Hither, whither and how!

Lord, I can’t wait to move out of this house. We brought everything back from the storage unit (long story) and it’s stacked, boxes floor to ceiling, in various rooms. Nothing is where it should be. It feels like a cave of Wicker Wonders in here, and it’s making me claustrophobic.

We have yet more packing and dismantling to do, and phone calls to make, and temporary address changes to file. Next week we have an ill-timed stretch of promised dog-sitting to undertake, and I hope we can coincide that with some house hunting.

In Pennsylvania.

Buried the lead again! ha ha.

So the cat’s out of the bag, we’re packing up house and home and moving to Pittsburgh in, oh, three weeks or something ridiculous like that. After the dog-sitting but before Iain’s starts the new job. We’ll be living out of boxes in my in-laws’ spare room for the foreseeable future (starting in August), so my paltry posting will probably either skyrocket in frequency (I predict many Starbucks runs) or drop to near-record lows (inertia is my enemy). Just fair warning.

I have a big Moving Post I want to write, and of course a Farewell to Baltimore post, and lots of other things, but with so much to do and so many tiny little people trying to help me do it, I don’t figure you’d better hold your breath. The mind is willing but the dial-up won’t be able.

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, daily grind, house | 12 Comments

Thoughts while watching the fourth season of The Wire

• Jimmy McNulty: I can’t figure out what makes him so attractive.
• Utz Jalapeno potato chips smell weirdly like Chinese food.
• Hey, I’ve been there!
• And there!
• But never there. Oooh, scary.
• I feel much safer, as a Baltimore resident, post-Wire than I did before.
• Second season had my favorite version of the theme song.
• I still get Herc and Carver mixed up.
• And I still miss Frank.
• What took me so long to get on the Wire train? And why is David Simon so good?

June 19, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore | 8 Comments

Goodbye Blog Baltimore, hello Mobtown Wire!

So last Tuesday our friendly neighborhood telephone repair technician came out to our house and fixed our staticky phone line. That was the good news. The bad news is that he made the DSL juju go away. Perhaps it leaked out. There was some cable splicing, that’s all I know. So for the last (omfg hectic but that’s another post) week, I have had no internet. It was a bad scene. And that’s why I couldn’t tell you about the launch of the Mobtown Wire, formerly known as Blog Baltimore, which was my pet project circa 2004.

Obviously, having a child or two kind of saps your energy, as does dealing with the bizarrely difficult-to-use RingSurf web site that I was using to manage the participants, which is why my leadership of that ring dwindled and dwindled to pathetic, barely-comatose levels. So I finally gave up Blog Baltimore’s ghost, handing it over to Brian Tomasette and stepping out of his way. Please give him a hand for taking up the reins.

For its next incarnation:

the Mobtown Wire is a collection of Blogs and Independent writers of Baltimore, Maryland. Previously Blog Baltimore, the Mobtown Wire will be aggregating blog writers and providing a central news source written by and for residents of charm city.

*and Supa exits stage left*

June 10, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, geek | Leave a Comment

Here, fishy fishy

Lucky my camera has an “aquarium” setting.

March 29, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore | 5 Comments

Is March over yet?

I don’t know why I’m making myself continue Nablopomo. The lists I am making myself write are especially taxing.

They are difficult to come up with
They are generally boring
they are (did I mention this?) difficult to come up with.

My sister and her boyfriend are here visiting and we are all plumb tuckered after a day at the Inner Harbor. I got some great pictures to share but that would require me finding my camera cable connector cord, and I think we’re just going to hang out in our flannel pants and watch ‘The Wire’ instead (never seen it! can you believe it?). Word.

March 28, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, nablopomo | 3 Comments

Ways to drive to the zoo

Take the beltway to the JFK and get off at Druid Hill; hook a richie and drive until you see the sign
Wackily, suddenly, fumingly, apprehensively, excitedly, confusedly or with mixed feelings

March 16, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, minutiae | 4 Comments

Tomorrow’s TV — today! Or in 6-8 weeks!

Read a really useful article in the Sun today: Mike Himowitz: Act soon to try out your TV’s converter.

Apparently the government is offering up to two $40 coupons toward a digital signal converter box for our perfectly adequate television, with which we use a set of rabbit ears to catch PBS Kids, Martha Stewart’s TV show, and the local news. I did not know that.

Also news to me: that the digital-signal switch, which happens less than a year from now (February 2009), does not force us non-cable-havin’ people to buy a whole new compatible television set (darn!) — just a converter box. Still, Himowitz makes a good point:

Never before has the government, by fiat, declared obsolete a perfectly good, working technology that’s almost universally available and so critical to public safety. And with so little real-world testing of its replacement.

Damn government.

Anyway. I am applying for the coupon today, intent on taking his advice and seeing whether I can get, say, NOVA to come in in high-def. If so: Sweet! If not — well, I’ll take the other part of his advice and let my congressmen know that this idea of theirs was crap. Only time will tell!

March 6, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, check it out, geek, news | Leave a Comment

Dilute! Dilute! All-One! OK!*

With all this talk about superbugs caused by overuse of antibiotic soap, and of baby soaps causing some sort of chick hormones in babies, I’ve decided to switch the family to exclusive Dr Bronners usage.

It’s the stuff we always use when I go camping with Iain, and now when I bathe the boys and get a whiff of peppermint I am immediately transported to the Teton Wilderness, where I hiked for 40 miles and cried for 40 miles and peed in the woods more times than I ever want to remember.

It also brings me back to the many weekends we’ve spent in a tent up at “the camp,” the family acreage in PA.

More peeing in the woods. Not so much crying, but then again I do nothing but sit around getting tan when we hang out at the camp. None of this hiking uphill both ways, fording an icy-cold river nonsense. Just bug-swatting.

Anyway, enough memory lane. Point? This stuff is good. Biodegradable, vegan, organic, all that good jazz. And all I had to do was dig it out of our camping supplies bin and stick it in the bathroom. Easy-peasy.

*You ever read a Doc Bronner bottle label? Like 20 square inches of 8 point font and many, many exclamation points. I love it. RIP, Doc.

February 20, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore | 10 Comments

The cretin stole candy from my baby

Iain’s truck was broken into last weekend. The lowlife or -lifes responsible found fit to steal:

a roll of pennies
a roll of toilet paper
a roll of Pez.

That Pez was part of Owen’s reward for a successful week of potty training. He diligently answered nature’s call from his thronely repose many, many times a day. He carefully placed each sticker in its own grid-like box on the chart I made him by hand. He earned that candy, man.

And some dumb cluck mucked it up. It’s not a great loss, I know. But I wish I knew what kind of dunderhead breaks into a parked vehicle in the dead of night to steal toilet paper, pennies, and a kid’s candy. He must be pretty hard up.

January 30, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, preschooler | 13 Comments

Ah, no, but seriously, I do

Wish I were religious, I mean. I wish there was some sort of supernatural Great Big Dad Person, or Kind Bearded Toga Guy, that I could give all my troubles to. I wish I could march down to church, close my eyes and fold my hands, and feel something other than awkward.

I imagine really faithful people have got to be pretty relaxed, right? So what if life sucks — then you die! Heaven and that. Win win.

It’s not just Christianity. Or any of the “Top Three.” I would feel equally as silly sitting in, say, a buddhist temple. The closest theory I can allow as possibly, marginally acceptable to my worldview is that of Bronson Alcott and the, what were they, Romantics? The Oversoul. That notion that all humanity is connected. That we are all in it together, as a family. A big, stinking, mismanaged family.

Sigh.

So. Anyone got any good tips for getting started on yoga? Local yokels with advice?

January 4, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, neuroses | 13 Comments