LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Archives for March 2010

You’re welcome, everyone.

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Coming up with a post each day is hard.

Lauren [wrapped up in a blanket and falling asleep at the keyboard]: “What am I going to write about?”

Lloyd [working on his Fantasy Accounting Baseball at his own keyboard]: “I don’t know.”

Silence for several minutes.

Lauren (in a goat-like voice): “Help.”

Lloyd: “I need somebody.”

Lauren (same goat-like voice): “Help.”

Lloyd: “Not just anybody.”

Lauren: “You’re not funny. Seriously, what am I going to write?”

Lloyd: “I could write about Fantasy Baseball stuff. I don’t have any pictures but I could take a picture of some stats.”

Awkward silence while I try to avoid the subject.

Type type type

Lauren: “Done. I’m going to bed.”

Green = Noisy

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Hooray! Sun Chips come in compostable bags! (We’re big on composting every decade, if you remember.)

Boooo. The bags are as noisy as those stupid little firecrackers.

Wait, maybe that’s another ‘hooray’. It depends on your firecracker-to-joy ratio. (Mine is dangerously low.)

More Terrible Memories with Lauren

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It’s Easter time at preschool! I really love teaching the Easter story because watching them learn and internalize it is exciting. They put the pieces together and tell me what happens next. We have a couple of Easter videos that are helpful. Granted, they are cartoons, but they really help put all the story snippets into sequence. (One is a Hanna Barbara cartoon, and while it tells the story well, I can’t get over how wrong Jesus looks. Blond hair, blue eyes and a goatee? Is he auditioning for a grunge band?)

It's hard to take a photo of a television screen.

“Say, Lauren, why is there a shark at the top of your post when it seems to be about Easter?” I hear you ask. Relax – I’m getting to it.

In the cartoons, the Leaders Who Didn’t Like Jesus are portrayed as real villains – forked beards, scowly faces, evil voices and all. Those scenes are a little spooky, and there is one girl in my class who starts to Freak Out when they come on. I tell her that she can go look at books for a while – she does not have to watch something that frightens her.

How did I learn this lesson? Well, I didn’t learn it when I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (original version) as a kid, and holy cow – I wish someone would have told me.

Those Oompa-Loompas scarred me for life. Lloyd just has to start singing the song and I shriek.

I learned it by watching Jaws.

Children, let me take you back into Olden Times when movies were on giant rolls of magnetic tape contained in a book-sized plastic box, and you rented the VCR player (which came in a suitcase-style carrier) from the video store because no one actually owned one, except the rich folk. My family rented ‘Jaws’ and turned it on in front of their young, fragile flower – me.

Have you SEEN Jaws? Do you know there’s a SHARK in that movie? Do you know he leaps at the camera with his WIDE OPEN MOUTH and tries to eat the camera and you can see all the way down his gullet to your new home?????? AHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I believe I hyperventilated through half of the movie and then had to go to the kitchen for a drink…

… where I realized the movie wasn’t on.

There were no sharks in the kitchen. It was safe! I have no memory of the rest of the night but – realization made and filed for future use.

There’s no telling about the Oompa Loompas, though. They could be anywhere.

Earth Hour – geek style

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You’ve probably been asking yourself, “Did Eco Freak celebrate Earth Hour this weekend?” Well, the answer is ‘yes’. Sorta.

I actually forgot that Saturday was the day, but while StumbleUpon-ing the web, a site came up that reminded me. The gist is – in case you don’t click on the link – is that for one hour [8:30 p.m. (local time) March 27th] you turn off your lights and electrical things. I know that it’s a tiny drop in the bucket, and that my turning off the lights in little old Seward meant absolutely nothing, but when you see the photos of big cities doing it, it makes you think. (I’ve said it before – I’m not so much about climate change, mostly just about being less wasteful.)

Anyway, I turned off all the lights but I made the concession that we could keep the computers on. Mostly because 1) I was in the middle of a movie (and let’s face it, my entertainment is more important than my ethics) and 2) Lloyd was working on his Fantasy Accounting Baseball stuff.

He was gracious not to kill me.

Ironically, people on the webs are debating whether burning all those candles during the hour may have been more wasteful than just using electricity. I don’t know. All I know is – coffee tastes better with sugar and milk.

Really.

That’s all I know.

Do wit in Omaha

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Today Lloyd had to go to Omaha with a fellow computer geek honorable person to some Drupal/computer/insert-geeky-words-here meet-up. I decided to tag along since all of The Stuff is there. (Not at the meet-up, silly, in the Big City.) I just kept quiet in the car while they talked programming nonsense. (Don’t they know that computers are powered by elves? Elves who failed Cookie Baking?)

I dropped off the boys with their fellow honorable people so they could talk their techie talk, and went window shopping. I visited the snooty mall and Whole Foods, then just drove around for a while. On my drive I saw this:

See that tiny little sign?

What the what? Does that say what I think it says?

You've got to be kidding.

No way! That has to be a typo. National headquarters?

It even has a light so you can read it at night! Thanks, Dr. Seuss.

It was not a typo. The national headquarters of an obviously Chicago-inspired pizza chain is located in the middle of corn country. I felt duped! I went up to the doors to have it out with the Godfather’s Pizza people and demand that they reimburse me for my betrayed childhood trust.

Let me in.

Nobody was home, but you can faintly see photos of the Godfather on the wall to the left. Maybe he retired in Omaha, which would make me feel better.

Now, go order some pizza.

Do wit.

Huh. They weren’t kidding.

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The past few days I wasn’t sure if I had a cold or allergies. My face hurt (don’t say ‘It’s killing me’) and I’ve been hoarse and coughing. The kids at school all have allergy/cold symptoms – coughing and sneezing their brains onto their sleeves – but there’s no telling what anyone actually has.

When I checked weather.com this morning it said ‘Tree Pollen Count is High!’ What? It’s still winter. Everything is still sleeping – where is this mysterious tree pollen coming from?

When I came home, I saw it.

That is so weird.

Oh.

I guess it’s allergies.