Last night I made my kids a bath the old fasioned way. I filled the tub with cold water, then heated up pots of water on the gas stove top and poured hot water in with the cold. Later, my husband and two kids and I drank cocoa and played dominoes by candle light, while my husband and I told both kids how great they were for being so patient after two days with no electricity in the house. After our 3rd game of dominoes, just as we were finishing our drinks, suddenly every light in the house came on, temporarily blinding us all! We'd been sure to turn off every light and unplug everything we could think of before the tornado hit, but over the last two days we had accidentally turned on all the light switches out of habit. In 10 minutes, the kids were sitting in front of the tv, and my husband was downstairs typing on the computer, and I was sitting by myself wondering if I should go damage the fuse box. In some ways I liked it better before.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
Wednesday night we had a tornado. My husband and 2 kids and I slept in our basement that night, and the wind and hail seemed to go on forever!At our house we just lost some tree branches, nothing we couldn't lift ourselves afterwards, and a section of our back fence. We might be able to nail it back up again. But neighbors lost entire trees...and a lot of those trees landed on power lines. Most of those trees were snapped in two, near the base, but some of them were pulled out roots and all! 20 miles north of us, some people's entire houses were destroyed! My house has been without electricity for 2 days now, and is still out of power now. Late last night, power was restored to everone directly across the street from us, but not to our side of the street! My office was without power yesterday, except for one main computer room in the basement with its own generator, but we still needed to stay and sit in the dark and answer the phones anyway, because the phones still worked. I'm back at work again this morning, and the power is on again here. The good news? From lighting my gas stove top, and numerous candles over the last 2 days, at age 40 I have finally learned how to light a cigarette lighter on the first try! I could never figure those things out until just now.
While we were sleeping in the basement during the worst of it, my 6 year old son kept insisting that Hurricaine Katrina had come to our state and we were going to get flooded out just like those people on tv, and based on the miserable storm going on outside at the moment, shaking our house, with non stop thunder, lightening, hail, rain and wind, it was hard to argue with him. Other than that they've both pretty much enjoyed the drama of having their schools closed, yesterday, and of spending our early mornings and evenings by candle light, listening to battery-operated radio news, and inspecting the damage around the neighborhood. I think I traumatized them early on though, because I spent the minutes before the storm hit for real , standing out on the street with all the other weather nerds , staring at the approaching shelf cloud as if it were a big Independence Day flying saucer. I just love that. I had to be dragged in to the basement against my will by my own children, because I am a bad role model.
While we were sleeping in the basement during the worst of it, my 6 year old son kept insisting that Hurricaine Katrina had come to our state and we were going to get flooded out just like those people on tv, and based on the miserable storm going on outside at the moment, shaking our house, with non stop thunder, lightening, hail, rain and wind, it was hard to argue with him. Other than that they've both pretty much enjoyed the drama of having their schools closed, yesterday, and of spending our early mornings and evenings by candle light, listening to battery-operated radio news, and inspecting the damage around the neighborhood. I think I traumatized them early on though, because I spent the minutes before the storm hit for real , standing out on the street with all the other weather nerds , staring at the approaching shelf cloud as if it were a big Independence Day flying saucer. I just love that. I had to be dragged in to the basement against my will by my own children, because I am a bad role model.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Cut and pasted from an email to friends, as usual:
Do you guys know what kid shows I hate?
Courage the Cowardly Dog. I feel sorry for the dog. No one believes him. And he's got that huge cavity in one of his teeth.
Cow and Chicken. Or just about any cartoon with "And" in its name like Ed, Edd and Eddy, or Grim and Mandy. Charlie Adler's cartoon voices all sound the same and they're grating as all hell ! Cow's udders give me the creeps, and the "Red Guy," (devil) 's tail looks like a little backwards penis.
Cat-Dog is similar to Cow and Chicken, but I have to give it a little slack, because their little friend Screech is voiced by somone I used to know before she left Minneapols to make it big in LA.
Any Japanese anime where the characters absolutely have to stop what ever they're doing to play a fate-defining game of cards! Like Yu Gi Oh or Duel Masters or whatever.
And as much as I may have declared my love for Magnús Scheving who plays Sporticus in the past, the little girl on Lazy town is frighteningly precocious, and the puppets are whiney.And Robbie Rotten is so clearly patterned on Bruce Campbell that I checked the credits when it first came on to see if maybe it really was him, under there!
I've always hated Two Stupid Dogs, but luckily that rarely comes on any more.
As far as grown up shows go, it looks like Comedy Central may have finally taken "Stella" off the air, so I'm good. I'm sure there are a million grown up shows I'd hate if I saw them but since I don't stop and watch them, like my kids force me to watch their shows, I don't really care.
Do you guys know what kid shows I hate?
Courage the Cowardly Dog. I feel sorry for the dog. No one believes him. And he's got that huge cavity in one of his teeth.
Cow and Chicken. Or just about any cartoon with "And" in its name like Ed, Edd and Eddy, or Grim and Mandy. Charlie Adler's cartoon voices all sound the same and they're grating as all hell ! Cow's udders give me the creeps, and the "Red Guy," (devil) 's tail looks like a little backwards penis.
Cat-Dog is similar to Cow and Chicken, but I have to give it a little slack, because their little friend Screech is voiced by somone I used to know before she left Minneapols to make it big in LA.
Any Japanese anime where the characters absolutely have to stop what ever they're doing to play a fate-defining game of cards! Like Yu Gi Oh or Duel Masters or whatever.
And as much as I may have declared my love for Magnús Scheving who plays Sporticus in the past, the little girl on Lazy town is frighteningly precocious, and the puppets are whiney.And Robbie Rotten is so clearly patterned on Bruce Campbell that I checked the credits when it first came on to see if maybe it really was him, under there!
I've always hated Two Stupid Dogs, but luckily that rarely comes on any more.
As far as grown up shows go, it looks like Comedy Central may have finally taken "Stella" off the air, so I'm good. I'm sure there are a million grown up shows I'd hate if I saw them but since I don't stop and watch them, like my kids force me to watch their shows, I don't really care.
Monday, September 05, 2005
From an email sent to some friends today:
My kids go back to school tomorrow.
Last Wed, Aug 31, we went to my son's new school's open house to meet his new First Grade teacher and see his new room. My 6 year old son had to do all the talking, because I actually started to cry! I'm crushed his old school had to close down due to budget cuts. I worried will she appreciate who he is, or like last year's afternoon day care teacher, will she send home a series of written warnings and complaints and make me have special conferences with her?
Later last week, some of my daughter's friends told her they'd received letters in the mail inviting them to an open house at their middle school. And that open house day had already come and gone by the time her friends told her about it. We wondered why we never got one. So my husband, still unemployed, took our daughter to the middle school front office on Friday, and they looked her up and found out she's not even enrolled! We don't know how she got over looked like that, but we're lucky her friends tipped us off something was wrong. I'm still agonizing over how she would have shown up for her first day of middle school tomorrow, and had them say, sorry, never heard of you.
My husband is still unemployed, and does not qualify for unemployement, because faced with the choice he did quit rather than allow himself to be fired. And this week is mortgage week. We didn't like telling our 11 year old daughter she'll have to wait to do school clothes shopping until a week after school has started, but it's true. She has enough clothes though, and half the stuff she keeps talking about is unneccessary anyway, and can wait a week. She wants a "Gir" hat, from Invader Zim. And the 'Gir" backpack, even though she already has a good back pack. I think she can survive a week without a Gir hat.Come to think of it I think I read on her school forms, her school doesn't even allow hats!
We also don't have every school supply on their list, but I'm sure we have enough to last the first 4 days of school. We have the entire rest of the school year to get all that other stuff.
Well I'm now waiting for Nickelodeon to start U-Pick Live again, now that it's fall, and school is starting. I love that Brent! He's kind of like Steve, only more hyper. Several times last winter and spring I pointed out to our daughter how Candace looked like a human skeleton!! You could see her collar bones !! Her arms looked like tooth picks. I came very close to writing the station to complain she wasn't setting a good body image. But then I remembered when I was 20 I just looked like that and I wasn't even trying. I was happy on the last few episodes of U Pick Live, they had Antonio and Garbagio on , as guests, I had always wondered what had happened to them, from previous years. Our tradition for the last few year, has been to come home at about 3:30, and put on U Pick Live and have a snack.
I was all excited today because a friend actually invited my daughter to play at their house today..only to come home from dropping her off and have 4 boys come over to play with my son almost right away. Or play with his toys, is more like it. I made everyone snacks anway. I always say I'd rather have everyone over here, than not know where my kids are.
Well I better go check on everyone.
Love Kathy
My kids go back to school tomorrow.
Last Wed, Aug 31, we went to my son's new school's open house to meet his new First Grade teacher and see his new room. My 6 year old son had to do all the talking, because I actually started to cry! I'm crushed his old school had to close down due to budget cuts. I worried will she appreciate who he is, or like last year's afternoon day care teacher, will she send home a series of written warnings and complaints and make me have special conferences with her?
Later last week, some of my daughter's friends told her they'd received letters in the mail inviting them to an open house at their middle school. And that open house day had already come and gone by the time her friends told her about it. We wondered why we never got one. So my husband, still unemployed, took our daughter to the middle school front office on Friday, and they looked her up and found out she's not even enrolled! We don't know how she got over looked like that, but we're lucky her friends tipped us off something was wrong. I'm still agonizing over how she would have shown up for her first day of middle school tomorrow, and had them say, sorry, never heard of you.
My husband is still unemployed, and does not qualify for unemployement, because faced with the choice he did quit rather than allow himself to be fired. And this week is mortgage week. We didn't like telling our 11 year old daughter she'll have to wait to do school clothes shopping until a week after school has started, but it's true. She has enough clothes though, and half the stuff she keeps talking about is unneccessary anyway, and can wait a week. She wants a "Gir" hat, from Invader Zim. And the 'Gir" backpack, even though she already has a good back pack. I think she can survive a week without a Gir hat.Come to think of it I think I read on her school forms, her school doesn't even allow hats!
We also don't have every school supply on their list, but I'm sure we have enough to last the first 4 days of school. We have the entire rest of the school year to get all that other stuff.
Well I'm now waiting for Nickelodeon to start U-Pick Live again, now that it's fall, and school is starting. I love that Brent! He's kind of like Steve, only more hyper. Several times last winter and spring I pointed out to our daughter how Candace looked like a human skeleton!! You could see her collar bones !! Her arms looked like tooth picks. I came very close to writing the station to complain she wasn't setting a good body image. But then I remembered when I was 20 I just looked like that and I wasn't even trying. I was happy on the last few episodes of U Pick Live, they had Antonio and Garbagio on , as guests, I had always wondered what had happened to them, from previous years. Our tradition for the last few year, has been to come home at about 3:30, and put on U Pick Live and have a snack.
I was all excited today because a friend actually invited my daughter to play at their house today..only to come home from dropping her off and have 4 boys come over to play with my son almost right away. Or play with his toys, is more like it. I made everyone snacks anway. I always say I'd rather have everyone over here, than not know where my kids are.
Well I better go check on everyone.
Love Kathy
