Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Archives for October 2003

Fountain pen ink

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All I want is some fountain pen ink for my fountain pens.

I have discovered that is way, way easier said than done in these here parts. I’ve been to 6 or 7 stores so far—including OfficeMax, Office Depot, Staples, and University Art Supply (San Jose)—and called several others, and all I have found is one package of Waterman cartridges with black ink.

Short of driving all the way to Palo Alto—which it’s looking like I’m going to have to do, which is nuts, given that it’s 20 miles each way and I have two kids with me and we’ve already done our day-in-Palo-Alto for this month—I’m going to have to make an order online to buy ink.

All the stationers have closed, it seems. At least, around here. No more McWhorter’s. No independents like A&B Stationers (which was on Ventura in Studio City).

Anybody have any suggestions for where I can find some damn fountain pen ink?

Dora did WHAT?

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Sophia’s favorite show, hands down, is “Dora the Explorer.” Dora, Boots the Monkey, the Backpack…they’re all close friends of ours in this house. I even took her to see Dora Live!

I sense that Dora’s popularity has been waxing something fierce—no Dora lunch boxes at her preschool last year; lots of them this year.

So this year the show has had a bit of an overhaul, with new opening titles and a couple of small changes to the format, which for the most part have been good. But there’s been one annoying addition: there are now “explorer stars,” which are ostensibly to help Dora and Boots in their quests. The explorer stars are not so much “new characters” though as “marketing opportunities.” It’s hard not to hear the execs saying, “And the kids will have to collect ’em all!”

Oy.

However, Darin noticed something funny in the premiere episode that introduced the explorer stars: Dora and Boots are in a boat, and the light-up star shines a light on the water ahead of them, which is full of sharks. Oh no! So Dora says, “We’re going to have to jump over them!”

And Darin said, “Is Dora actually jumping the shark?”

In the same episode they introduce this annoying marketing ploy, Dora jumps the shark. Is this a little joke from the Dora folks? Were they completely unaware of this phrase?

We must know.

Filed Under: TV

Psychic and physical clutter

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Every Sunday I check Minerva’s horoscope in the SF Chronicle. Why? Old habits die hard. Anyhow, this week’s entry says:

LEO July 22-August 21
Do it! Do it now. A home office of some sort has tickled your fancy for some time. Maybe it’s a suite, maybe a small corner. Whatever, the size, time and effort spent there can change your life. Family matters are iffy, maybe even bittersweet. Perhaps you’ll use your home office for a little writing. Something meaningful like “Raising Children For Fun and Profit.”

Well. There’s always a fairly high probability that your horoscope will speak to you in a significant way (particularly sun sign horoscopes from the newspaper, and I can explain to you why this is so another time), but this week is just so on.

We’ve been in this house for nearly five months now and I still don’t have access to my home office because it’s stuffed full of boxes. The guest room and what will eventually be Simon’s room also have more than their fair share of crap in them. But my office is the one that’s making me crazy, because I have no place in this house that’s mine. The pens, paper, and scissors? They have to be stored up and out of reach in the kitchen, or else they disappear. I have nowhere to put my computer, so I’m still camped here at the end of the kitchen island, annoying both me and Darin. And the extras connected to my computer, like the Palm dock and the iPod dock? Fuhgeddabouddit.

We have no pictures up and we still have boxes everywhere. We have a 2800-sq.ft. house and we’re crowded into about half of it.

And some people we know are having their housewarming today. They moved in three or four weeks ago. True, they only moved about ten miles.

We’ll probably have our housewarming right around Simon’s second birthday. He’s only 17 months now. Is that enough time to finish getting this place in shape, do you think?