Nobody Knows Anything

I’ve pledged money for both WampumBlog and Paper Bent for Blogathon 2003. Why? I don’t know. There are plenty of worthy blogathoners out there, and if they’re willing to sit there and blog for twenty-four hours straight, they’re welcome to do so. A

Skimble has a neat little summary of the heist of a lifetime. If there is a spot o’ truth to this “river of light” story, it needs to be investigated and revealed post haste.

Calpundit’s entry about medical malpractice—and how people testifying about it can change their stories rather drastically once they’re made accountable for them—is required reading.

John Scalzi has a nice little essay/rant on what being a professional writer means in regard to criticism—to paraphrase using the words of a recent episode of “Monk,” Suck it up. And he’s right. If you think this is hard, you ain’t seen nothing yet. (My professional writer experience consists solely at this point of being a tech writer at Apple, and it was as true there.)

If you want to be loved, have a blog. Oh wait.

(I’ve read Natalia’s followup, and she makes a good point: this is her journal; she was writing about her feelings. Fair enough. But I’ve been in enough writing classes/workshops/seminars to know how the vast majority of people react to criticism, and it’s not with the detachment they’re going to need to whether writing professionally. I know how I deal with getting criticized on my writing, and I have a much stronger sense of self-esteem than most when it comes to my writing. So John’s reaction is not at all from left field.)

A couple of people have now written to ask why my right-hand column (which contains my list o’links, among other things) doesn’t show up in Mozilla. I don’t know why; it shows up in Safari and IE. The first time I got this question, I thought it was because blogrolling.com was down, but now I suspect it’s a Mozilla problem. Any clues?

I am not making this up:

Yesterday afternoon, Sophia and I snuggled on the living room couch so I could read to her. She wanted “Sleeping Beauty.” Okay, okay. In Disney’s version, there are three good fairies at the baby’s christeninig who give the new baby gifts like “Beauty” and “Song.”

I turned to Sophia and said, “What did the fairies bring you when you were born?”

She smiled and said, “We don’t have fairies in our world.”

I swear to you she said this.

I also swear to you that, while we’re planning on bringing the kids up without religion, we haven’t exactly been harping on it yet. After all, Sophia’s three. The whole sky-elf discussion can wait a little bit.

Or maybe we can skip that whole thing. She seems to be a little ahead of the curve.

I told Darin about what she said and he said, “Yes.” Daddy’s little rationalist.

I picked up the paper today—an actual physical paper, something I don’t do very often—and read about Odai and Qusay and the amazingly well-timed (for the White House news cycle, at any rate) four hour firefight. And then I read this article and I feel, well, disoriented.

Odai, 39, Saddam Hussein’s elder son, was the wolf — a sadist who tortured athletes for losing matches, a womanizer who had henchmen snatch women and girls off the street, a tantrum-thrower who beat underlings and rivals to death, a show-off who collected fast cars and jungle pets.

Um, hello?

Colin Farrell is a womanizer.

Odai sounds like, oh, I don’t know…a rapist? Or a psychopath?

Why the hell did the Washington Post use a term like “womanizer” for a vicious bastard like this guy?

I almost titled this entry “Cracking up” but I have this thing about the power of words and self-fulfilling prophecies.

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I also almost wrote an entry detailing why things are difficult for me right now, but not only would I not get any sympathy from y’all, I’d probably get active hate mail. So let’s just put it that my life has changed dramatically from the first part of May. For example, Darin worked at home. So when I needed a break or to run an errand, he was there. This is not the case now. It’s different, and I haven’t adjusted yet.

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We live in a small town. The local weekly has on its cover this week the story of two English teachers at the local high school who fell in love and got married. It’s a cute story, but…um…slow news week?

Well, it’s better than yet another story about the Rampart district. Or cleaning up the Belmont site.

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Since I posted my discovery that I could go exercising after dropping Sophia off at preschool, I think I’ve gone out maybe once. So of course I get discouraged and think, “I’m never going to exercise or lose this damn weight!” and go out for a Frappucino. With whipped cream.

It’s amazing I’m not 300 pounds. There have been a lot of self-soothing Frappucinos of late.

Update: Um, of course what I meant to say is, “I have been using Frappucinos as self-medication” or something along those lines, not “Frappucinos are lonely and need love.” But you knew that.

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Part of the difficulties of adjusting to this move have been that I don’t have many friends around here. Actually, in the immediate five miles, I don’t have any. I think other moms have put out the word: “She’s coming! You know, the one who’s desperate to talk to other adults! Run!”

I’m trying. Evidently some of our neighbors have kids the exact same ages as ours. I called their number, haven’t heard back. These things take time. It’s hard to have that perspective when every day brings a new exercise in “What do I do with the kids today?”

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Sophia has the funniest line that is guaranteed to make Darin and me crack up whenever she says it. Whenever she puts forth an idea for something she wants, she says, with her biggest, sunniest smile: “Can we go to the bookstore now? Yeah? Is that a great idea?”

Not a good idea. A great one.

No idea how she came up with that one.

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For several months there Darin had to read Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel to Sophia every night, mostly because he made the mistake of telling her that it had been his favorite book when he was a boy. Darin turned the nightly recitation into an audience participation event, with Sophia finishing half the sentences.

We finally (yes! finally!) opened one of the boxes of the kids’ books and one of the books was Mike Mulligan. Sophia asked me to read it to her last night.

She didn’t remember any of it. Mike. Mary Anne. “Neat and square.”

Which might mean she’s already forgotten a lot about Los Angeles. Not everything: she still brings up her friends from time to time.

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I didn’t mention that one of the biggest stresses we’ve been under is that—ta da!—the buyer for our house in Los Angeles backed out a week before we were supposed to close escrow. And she didn’t even tell us, we found out when the escrow agent called to tell us. And because we’d set up the purchase between friends, we didn’t even get to keep the down payment.

Which would have really, really helped, given that we’ve had two mortgages going for a few months now and had to pay for some stuff to be fixed at the old house. (Like termites. Yes, my house got tented and I didn’t even get to see it.)

Reportedly everything is fixed now—we have the most amazing real estate agent in the world who is handling everything for us; if you are buying or selling a house in LA call Jeanne Valvo at Coldwell Banker, you will not be sorry—and the house should go on the market soon. Jeanne may already have a buyer for us. I just want to see the check.

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I’ve promised all my friends that I will stop complaining to them all the time. I don’t know when, though. I’m just a little stressed out right now.

In the book A Year In Provence, Peter Mayle describes buying a home in France. Evidently everyone lies about the actual prices of homes in France, because of the taxes, so that when the house sale is actually transacted, the government official conveniently leaves the room and the buyer gives the seller the real amount of money.

Having just bought a home here in the great state of California, I find myself wondering if the same sort of thing doesn’t go on here. I haven’t heard that it does; I just find myself wondering.

Property taxes in California are calculated based on the sales price—initial property taxes are 1% of the sales price, and the taxes can only rise 2% every year thereafter. (Yes, Proposition 13, and no, we won’t get into how it’s a complete windfall for corporations and everyone else gets screwed.) So if you buy a house for $100,000, your initial taxes will be $1,000 a year. (You will also be very popular, because I am willing to bet there isn’t a house in the entire state for under $300,000.)

But if I say my initial purchase price was $50,000, and I pay you $50,000 under the table, then my property taxes are only $500 to start with.

When you start adding lots of zeroes to all of these prices, you can see why people might want to do this.

Other than the fact that it’s illegal—and in today’s climate, ripping the entire state of California off for billions of dollars doesn’t even rate probation, let alone jail time—why aren’t people doing this with home sales? Or are they and I totally missed out?

Ever since Sophia’s birthday, we’ve had a little problem with her: she wants Princess everything. Most especially books. (Well, and music in the car. I bought her the Disney Princess CDs and I rue the day I did, because all I friggin’ get to listen to now is Judy Kuhn wail about the “Colors of the Wind.” You never know what you’ve lost until you can’t listen to NPR any more.) Whenever we offered to read her a book, she wanted a Princess book, and finally Darin put down his foot: when we’re at the bookstore reading books, no Princess books. He even hates reading them to her at bedtime.

So while we were at Kepler’s the other day we noticed a new book that was co-created by the author of one of our favorite children’s books. Calef Brown did Polkabats and Octopus Slacks, which is hysterical: if you have kids, or you like poetry, or both, run out and buy this book. (Its companion, Dutch Sneakers and Flea Keepers, is good but not superlative; we read Polkabats a whole bunch and Sneakers only a few times.)

The book we found at Kepler’s was Greece! Rome! Monsters! written by John Harris and illustrated by Calef Brown in his offbeat, folk art style. Darin and I have always loved the Greek myths, and we thought Sophia might enjoy this book. Then we opened it up and read a bit and thought, Hmm, descriptions of flesh falling off bones and monsters with three rows of sharp teeth and cutting off the Medusa’s head. Perhaps this is too scary for a three-and-a-half year old.

Wrong again, mater.

Sophia loves this book. She isn’t scared by it at all; she wants to hear it over and over again. If she could get both Darin and me to read it to her before bed, she would. She likes to point out the various monsters in the opening spread and she can name them all. Manticores and basilisks and Cerberus oh my! My little girl isn’t fazed by the tale of the Minotaur in the least.

I found D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths when I was eight and on vacation in Bermuda. Yes, even at eight you couldn’t get me out of a bookshop. And I was looking forward to the day when I would get my kids and copy and sit down with them and discuss the Greek myths with them.

What can I say? That day may be now.

And she hasn’t asked for a Princess book lately, thank goodness.

If you have a tot who needs something a little offbeat, check Greece! Rome! Monsters! out. Or Polkabats and Octopus Slacks. They’re both excellent.

Short version: Darin and I give it two thumbs up.

Pirates, cursed gold, swashbuckling, Johnny Depp as a completely bonkers and wonderful pirate, and Orlando Bloom finally, finally, finally a brunet. (Blonds have zero appeal for me. I don’t know why that is, but it’s always been true.)

It’s overlong but hilarious. We had a great time. Johnny Depp is wonderful as the pirate who’s described as being not unlike Keith Richards, but since I don’t know what Keith Richards is supposed to be like, I don’t know what that means. I do know that Captain Jack Sparrow is one of the most fun characters to come down the pike for a while.

Damn, it’s so much fun to watch a movie where there’s an actual story. And how depressing is it that those movies are few and far between?

(And if you’re wondering which exchanges were in the movie and which were ad-libbed, check out Ted Elliott’s post on Wordplay about it. Short answer: 99% of them were in the script.)

Have I mentioned that I love our neighborhood? A short walk to the town center, where the library is; a short walk to the playing fields of the high school, where the kids can run around; a short walk to the downtown, with lots of shops and restaurants and small-town kind of things.

Our neighbors stop us on the street and introduce themselves. A couple walking their extremely large silver-grey poodle stopped me on the street near the civic center and welcomed me to the street—they’d noticed me and the kids, I hadn’t had a clue.

One of the things I worry about raising the kids here is that there isn’t going to be a heck of a lot of diversity in a place where all the houses cost over (koff, koff) three-quarters of a million dollars. I probably shouldn’t admit that out loud, but hey: welcome to the wonderful world of California housing prices, people. Normal, well-kept houses require gigantic incomes around here.

Which is why I don’t understand why the house across the street has been, for all intents and purposes, abandoned.

It’s a nice house: about average size for this neighborhood, two story, on an odd-shaped plot of land. The lawn clearly hasn’t been mowed in months. The front porch light is always on. There’s a Datsun 280Z that has evidently been parked in the driveway through many a gust of wind and perhaps a rain shower or two.

I don’t get it. Yes, I know the job market has tanked around here, but the housing market hasn’t (and probably won’t until interest rates start their creep back up). If someone had defaulted on their mortgage, the bank would have had this puppy on the auction block post-haste, no? And if the owner simply doesn’t want it any more, why not sell it and probably clear a few bucks? Or a few hundred thousand, depending on when he or she bought it.

The neighbors on our right side, who moved in six months ago, have never seen anyone in the house.

If this house is a symptom of the economy…whoa.

Otherwise: investment oppportunity!!!

(Okay, probably not.)

Update: Of course today I see that the lawn has been mown and there’s now a huge pile of yard waste to one side of the house. The lawn isn’t being taken care of in any other way, though: it’s brown without the watering you need in the heat we’ve been having. And that Datsun is still there.

Mail.app (the mail application that comes with OS X) does a faboo job of filtering out spam and storing it in the Junk folder. Problem is, I’m still getting 300-400 spam messages a day (and rising). Sure, they’re mostly going into the Junk folder, but still.

So: any nominations for spam filtering software we can put on our OS X server?

Update: Oops! Darin says I totally have it wrong. What we need is help configuring our WebStar mail server so that it refuses most of the spam!

And no, we don’t want to switch software.

Okay, here’s the deal, friends:

If you don’t currently have a Mac that can support Jaguar (OS X 10.2), go out and get one. They’re cheap. Buy two.

While you’re at the Apple Store (why would you buy your Mac anywhere else), pick up an iSight camera. If the last iSight is in the delicate grasp of a defenseless, weeping child, rip it out of their hands. Just do it. You can thank me later for the encouragement.

Go home, put computer on table, attach iSight camera to computer.

Probably iChat AV is not on the computer. Download it from the Apple website. Install.

Fire up iChat AV, log in, and say, “Hi Diane!” And you can see me wave back.

iChat AV is way better than sliced bread. (For one thing, no carbs.) Darin has been chatting with friends down in LA, face-to-face. Is the conversation quality as good as a telephone? No, or as I like to say: not yet. But you get to see the people you’re talking to—remember the cool videophone in 2001? Here it is, folks.

The grandparents can see the grandkids any time they want. And they did, last night. Currently Sophia is more interested in seeing herself on the screen than seeing Grandma, but she and Simon also live in a world where stuff like “chatting with Grandma and Grandpa and seeing their faces despite a distance of a couple thousand miles” is perfectly normal.

I want everyone I know to rush out and get this setup so that we can talk, face-to-face. I’ll wait right here.