-and-out design didn't make that immediately obvious to me. We lifted, and got him out. He disappeared.

Sebastian was very upset and scared. He said he was going to throw up. He didn't, but Teri and I didn't have much time to console him; we needed to find Widget. It seemed entirely possible that he was dying, although the thought crossed my mind that he was A) young and B) a cat - and therefore doubly hard to kill.

I searched the basement. Teri and Sebastian searched upstairs. When we met in the dining room, Widget was there.

He seemed fine. And he's done some climbing, running, and jumping since then. He still seems fine.

I got Sebastian into bed, and finished reading Doctor Dolittle Returns to him. He calmed down and fell asleep.

And that was our day.

All the tests were negative, including the MRI and MRA - everything is absolutely fine. They think it may be a reaction to a medication that she's been taking for years; that seems odd, but I guess it could be true.

We're all home now. She's sleeping (she's still zonked out of her mind on sedatives). Sebastian's asleep, too.

I'm pretty tired. What a weekend!