Jay went to preschool yesterday, so Ada and I spent the entire day together. Her first choice of activity was Harry Potter Legos. We finished the 4th year. Now we need to go back through the game on free play to collect all the missing items. Her other activity of choice was swimming. The pool opens at 3:30, so that’s what we did until it was time to pick up Jay. While she needed help getting into position, she succeeded in her first unsupported back float yesterday. It has been difficult for She Of Very Little Body Fat to master floating. I think it finally happened because she’s confident enough in the water to swim, she’s relaxing more to float. She can do a face float now too, all by herself. She attempted to do a flip under water many times. She did about as well as an uncoordinated 5 year old would, but she didn’t hesitate to keep trying.

As for swimming for me, my swim suit, at least the bottoms^**, are too big. Yesterday was the last day that I’m going to wear them before I tempt an embarrassing moment at the pool. I can get my smaller suit combo on, but it is really tight. We might have to give up swimming for a bit until my other suit is more comfortable on me.

*Rather good lunches, too. I did volunteer packing alternative food for her on days where there is high dairy content, but the kitchen has been doing a great job at providing her with alternatives. She even got coconut milk ice cream for their last day of summer school treat.

**Buying separates is the best way to get a suit to fit my disproportional frame.

I want to travel somewhere interesting. I want to take my camera with me. I want to read without being interrupted every five minutes^*. I have some interesting articles from the ACM in my queue, and I can’t ever get past the first couple of paragraphs. I want to do it all alone, without constant demands from other people.

I do at least have cooking, which I still enjoy. Tonight is going to be Yet Another Chicken Tikka Masala experiment. I’m going to figure out which recipe is the one for us. There are about fifty of them, and the only thing in common with all of them is chicken. I’ve tried four so far with only tepid results. I’ve also tried two jarred ones, but the vinegar that is added as a preservative kills the dish. I gave up for awhile, opting to just keep ordering it from take-out. An IM conversation put me back on the hunt to make my own.

I’m also making some Kefta^**, perhaps Saturday.

Some other interesting points:

• I got a package in the mail today addressed to Dirk Gently. I would suggest someone using that as a character name if it hadn’t already been done.
• There is a wasp in the garage. I shut the door to trap it in there. It will either die from the stifling heat or get rabidly angry from the stifling heat and attack Mac when he gets home. The only outcome I do know is that I’m not going into the garage anymore today.
• Hearing Jay say, “Super Mario Brothers!” in Mario Speak is pretty awesome. We’ve been playing the new one for the Wii, which I picked up awhile ago, but never really played. Jay is getting better, but he cannot play it without jumping around himself. He is extra jumpy when I set it to auto play as Luigi and he thinks he is doing really good.

*For example, I couldn’t write this without Jay asking for a billionth time if he can have bunny crackers, even though I have told him a billion – 1 times that he can’t because he didn’t eat his lunch, and Ada coming in and loudly insisting that I smell her arm.

**Middle Eastern Spiced Meatballs, which I will probably serve in pita pockets with tzatziki, which I’m also going to make because I need to use my cucumber.

Mac: Our warranty expired in December.
Me: Drats. Doesn’t that mean though that we can go ahead and break the thing open to just fix it ourselves. We can’t break a warranty we no longer have.
Mac: Yeah, we could do that. We can replace the drive ourselves.
Me: What about an external drive.
Mac: The HD drives are probably like $30. Or we could go buy an XBox360 Elite.
Me: What does that have that ours doesn’t^**?
Mac: It’s black.
Me: *blink* *blink* So, it has a new hat^***.

This isn’t our first XBox. This is the warranty-covered replacement after we got the red ring of death on our first one. This isn’t the first time the replacement has crapped out on us either.

Speaking of gaming, I want to get Jay a Nintendo DS. My boy lives to push buttons. Playing games on my phone is his daily ambition, and when we are at a place where I need to him to sit still, my phone works wonders. It also kills my battery and gets preschool hand slime all over it. I’d rather he slime his own game system.

*Only because I feel like I’m close to the part that is somewhat enjoyable.

**Except, you know, a working DVD drive.

***One of our frequently used Simpsons’ references.

It is too bad they keep making this franchise crappier and crappier. This one will be my last, and when, or if, I finish, I’m going to try to sell it. If I can get $20-$25 for it, then I’ll feel like I’ve paid what this game is worth.

It is also too bad that the movie did so poorly for Square Enix. They just need to turn Final Fantasy into a really pretty anime series. It wouldn’t be hard for them to pull the game out of it. Fire the game designers and hire some writers. Then it would be amazing.

ETA: My brother assures me that it gets better. Mac thinks he’s just playing a trick on me to get me to suffer this game for 20+ hours.

solar system puzzle

Ada’s last dance lesson was today for this particular class. Next Saturday is her recital. They keep parents out to remove distractions for kids. I’m fine with that. She practices at home. We get to see the entire class perform next Saturday. It will be fun to watch them all.

After class, we went out to grab some yogurt, fruit and juice. We got attacked by a cranky old woman while we were eating. Apparently, we cut in front of her in line. She came over and teared into me and then huffed off. I didn’t even get a chance to apologize. And if she did perceive that we cut in front of her, she should have said so in line. We were in it for quite awhile. I would have happily let her in front of us. They wouldn’t have ran out of food, and it really isn’t that important to be that level of cranky.

We went to The Toy Store after we were done eating. There we found two books: Knuckleheads and I Love Monkey. I have my eyes on Rodney Matthews’ illustrated Alice in Wonderland. We also picked up this solar system puzzle. We put together the Hello Kitty puzzle again last week. We can do that one without any photo aid, so it was time to move onto something more complicated. This is about as complicated as I can get with Ada. She did pretty well putting together the planets. Jay and Mac joined us a bit later to finish it up. This is a Ravensburger puzzle. It is a pretty good quality construction. They had a 18,000 piece puzzle in the store. It was similar to this globe one if I remember right. It isn’t on the website.

We went home so I could get the battery to my wireless flash transmitter so I can get a replacement and headed back out with Jay. Our 8 bay batter charger also needed replacing since somehow a non-rechargeable battery was placed in it. The outcome wasn’t good for either the battery or the charger. This was the only one I had that charged my C & D batteries. I really wanted to replace it. Both of those items were replaced, along with picking up some cheap two way radios. That provided the rest of the entertainment for today.

The game today, however, was not so entertaining.

My brother is coming to visit this weekend which means I have to clean out my guest room so he can actually walk into it and get to the bed. I made some progress last night with Harold keeping me company on IM. It lightened my mood doing something that is a little difficult. I’m going to finish that today.

I also finally finished one play through of Dragon Age, the game that Mac let me play all day on VDay. I ended up going back in time a bit to finish a couple of things I should have done not knowing that once I entered the final quest, I couldn’t go back to any of the side quests. Thanks to Ada being sick, I could put some time in at night and not worry about being so dreadfully exhausted the next day. Now I can start Mass Effect 2. Thanks to a coupon and rewards money, I picked that up with Bioshock 2 for a total of $35 and some change. Mac started Bioshock 2, and to me it looks like it could have just been a cheaper add-on for Bioshock. I suppose the amount of gameplay is more than just an add-on, but I’m not seeing a big difference, other than of course which character you play. I think the way you hack things is different.

Lastly, I’m still working through eating what I have on hand, and have made nothing inspiring as of late. Nothing. I’m not even in the mood to cook or eat. I’ll take advantage of the later.

The other thing that I’ve started doing is running. I used to go out and run during nicer weather days when I was in college. It sort of feel by the wayside and changed to power walking and then nothing at all the summer before I got pregnant with Ada. I picked up walking again by buying a treadmill since talking Ada outside resulted in her screaming by the time I was at the end of the block. I got back up to power walking, which for my short legs is about 3.6 mph, but at a 10% grade. I decided that I want to run. I guess just to see if I can do it again. I’m doing the C25k. I’m on week two, and running does feel differently to my body than walking. I go through music phases, and aside from the two Scissor Sister songs, my current cardio playlist is feeling stale. I’m going to replace most of it with some Nekromantix and ??. What do you have for me?

I love The Onion:

Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

The kids and I picked up Modern Warfare 2 for Mac yesterday. He was playing last night. I looked up to see him running around what looked like the average suburban American street. He ran up this incline and I heard the orders to “Secure the Burger Towne!” His American mission was to secure a fast food restaurant with a strong resemblance to Burger King. Fabulous. That’s now the running joke in the house, although most of last night, he seemed to be running around an airport in Russia.

Genetics
Every time Mac doesn’t feel good or has a sniffle or even a small itch, he’s convinced he as swine flu. It is to the point where it is getting a little annoying. I just remind myself that overreacting to health concerns is just a learned behavior. There is a good reason why he does this.

I took Ada into the doctor yesterday to get a Hep-A vaccine. Even though I explained and explained to her what a shot was, she was convinced she was going for the scab on her knee from a healing falling down wound. She said in the car on the drive over, “When the doctor looks [at my knee], I think they will want me to stay.” Yeah. Maybe it’s genetic instead. She did fabulous job getting a shot, and even seemed to be proud of it and the band-aid that is now on her upper thigh. This brought on another genetic moment:

Ada: I’m going to show my Megan my shot.
Me: You’re not planning on pulling your pants down at school, are you?
Ada: No, I can’t do that! That’s not being nice to my friends. I have to pull my pants up.
[Wait for laughter to die down.]
Mac: Ada, has this already happened? It sounds like your teacher has had to talk to you about this.

I’ve had to ask Ada where her pants are enough times that I’ve lost track. Today she wanted to play dress-up. I said, “sure.” She’s been running around the house in a tutu and panties and nothing else.

Food
I’ve been trying to think of a weekly meal list, and I keep coming up blank. My mind just isn’t focusing. I’m nursing a headache which isn’t helping the matter. I’m about to just head to the store and throw food in my cart and then figure it out when I get home. Tonight will be pizza, per Ada’s request. Tomorrow is dinner with friends that will feature chicken, challah and some other stuff. I’m going to just pick up a load of veges and see what happens. They are coming over here, we will cook together while the kids rampage. I’m going to be without a vehicle all day tomorrow. Mine needs to visit the mechanic, and Mac has to take the other car to work, so if I don’t get it all today, I’m out of luck until around 3:00pm.

I’m going to clean, work up the dough for pizza and hit the store before I head to a friends to pick up a book. She’s letting me borrow her Moosewood cookbook to survey to see if I want to buy it. I’ve looked for one at the used bookshops, but have never seen one yet, so I’ll have to shell out for a new one.

We’ve had our brother’s in the living room for almost two months to act as a media player for our server, a function the 360 is performing in our bedroom. I’ve also used it to watch some Blu-ray movies. I bought Little Big Planet, a PS3 only game that is full of awesome, especially with its level-creating ability and Ada playability. The PS3 has made a nice little home for itself, and whenever my brother calls, I answer the phone with the greeting “What PS3?” I am giving my brother it back at Thanksgiving, and I won’t even accidentally forget it because Mac got us a PS3 slim for our anniversary. Now we have all three consoles.

He also got me a 6 month supply^* of chocolate. Ada kept pulling chocolate out of the bag and saying, “Oh thank you! That’s my favorite kind!”

*That’s about 4 weeks worth on the Melissa-to-Michael conversion scale.

Friday Afternoon Hookey

I took work off just a tad bit early today. Okay, like 1.5 hours early today. However, I worked until 8:00pm last night, so I felt justified.

The weather was beautiful. Mac had a meeting in KC, so I had to go pick up Ada. I asked her what she wanted to eat for dinner, and she replied, “tacos,” so I took her out for Mexican food and a cool drink^*.

We went straight home afterwards, just to beat the mailman to the cheese box with the Netflix DVDs. I logged back into work for about an 1.5 hours, and then I asked Ada if she wanted to go outside and play with me. That is what we did for the rest of the afternoon.

We also dug up my old Canon G5. The battery is dead from it not being used in a really long time. I dug around and found a universal battery charger. It is plugged in now. I hope it will charge the battery. This will be Ada’s camera. It is good to start them young.

I decided to take a few moments to play a game. I was having a hard time finding my green minions^**. Ada wanted to play, so I let her and went into the kitchen. She ran in all excited, yelling, “I did it! I did it! I helped you! Come in the living room! I help you!!!” I followed her in, and she totally found my green minions. She was so proud. I then taught her how to use her minions to eat sheep. It is good to start them young.

*Strawberry lemonade

**You would think a powerful, evil overlord would have a map. Or would be evil enough to kill someone with a map. I need to find the cartographer minions.

*Cool, of course, being an objective term for people who play Ikariam and/or are big dorks.