Getting Gruntled

I was sitting with the girls and Tink (Tink is a wire-haired terrier whose fur is cornsilk blonde, and a bit scruffy in length). The girls were singing some made-up song about our breakfast and how excited they are to be going on a surprise expedition, then their attention turned to Tink.

Petting her, they started to notice similarities in a dog’s biology and their own. When they started talking about front paws versus rear paws, I pointed out the similarity in bone structure between hands and feet (tarsals and carpals, etc) and dropped another seed to pick up at another time (that half of the bones in your body are in your hands and feet), but otherwise left them to make the rest of the inferences themselves.

After noticing the limbs and some muscle groups, they started to mention more surface comparisons, and this one I just had to share:
K: There’s a lot of ways that I’m like Tink!
A: Hey, here’s another way that I’m like her even more. (puts her finger into her blonde hair, which has been darkening quite a bit over the past year).
K: Yeah! You both have a head!
A: (exasperated) NO! Blonde hair!
Me: Well, it’s true. you do each have a head…
A: I was talking about her fur and my hair.
K: Yeah. That too.

I just installed a couple of plugins to handle tagging for my posts. I’m just kind of testing them out at this point.

the EFF has a campaign against a couple of proposals that are currently under scrutiny in the U.S. The flash video is well done, explains the issues witout being dry or long-winded, and entertains at the same time.

random quote form the girls…

A: “Hey look at this! I put a sticker on my ear!”

K: “Oh yeah, I found something sillier! chicka bok bok! chicka bok bok!” (imitates a chicken, strutting, flapping wings, pecking)

Last week, the weather was entirely too inviting, and I kept making plans with myself to groom the back yard. I also had lots of design and updates in mind, and time with the gorls, as they had been on spring break all week, and I’d been missing them sorely as they spent a night here and a night there with relatives.

After picking them up on Friday, we did some lightweight shopping, followed by pizza. They were already showing signs that they just wanted to be home and comfortable, so a short flyby at the movie house confirmed my suspicions: no good movies for their age range. We went home and played “Boggle Jr” and a round of rhyming, then we put on some kid music and made paintings after they got into their pj’s.

Saturday morning same shortly after, and it brought horrible thunderstorms with it. I often feel toyed with by the weather here. finally have the time to get something done, then the weather disagrees with you. The rain washes away a large portion of all the pollen, so it’s not so bad. We made breakfast and played Jenga many times over, then had a “Rock Star Fashion Show” before the storms let up.

After they got baths, my parents came by for a few minutes on their way to an early dinner, so they were able to visit for a while as I worked on the hair.

I am still learning the correct methods for “hair dudes”. The request is always specific, and if it’s two braided pigtails, and daddy gives up and creates a single ponytail, he’s the bad guy for at least a day.

I get the squinty-eyed, wrinkle-nosed frown as well as the quiet treatment.

There should be a how-to guide somewhere… “The Oafish Lout’s Guide to Girly-Girl Hairdos”. With a cross reference for the names and alterante names and descriptors.

On Sunday, M came over to spend time with “the monkeys”, and wanted to get the box-springs I needed to get the girls’ bedrooms set up properly. so we dropped the girls off and her sister’s, and borrowed their truck.

The truck is a small one, manual transmission. There are some issues with its transmission and power steering, so the trip to get the bedding was fraught with intersesting angles, white knuckles, and some strategic use of back streets to avoid certain intersections.

we got the bedding and got it back to my house, and the girls slept very well in their “new” beds. One of my favorite things is when they decide that they are “big girls”, either in taking on new responsibility for themselves, or what-have-you.
I have the “parenting” class on Thursday after work. This should be intriguing…

Monday morning at work, everyone was abuzz about the tornado warnings and storm damage over the weekend, saturday morning.

Last friday I left work and was off to pick the girls up, and I stopped at a 4-way intersection.

I got waved through, and as I shifted to 2nd gear, felt something “give”. I lost the ability to shift gears entirely. I made some calls and got M to re-route herself in case I couldn’t get the car home.

As it turns out, a bracket that holds the shifter cables had come apart. Luckily, there was no extesive damage, and the part was pretty cheap. Still, getting the car to the shop, borrowing another car, and putting gas in all these cars (at the rates charged lately) has made for a highly expensive week.

Slax 5.0.8 was released yesterday. I pulled it down with bittorrent through LinuxTracker . They’ve updated the kernel and some stuff with the hard drive installer, but as a live CD, most people probably won’t notice any difference.

M is leaving. I’ve been working really hard at keeping things together, and it hasn’t helped. We have been through a lot of tough times, and now that things are on an even keel, all of this dredge rises to the top of the barrel.

It’s not a fighting, angry, hurtful kind of thing. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t stress or hurt everyone involved, but it’s not as bad, I suppose.

My primary concern is for the girls. I cannot be away from them, and must be a part of their lives. All of my family live pretty close. M hasn’t been very close with her family, but has made mention of going back to that area, in PA on the NJ side.

I think that would be hell on the girls, and for visitation options.

The thing about me keeping them at this point would be work. I leave before they go to school in the mornings, and come home way after they get home from school.

I’m not totally sure what to do.

I’ve given up all my friends over the years, and have put distance between myself and my family as well, being totally devoted to her. I’m wondering what kind of karma I have stored that makes this right. When does the shock subside and the pain start to internalize?