Hatchomatic

Okay, sorry… it’s been a while. I have a few amusing stories, but this is a quick post.

Spittoon.

Great word. Fantastic word.

Okay, I know this is trivial, but I bought some new wiper blades yesterday and they are so frickin’ cool! They were kinda expensive… $20 each (the basic ones are like $6), but these Bosch blades are designed to appear like a single flexible unit. They don’t have any brackets. It’s like a wand of rubber. Link

They perfectly conform to the windshield, and they even have this little cap that encapsulates the attachment arm.

They are just too cool. And they work great too.

This isn’t an ad, it’s just a really cool, really well designed thing I came across.

Wiper blades have made my day.

Cynthia and I took Sammy to this park this evening. It was chilly and we (that is, Sammy and us) had the requisite standoff about wearing a coat. We finally settled on a fleece with a yellow slicker overcoat. I swear, we should use three-year-olds for work stoppage negotiations. They are intractable. Although I would guess they might crack under the offering of chocolate milk and cookies.

Anyway, we went to the park and had some fun. Sammy, much like me, isn’t exactly the social type. She’d rather play with people she already knows. Since her mummy and daddy were the only ones she knew, we became her default playthings.

So, we played hide and seek, tag, etc. As we were leaving, I was racing Sammy down the park. We were supposed to touch four trees in a row.

I gave her a two-tree head start and then took off. I touched the first tree, then the second. As a bore down on the diminutive three-year-old, she looked back to see where I was. As she did, she veered into my running lane. I tried to jump over her, but as she teetetered back and forth, she pinballed off my thigh. She started to go down, so I contorted my body backwards and tried to pick her up as I fell. But I couldn’t maintain my balance. She landed on her face and skidded forward. I bounced off her and fell on my shoulder.

Cynthia started shouting at me. I bounced up and picked up a dirty and stunned Sammy. Three, two, one… wahhhhhh!

As Sammy screamed into my ear and tears streamed down her cheeks, I reassurred her that everything was okay. Cynthia calmed down once she realized Sammy wasn’t broken.

By the time we walked the block and a half home, Sammy was ready to go back to the park. That’s my girl!

One of my favorite things about colder weather is how much more enjoyable it is to cook, since I don’t mind heating up the house by running the oven.

Today is bread day. Sammy helps me measure and then it’s the smell of fresh bread all afternoon. Is there anything better?

So yesterday I took Sammy on a walk for the homeless here in D.C. Because we did it, Fannie Mae contributed $100 toward the cause.

Sammy asked what we were doing. When I explained homelessness to her — “some people don’t have a place to sleep, so they sleep outside on the sidewalk” — she just had this sad, puzzled look on her face.

I don’t understand why my walking 5K helps the homeless. To point, as we walked, a homeless guy was panhandling in the middle of the march. Nobody gave him any money. Stacks of bottled water, for use by the marchers, sat shrinkwrapped on the mall. I can only assume the unused water will go to a shelter.

All the money that goes into planning the event, I’d rather that simply go to the cause. It seems like a waste to me.

This morning I woke up early to go grocery shopping. I arrived at Whole Foods about 10 minutes before it opened. While waiting, a homeless guy asked me for money for food. I said no. Then looking at all the shiny organic food awaiting me in the store, I changed my mind and handing him $5. “For food,” I told him.

Actually, the real reason I gave it to hime was so I stopped feeling like a hypocrit. Sigh.