I could have really used a third day to my weekend. It was a fairly uneventful weekend. Friday night take-out Mexican and the movie Jarhead (ok, cinematic narcolepsy set in about 2/3 of the way through and AB assured me that I didn't need to watch the remainder because I would just feel compelled to comment further on the language, stupid things males in packs do, etc...). Saturday AB worked on homework faithfully nearly all day. Leif and I went and got groceries and he was surprisingly well behaved.
We got home and apparently I hadn't let him run enough because he was not ready to nap. Two car rides later I got him down (oops, I mean AB finally got him down). And he really WAS tired and would have slept well past 3pm if I hadn't woken him up, fearful of really throwing off his nighttime schedule. I made chocolate cupcakes, half with vanilla coconut frosting (like the ones from Cupcake Royale that were so yummy) and half with vanilla frosting and sprinkles. My weird child didn't even want the ones without the coconut. He cried when I put a taste of frosting in his mouth and took half the cupcake over to feed the dog. Sacrilege! I swiped it from him and popped it in my mouth... no cupcake of mine was going to the poor neglected, abused dog.
Saturday afternoon AB took a break from studying and we walked to the grocery store for trip #2. Apparently if you are making buffalo burgers, buns are a nice thing to have. Leif cracked me up with his little burger - he worked so hard to hold it like AB and I held ours. He took a few bites before deciding green beans were the favored dinner choice. He was smart... AB and I ate our buffalo burgers and were both miserable all night. My misery extended through much of Sunday as well, ruining my plans to go to the mall and go clothes shopping. Blah. We didn't even attempt watching Capote Saturday night. It was useless to have to stop the movie every 10 minutes. TMI?
Sunday morning we headed to the park to fly the clown fish kite we bought at Costco. Coincidentally we ran into V and C there. So the kids played together. Leif admired C, C admired Winny. V and I chatted. AB was highly persistant in getting the kite into the air, and even with the wind blowing 25-30 mph it wasn't going to happen. Sucky kite. Back to the 10 year old, very reliable and strong Delta kite I bought for AB when we first started dating. One of the supports broke last summer though, it just needs to be replaced.
As usual we spent much of Sunday on the phone with various family members. AB tired of his homework and for at least part of the afternoon we veged on the couch watching TV and reading since we still weren't feeling so hot.
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My grandmother cracks me up. She is 82 years old and I adore her. We have been very close all my life. One thing about her is that she mixes up words badly. Enough so that after she had back surgery the physical therapist became concerned speaking with her and sent her for speech therapy. My grandma was completely perplexed why she needed speech therapy. Finally, my uncle (a radiologist) explained to the therapist that for her entire life she has talked like this. She confuses words easily, like production and prediction for example. She knows what she means, but doesn't worry about which one she says. If you correct her she just looks at you like, "but that's what I said".
Ok, so maybe she does need a speech therapist, but a lot of it is her quick personality. She was always one of the quickest walkers I ever knew (she was a nurse for 45 years and became known for her quick stride), but her tongue is just as quick. Quicker usually than her brain. (I have the opposite problem, my brain is quick, but my tongue doesn't move.)
Anyways, this weekend I was telling her about our trip to Seattle and that we saw the "Seattle locks". She said, "OH, I saw the Seattle locks too!" I said, "oh you did? What did you think of them?"
"Oh," she replies, "they were so huge and it was fascinating going through them, the clearance is so narrow. And they are so long! It took us forever to move through them!"
(I had no idea what Seattle locks she was talking about at this point... not the ones I had been to.)
She continues, "Yeah, that trip to Panama was a lot of fun, I will never forget the Seattle locks".
I said, "oh do you mean the Panama canal?"
"Yes, the Seattle locks in Panama!" She tells me.
I giggled, but knew exactly what she was doing. She was carrying the word "Seattle" with the word "locks", like they were joined... "seattlelocks".
A friend of mine I used to work with in Colorado told me once I needed to write down the wacky things she said. Two reasons, so I don't forget them, and because they really were hilarious. So anyways, this one isn't hilarious, not like some of her others. But this is my attempt to start writing them down because she is right and I have forgotten so many of the things she says that cracks us all up.
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One last follow up to a post last week about a task where I don't know what is happening. Meeting on Friday rescoped our project. While the task wasn't completely eliminated, like one of the others, I was told to limit my experiments and finish up the data collecting in 2-3 weeks. Then we will focus elsewhere. Sigh. Good thing though is that the area they want to focus in requires the use of a UV/Vis Spectrophotometer. I know those things inside and out, backwards and forwards. I can diagram one out on a napkin in a second - and have. My Co-PI is frighteningly hesitant on this new proposed scope. I love her to death, but let's not dwell on this! Trust me I know these things, let me charge the task and let's move forward. (She is taking a week with a few of my textbooks to learn all she can about optical spectroscopy and instruments. And I am not supposed to say a word to her about it until she is finished reading, lol.)
Anyways, regarding the original task, at least I will HAVE the data. At that point I can write it up, interpret it and eventually submit it as a paper on my own time. In the meantime, however, we may have to withdraw the submission to the May conference with the paper. In fact, I am anticipating that. That sucks.
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