Sept. 27: Mothering 102

Normally, any calls from unrecognized numbers to the cell go straight to voice mail. But with Tobi here, who knows who might be calling? Could be the school nurse in the middle of a meeting. And it was; we both left early Friday due to sickness.

I have fallen in love with iPhoto. I've been using it for storing photos, but I also found out I can:

• perform an "instant" fix on photos to balance brightness, contrast and colors;
• export to a web page gallery, especially with Better HTML Export;

More pictures: lettuce.

Also pictures from poker in September.

Sept 17: Today's English lesson: "stood up"

Scheduled: Dinner and drinks with Devo, Nick and JG. Planned over a month ago, in the middle of exhausting renovations, before Tobi arrived.

Devo called two weeks ago: her sister would be in town for the niece's birthday. No biggie. Family happens. I didn't tell Nick and JG because I didn't want to give them weasel room.

Jorj arrives at 6. I'd called at 5:30 to say I was still at work, would call from the train.

Left the phone in the car, noticed as the train pulled out. Could not find a payphone. Racewalked to the bar, but didn't worry, because Jorj would be with Nick and JG.

Arrive after 6:30, Jorj is alone. He'd sent me three messages. He was ready to leave. No word from Nick and JG. I'd forgotten to tell him Devo wasn't coming.

Drinks, dinner, dessert. No Nick. No JG. 8 p.m. Go home.

Check messages after retreiving phone. Three from Jorj. One call from Nick at 7:30 (1 1/2 hours late). No voice mail. No e-mail at home. No contact from JG (with Nick? Don't know).

Very pissed. Sparks did this to Nick and me. Nick was pissed. Going to hang with my reliable friends.

Bonus: taught Tobi a new idiom: stood up.

September 14: Math, math and more math

Poor Tobi! He's spending all his free time doing math with us! Either it's algebra/pre-calc with me, or physics with Jorj. Of course, all this is in English. The first few days Tobi spent a lot of time looking up English or German scientific terms on leo. Although he likes computers and science, he doesn't like math, and doesn't have a burning desire (like I did) to remember all that stuff. However, he does "get it."

The math made the first week a little stressful for all of us. We didn't know if the other exchange students were having as many problems as Tobi -- one of them is taking calculus. Did Johanna have similar problems the first month? Johanna's host mother called Tobi, and reassured him (and me) that the first month was tough for her too.

And through all of this, someone keeps taking pictures of him! Someone keeps saying, "but your mother will want to see this!" Here you see the pictures from the first day of school, when, yes, I was snapping pictures at 6:30 a.m. Tobi, sweet person that he is, allowed me to do this. He even allowed a picture of him wearing the goofy helmet, which we scaredy-cat Americans make him wear when he bikes to the train station. Wait until he sees the flashing alert light we've bought him for his birthday!

We did give him (and us) Friday and Saturday off. Saturday was monthly poker; Jorj introduced Tobi to the vice of gambling. It was a trade-off because we won't let him drink, even though it's legal for him in Germany. Poker was played with plastic chips, so not too much corruption of his soul. He was the third best of the ten player. Go Tobi! And, um, poker does involve some math, specifically estimating the odds that 1) your oppenent has a good or bad hand and 2) your oppent is bluffing. So, really poker was a learning experience.

The ladies saw Once Upon a Time in Mexico with Johnny Depp and Antonio Banderas. Since Pirates of the Carribean, I've been a fan of Johnny Depp (couldn't stand him during the 21 Jump Street years). Depp was quite hysterically smarmy, the plot convoluted, the violence comical, and the men sexy. Willem Defoe was the villian in bad tan-in-a-bottle makeup; I kept thinking "Green Goblin," although "Orange Goblin" was more like it. If you can take the ultra-violence, it's an entertaining movie.

The house rule is that Tobi doesn't need to clean his room, but if he doesn't, he should keep the door closed. (I'm trying to fight only the important battles, like, do your homework. This was also my mother's rule for me.) However, because we had guest coming, Tobi cleaned his room without being asked. Yep, he's a keeper.

Oh boy, the test is Tuesday, and the homework is due tomorrow, and we started at 7 p.m. Ooopsie.

Look at the cool skater sneaks! We bought these at the skate shop in Jenkintown. He's concluding that most prices in America are a bit higher than in Germany. That could be the exchange rate (remember, a dollar is worth less than a euro). The one area is gasoline, of course. We estimate the cost of gasoline here -- even pushing $2/gallon -- is one-third to one-fourth the cost in Europe.

Tobi has told his family and friends to visit to see pictures of him! Grüsse Familie und Freunde von Tobi! Not all of the house pictures are up yet. Renate, Lutz, I promisethat the house is more finished than the pictures show.

September 7: Long awful week

Just finished a long, awful week that extended through Sunday. Conclusion: I don't work well under pressure and with no sleep. Everyone from the Disseminator could have told me that though. I made stupid mistakes which cost me even more time and strees, and am pissed at myself, and am pissed at the client who can't give us any lead time.

However, much good news on the friend front: Simon and Jen now have Casper, and Martin and July have Theo. Jo-Ann and Elliott have a house, and will soon have Ryan. Best of all, Jo-Ann didn't actually go into labor signing the mortgage papers.

We all survived the first day of school and the early rise. Tobi has started doing homework at the table, rather than the window seat which he has pronounced "voll cool." Tonight I was helping with math proofs. Much of that time was devoted to me getting my head back into the correct groove. The course is Pre-calc with Trig (or Analysis with Trig). The class is starting on chapter 6; the first homework assignment was three proofs using the distance theorem [distance = (delta-x ^ 2 + delta-y ^ 2) ^ 1/2]. Of course, the first thing everyone wants to do is drop the squares and the root, and go directly to delta-x + delta-y. Gah! I need Jorj! I can't explain why it works, it just does, isn't it obvious to everyone? But Jorj said he's no good at proofs. I'm almost looking forward to English, where I can say, "that's just the way it is." We have all learned the capitals of countries with a large Spanish population because that was Tobi's first Spanish assingment.

All pictures of the kitchen wall building are up. You can see my beautiful, boring, white wall. I've started buying kitchen and bathroom renovation magazines, and will be revisiting my decorating magazines for sample kitchens. Found a picture of the exact, 20s-style kitchen I want, which would be such a good match for this house, but that Jorj refuses to consider. I mean, really, whose room is it?

September 2: 70 degrees and rainy

Having had only a brief vacation in July, and that without any beach time (The dead fish on the beach were not chuck and Gena's fault.), I am surprisingly happy to see Fall arrive.

Possible the coolest interface ... ever: www.malevole.com. It's JavaScript and DHTML and finally shows a reason to actually turn JavaScript on. Also home of this fabulous quiz. I hate quizes, particularly of the "which <foo> are you? Where <foo> is "anime heroine," "candy bar," "historical dictator" or "soap brand."

September 1

The phrase bannanna bread is a perfect lyrical substitution for the Manamana song.

Tobi is good.

August 26: Host-parenthood: Day 3

So far so good: Tobi is still with us.

His English is great. He and Jorj have been doing computer hardware things since he first arrived. He loves the Libretto and has noodled around with Jorj's bass.

Monday we went downtown to acquaint Tobi with SEPTA, Friends Select, South Street and cheesesteaks. Mission accomplished!

Today Jorj worked and Tobi and I biked through Fairmount Park. (This bike ride sponsored by Chuck Browne, who nicely donated his old bike to the Tobi cause.) Fairmount Park makes me feel lucky to live in Philly. We rode from Bell's Lane to Manayunk (Bike Line for a helmet, "Yes you have to wear it!" and soft serve with jimmies) and back again. Then we went to the bookstore to get the book he needs to read by next Friday. Good thing marriage has prepared me to nag. ;)

Tobi has found the nerf gun. I just yelled up the stairs for him not to shoot the cat. I'm getting the hang of this mother thing. I've also fed him vegetables or fruit at every meal.

Frankly, I'm exhausted, and it has nothing to do with any limited "parenting." We were working on the house right up until we left for the airport, and have been go-go-go since then. Tobi is very sportlich, that is, he's active and likes to bike, snowboard, play soccer, etc. etc. I've done more walking and biking in the last two days than I have i the last two months. Fortunately for us old fogies, he also likes computers and we have a chance to sit.

Most of the projects are finished. Most importantly, Tobi's room is done. These were small projects, but they were always overshadowed by the kitchen or the stairs. The kitchen is also done and insulated. The stairs are ... usable and safe, but not finished at all. Jorj wants the stairs completely rebuilt and carpeted by the 13th. I just can't care. The upstairs bath is no longer baby blue, baby blue, baby blue and white. It has some lavender and it looks like a design decision, not a cover-up.

Woohoo! Go Dragons!

The Princeton Review rated Drexel second, third and eleventh on a number of lists in their college reviews. The categories were:

• Campus is Tiny, Unsightly or Both, #2: Drexel tore down a building when I was in my pre-Junior (five-year school) or Junior year. They replaced it with "green space": lawn (how environmentally friendly), oneor two sculptures, sidewalk, bushes. No trees to camoflage the parking lot across the street. UPenn, on the other hand, make a (profitable) practice of making their students feel as if the campus is not in the middle of America's fifth largest city. Drexel is also known for: orange brick (swear to God they have their own special brick), painting the grass green for graduation, the undrained volleyball court/swamp.
• Long Lines and Red Tape, #3: Drexel was in the habit of "letting go" administrative staff who were student-friendly. My senior year all the College of Info Systems (formerly Librarial Science) undergrads were up in arms because the one person who a) could work the system and b) would work the system was being let go.
• Students Dissastified with Financial Aid, #11: This is why Jorj doesn't have his degree: Drexel lost his financial aid applications. He spent a year and a half attending classes and battling for aid. He gave up, got a job at UPenn, and is now a director. To Drexel I say nyah.

Hey! Drexel! There's a reason the students call it The Shaft . One reason for the low student ratings is Drexel's co-op program. The co-op program is the reason to go to Drexel. If there were a "get you a job after graduation" ranking, Drexel would be up there. Through the co-op program, students work three six-month stints for real companies doing real work, treated like real employees. After co-op, students return to academia. A friend's boss (after she'd graduated, not in co-op) was also a Drexel professor and loathed the students' attitude. They weren't respectful enough, he felt. No, they just had very good bullshit meters early on.

Temple was nearly as bad, ranking up there with us on the red tape and financial aid issues (I think they beat us on financial aid), but they did garner two positives.

Worst of all, Drexel is still only second-best at being the worst.

Thanks to 'Nita for the original link.

August 15: Is it a weblog without blogger?

A number of my friends have weblogs:

• Anita
• Marsha
• JG
• Johnny
• Chuck
• Martin

Is this a blog even though I

• don't post, ever, unless I'm having a crisis, like no job or no kitchen walls
• maintain the site with BBEdit or Gvim (I love my G4 Powerbook!)
• was doing this years ago?

What if I'm writing intead of doing what I should be doing: priming shelves? Does I get extra points for the 14,000 Apple mentions?

August 7: Bad kitty! Good powerbook!

I have rejoined the fold. A 12" G4 Powerbook is now on my lap. I am so happy, despite Apple's altering of interface standards such as always having acknowledgement buttons in dialogs (i.e., an OK button). Cancel buttons in dialog boxes? Hello? Not having them is an improvement because ...? But I love iTunes -- it really is what every other music jukebox wants to be, and if the camera worked, I'd be having fun with iPhoto too. I thought the keyboard would be close to the Libretto's, but it's practically normal size. The keyboard has good action too. Getting used to the Mac's differentiation between close and quit.

With all the work on the house, Kraftie is having a little kitty breakdown. She's not allowed in the kitchen, and there had been smelly junk throughout the living room, dining room and entrace for two weeks, and then there are those strangers who keep showing up. It's not funny at all, but she dragged one of Jorj's new and expensive bike socks across the basement, into the litter box and piddled on it.

Got to get back to cleaning, but first I'll rip a few more CDs (iTunes will burn them too) and finish off my gin and tonic. Accidentally bought diet tonic. Ew. Why? How many calories are in half a glass of tonic water, especially when compared with the calories of the gin? But there's nothing else in the house -- and no room to store it if there was.

August 4 2003: Veggies & Champagne

Having one wall in the kitchen rebuilt. As a result, we had to move all the food into the downstairs fridge, which usually holds beer and wine. Fortunately, we ran out of beer and have space for the food. Unfortunately, the door and one veggie drawer are filled with wine. The remaining veggies are in the crisper drawer with the champagne.

August 1 2003: Jonesing

Had dinner Wednesday with Jo-Ann's friends; talk about wild women! Passersby stared at us as we laughed long and loud. ("I have German breasts. One goes East and one goes West." Mom loved that one!)

The choice was Jones, and after driving and walking up and down Walnut Street, I found it on Chestnut. 411 was no help, there are too many freaking Joness in town, and directory assistance doesn't cross reference by type of restaurant. Jones is Stephen Starr doing comfort food. Not my comfort food, mind. My comfort food involves strong central European accents and unidentified meats. I'm talking sausage here. Leberkaese, Wurst, Langjaeger (the sausage, not the booze). Anyhow, Jones did have one of my comfort foods: calamari, tender and perfect. On SusieJ food scale, calamari is up there with chocolate.

Other menu items were grilled cheese and tomato soup ("best grilled cheese in the city," well, there's not much competition is there?), Duncan Hines chocolate cake, tuna tacos in what must have been Ortega taco shells (still yummy), meat loaf, pierogies, "Thanksgiving dinner," devilled eggs. The prices were toned down because of the "simplicity" of the menu, but still an expensive grilled cheese and soup ($8). We were outside and escaped the "atmosphere," reveling instead in some real atmosphere. The rating is "but ..." The food is good, but ... The decor is snazzy, but ... I can say the service is excellent. Staff were friendly, attentive and relaxed.

Quick update, 2003

Thought I'd updated this sometime in 2002. Nope. Anyhoo, Jorj wants kids so we're skipping the pregnancy/spit up/cute stage and heading straight to teenagers. In August, Tobi, a German exchange student, will arrive in Philly to attend Friend's school downtown. He'll live with us for 10 months. We are both very excited.

We are also busy finishing those house projects. So, to see what I'm doing, go here.

May to August, 2001 October & November 2003

What I'm reading

When Jorj left for San Antonio, I went immediately to the bookstore. A few days later, I hit another book store with Mom. I've been working through the stack since then.

• Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neal Gaiman. Very Pratchett-esque. Very funny.

What I'm listening to

iTunes jukebox running off the Linux box

• Auf einem Auge Blöd, Fettes Brot: See, I do like rap. German rap, but rap.
• Chris Isaak his first album. Got a bootleg from the H.S. b.f. and have loved it ever since. Flip side of the tape was Screaming Blue Messiahs, whose absence from their record company's current catalog has made me a defender of sharing of no longer produced works. There's no loss of profits if it wasn't being sold in the first place.
• Big Night Music Shriekback. Another early 80s love. This one I bought, but the other two albums of theirs I had were also bootlegs from the b.f.

What I'm drinking

• Hoegaarden: a Belgian white
• Himbeergeist: another clear alcoholic product of a country with long, dark winters