Taste the Rainbow

So yesterday we headed up to Fairfax to visit our friends. The Spawn had been resisting eating all day, preferring instead to subsist on milk, and deigning to eat some of an apple, but refusing all other food. After her nap (and a second failed attempt at feeding her lunch), we packed up the car and headed north across the Golden Gate. The Spawn had a sort of weird look on her face for most of the drive - kind of squishy like she was going to go to sleep, but without the heavy eyelids.

Right after we went through the Waldo/Rainbow Tunnel, on our way down the hill towards Sausalito, the Spawn puked all over herself.

As we pulled into the next exit, the E-i-C (who was driving) and I attempted to console her. She was kind of shaken, and pitifully apologized, "I spilled my yogurt." Alas, my dear, that is not yogurt.

We stopped at an overlook and began the process of cleaning what we could with handi-wipes (which ran out too soon), diaper wipes, and washcloths. As we stripped her down and put her into her hideously clashing and too-small backup clothes (the day care asks us to always have backup clothes in her day bag, and we put her ugliest ones in there so we will notice when she's had a change during the day), we saw, over Tiburon and Richardson Bay, a spectacular rainbow. It soon grew into a full arc. The Spawn was enthralled. Karma was restored. We turned around and went home.



(On the way back across the GGB, the rainbow's end traveled across the Bay, making stops at Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the Financial District. I'll let you decide where to find the pot of gold.)

When we returned, the E-i-C cleaned up the Spawn and put her to bed, while I worked on the car. For the first time in the year we've had it, I had to figure out how to remove the car seat cushion. Of course, one does not normally need to do so until it is covered in something unpleasant. It is not an easy task. Halfway through, I discovered the User Guide tucked underneath the cover, which was helpful except for the part where it explained that I had to pull the straps, buckles, and chest and shoulder pads through the tiny little slots that were barely big enough for the straps themselves. I was even more appalled when I read, "Hand wash only." Oh yeah? That's why I have a washing machine with a "Hand Wash" cycle. Suckers.

10 Years

I've been living in the Bay Area for 11 years, now. Ten of those in the Sunset (following one year in Alameda). All of them working for the same agency, on the same floor of the same building, though I've been in three nominally different positions and moved cubes maybe four times (never once by the window! So unfair!).

It occurred to me today, as I was pondering this on the same walk I have done almost every weekday for eleven years from my office to the subway (OK, for a while I walked to a different bus stop), that it won't be long before I've lived here longer than I lived in the town where I grew up.

It feels like time for a change. Too bad my job has me shackled with golden handcuffs; now is not the time to be looking for a new job, and even before the economic "downturn," I did not see any comparable positions with comparable pay. But I sure wouldn't mind moving out of the City.

the entire scale or range

This may be the single most interesting English etymology I've ever looked up. Incidentally, I looked it up because I was at a conference and a speaker (otherwise very good, with a very interesting talk) kept using the word, and kept mispronouncing it "gambit."

From Dictionary.com:

gam⋅ut

[gam-uht]
–noun
1. the entire scale or range: the gamut of dramatic emotion from grief to joy.
2. Music. a. the whole series of recognized musical notes. b. the major scale.

Origin:
1425–75; late ME gamma ut, equiv. to gamma, used to represent the first or lowest tone (G) in the medieval scale + ut (later do); the notes of the scale (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si) being named from a Latin hymn to St. John the Baptist: Ut queant laxis resonare fibris. Mira gestorum famuli tuorum, Solve polluti labii reatum, Sancte Iohannes

Unintended Consequences

The preferential residential parking system was established in 1976 to preserve neighborhood living within a major urban center. It is designed to promote the safety, health and welfare of all San Francisco residents by reducing unnecessary personal motor vehicle travel, noise and pollution, and by promoting improvements in air quality, convenience and attractiveness of urban residential living, and increased use of public mass transit. The program’s main goal is to provide more parking spaces for residents by discouraging long-term parking by people who do not live in the area.

So sayeth the Municipal Transportation Agency.

The street on which the Spawn's day care is situated just became 2-hour parking, except for residents with area "O" permits. Previously, I had been driving a couple of miles from our apartment to the day care, parking on that block, dropping off the Spawn, and then walking a couple of blocks to the L-Taraval stop, which I would take in to work. In the evening, reverse.

Since I am no longer permitted to park on this block for the workday, and it would take about an hour and at least one transfer just to get the Spawn from our apartment to her day care by transit (and another half hour to get myself to work), I can only infer that the MTA would prefer that I drive to the day care, drop off the Spawn, and then drive into downtown, pay $18/day or $200/mo for parking and add to downtown congestion, and then drive home again in rush hour in the evening.

How does this meet their stated goal?

Test Post

My laptop is in the shop again. Testing posting from my handheld

Adorable Smooshyface? Or Menace to Society?

I have been told on separate occasions by the parents of two different children at the Spawn's day care that their children ask about her, or call out her name, at home (or maybe in the car, not entirely clear).

I am unsure what to make of this. The natural assumption for the proud parent of a Spawn would be that the other children so adore her that they pine after her when she is away. However, given my own experience with her, I wonder if perhaps there might be other explanations.

Maybe they are playing a game that they see the day care attendants play several times a day, when they look around and ask, "Where's the Spawn?" before realizing that she is in the other room, pulling all the board-books off the shelves.

Or perhaps the children in question are at home in their living room, peacefully enjoying themselves or playing with their parents or siblings, when a sudden fit of panic seizes them and they must ascertain that the Spawn is not toddling up behind them, ready to bonk them on the head with a plastic block and gleefully shout, "OW!"

We may never know.

The stultifyingly monotonous routine and perpetual sleep deprivation of parenthood are conspiring to me carborundum. When the daily grind of work becomes your outlet for creativity, something's wrong. The user documentation I've been writing has been taking on characteristics of novellae: so wordy that most people won't bother reading it, not long enough to qualify for a Philip K. Dick award (does photocopy count as "paperback"?).

I am rethinking my desire for a Kindle or Sony Reader in favor of the iPhone I already have. I finished reading Tarzan of the Apes, which came with the eReader app, this morning. Why would I need a separate device for reading books? The Kindle seems to have a huge library (no - bookstore. Libraries are free.) behind it, which is nice. But there's a whole bunch of books on Fictionwise for both the eReader and Stanza iPhone apps. Once I'm finished with all the woodpulp books I have waiting for me, maybe I'll start buying some electronbacks.

The E-i-C and I are planning to go to the Edwardian Ball in a couple of weeks. We have a babysitter scheduled and everything. Seems like my whole gang of friends is getting geared up for it as well. Yay! That's a walking stick, but I'm also happy to see you.

My favorite Christmas gift this year was a pendant by Jeanine Payer in support of the anti-Prop 8 movement. It's engraved with Gandhi's quote, "What barrier is there that love cannot break?"