Me: What should we have for dinner?
P: Crunchy carrots, cheese stick, and apple. [Runs into the other room. Runs back.] Cheese stick is our protein for tonight.

On behalf of all parents who like dinner that can be sliced and plated in three minutes, thank you, Peanut.

(He is now galloping through the house, chanting “I gallop, I gallop, I gallop, I fall down.” And does. Good heavens, if someone told me there’s be a funny, easy, self-entertaining phase with this child, even if it only lasts a day, I would have been a lot less stressed the past four years. Talk about calm before the storm, eh?)

Seems to me it’s significantly less terrible to slip with a “You’re killing me” at a small person if they don’t yet know what “kill” means.

Precocious is as precocious does. And as precocious procreates. Damnit.

On a day when I leave the car parked at the M.D.’s and walk three blocks to the grocery store, then forget about the distance and buy four bags packed with heavy stuff (I’m talking juice and pineapple and canned soup, y’all), and it starts pouring rain, and the shopping cart refuses to cross the imaginary boundary the store established for “jerks” like me, and the small person with me and the small person growing in me both turn out to be woefully weak in the bicep department and kind of fail to earn their keep; then I get home to find the plumber blocking the driveway and the whole freaking county parked along my street and I have to park two blocks away and hope the groceries I unloaded in front of the house aren’t stolen, and I find when I get to them that they’re probably only there because the paper bags are shredding in the rain; well it’s on that day that I am really grateful that I don’t live in an impoverished nation where I would have to carry water several miles every day and boil it to prevent parasites.

Seems to me that clearing out the anti-gay-rights politicians who get caught in gay sex scandals (yup, another) and the anti-family-planning politicians who have affairs in which they’re clearly using contraception and the “clear-out corruption” politicians who pad their coffers with bribery and graft and nepotism, that maybe there will be six people left in office. By coincidence, it seems, they’d be women.

When a state refuses to raise taxes or cut corporate welfare and decides to cut its education budget so severely that it will be last in the nation and doesn’t see how that compromises its future economic and social health, why then that state needs a wake up call. Can’t get something for nothing, California. And as soon as you stop counting the departments in which Berkeley tops all other schools in the nation, that’s when the whole state will fall into the toilet. So don’t protest on campus, people. Protest in Sacramento *in* lawmakers’ offices.

1. Nobody likes the commentary on the Olympics. Stop talking.

2. Thank you for the suggestions, Peanut, but we willl not be naming the baby Izzabilly, Fazanu, Finasnoyo, Lindsu, Inaspinoyo, or Nabasu.

3. Microsoft is on my s–t list again. Hardcore. ‘Nother massive crash, ‘nother data wipe (albeit with a good backup this time). I will be upgrading everything soon, but they’ll rue the day. Some day a long time from now when I have the energy to fight the power. RUE, I tell you. Monolithic cretins.

4. I officially spend too much time talking with my child. To wit…

Me: We’re about to get off the freeway.
Peanut: You mean “exit,” Mommy.
[beat]
What does exit mean?
M: It means to leave, “you leave” in another language called Latin.
P: No, it’s English. The Latin for leave is “leaf.”

M: How was your day, P?
P: Great.
M: Good.
P: No, not good. Great. Like “fabulous.”
M: Fabulous?
P: Yeah. Like “tremendous” and “amazing” all together.

5. Today? Three words: Patty Griffin. Florida.
“The night wants to kiss you deep
And be on his way
Pretend he don’t know you the very next day
Isn’t it hard sometimes
Isn’t it lonely?
How I still hang around here
And there’s nothing to hold me”

(can’t vouch for the video, but have a listen…)

Well, here’s proof that if you post how lovely it is to have a sick kid, you’re guaranteed at least two scourges of your own in rapid succession. I’ve been sick now twice in two weeks, and my only post idea is going as a guest post on another site. In short, dear reader, I have nothing for you. No snark, no sass, no waxing philosophical, no book ideas or reviews.

Nothing. Nada.

I will, however, point you to something that always boosts my spirits. Engrish.

Because so many used bookstores in my ‘hood have gone under, I had to use amazon to find a used copy of Siblings without Rivalry.

They sent, instead, Mother Loss: Coping with the Death of a Mother.

My, Alanis, that’s almost ironic, given my recent posts about how the soon-to-be sibling is killing me.

Just not sure what to post. Thoughts of the utter devastation in Haiti, our relative insulation from it, parallels to New Orleans, venom toward those who would imply that anyone on this earth deserves a catastrophic disaster, impotence to help, fear for my family’s long term safety, guilt at that selfishness, and so on circle through my day.

I could post a response to someone else’s blog. But I feel uninspired to do so.

I could post a list of things I’m not doing but should be. Meh. That’d bore me even more than it would you.

I could write about how Peanut seems to have turned the corner on the three-year-old phase-from-hell, only 10 months into his fourth year on this planet. There, though, I risk jinxing this week’s reasonable behavior, as well as underreporting just how methodically and soul-deadeningly awful the first 10 months after his third birthday were.

I could detail preschool happenings or University library shenanigans or domestic frustrations or my debate over whether to participate in the Bolano 2666 read coming up.

I could vent frustrations that arise anytime I mingle with humanity, the bulk of which is really quite irksome.

Or I could go to bed early since Spouse is at a party and I’ll be damned if I do dishes while he interacts with both adults and fermented hops.