Different strokes

More grad school travails- after scoring a 75.5 on my Operations Management midterm (higher than the class average, believe it or not), we got a take-home exam today in Finance 2 ("The Bloodening"). It's a case study with pages upon pages of a conversation between two business people about whether to invest in somesuch or another based on projected zzzzzzzzzzz. I called Ann at the class break to tell her we'd gotten it and that the professor had told us to take 20 minutes to look it over. She asked what my initial impressions were, to which I replied that the plot was weak, the characters one dimensional, and the dialogue needed some serious work. Then she had the nerve to ask if I'd spent the entire time since we received the exam thinking of that one, and I mean come on, give me a little credit, it was only like a minute or something. God. She still has a lot to learn about comedy, I'm afraid. However, I'm once again faced with the sad truth that in an English class (see: things I'm actually good at), my noticing of the fact that one of the characters starts three consecutive sentences (and then two more later on) with the phrase "No problem." would be grounds for my immediately passing the exam, or at least win me some points with the professor. Here, I have the sickening feeling it would earn me nothing more than a blank look and a query about whether I had a question.

Sigh. These people may know how to predict financial models when working with a very defined set of data you'd never actually be able to get in real life, but they could stand a few more lessons about creative expression and writing interesting scenarios. Not once have I seen one where the company's stock suddenly plummets because the founder and CEO has a massive coronary while in bed with his mistress, forcing his long-suffering and inexperienced wife to take the reins of the company. And that's just sad.

Exhuming McCarthy

This week we had to fill out self-assessments at work, probably to justify the huge raises we'll no doubt be getting. It was an automated thing, broken up into various different categories. And I started to wonder: do you think the fact that, upon reaching the "Business Acumen" section I immediately thought not of anything work-related, but rather the following lyrics:

Sharpening stones, walking on coals
To improve your business acumen
Enemy sighted, enemy met
I'm addressing the realpolitik
Look who bought the myth
By jingo, buy American

...means I'm really not cut out for business?

Creative nursery rhymes

Of all the new experiences I've encountered since Molly was born four months ago, by far the most amusing has been Ann's ignorance of -- and steadfast refusal to learn -- the correct words to "Hush Little Baby." She can handle the first three and a half verses just fine, but anything after that, forget it... she's totally off the reservation. Where the humor comes in is that instead of just stopping the song there, she'll actually make up lyrics on the fly, like some kind of freestyling rapper trying to lull his daughter to sleep before the crowd boos him off stage. The following is a completely unedited transcription of what I heard her singing to Molly tonight after the squirt woke up crying from a bad dream:

Ann: And if that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass.

And if that looking glass should break,
Mama's gonna buy you a... garden rake.

And if that garden rake don't work,
Mama's gonna buy you a loin of pork.

Me: What the f-?!

Ann: And if that loin of pork's no good,
Mama's gonna bring you Little Red Riding Hood

And if Red Riding Hood runs away,
Mama will have to save it for another day.

Me: Okay, you need to stop now.


Give her credit, though- girl can improvise. I mean, "loin of pork"?

If you're gonna spew, spew into this

Lately I've found myself wearing a wife beater around the house at all hours. This has less to do with us becoming a white trash family (hell, just today I got mad when NASCAR ran late and caused The Simpsons to not record), and more to do with Molly's astounding proclivity to spit up at any and all available opportunities. The only real rule she abides by when determining when to let loose with a torrent of vomit is that it must always be when you have just gotten her into a new outfit literally ten seconds ago, and when you yourself are also fully dressed. I believe she also awards herself bonus points if she manages to get some on the carpet as well (double for the couch), and she has a special addendum to the rule that when visiting grandparents or other relations, she absolutely, positively cannot show up there wearing an outfit they have bought her, no matter how many clothes she has to spit up on within five minutes of when you need to leave to run through them all. I swear to you, this child is gifted, and that's not a compliment. As the son of a health teacher, I'm well aware of the dangers of bulimia, but I foolishly assumed that wasn't anything I'd need to be on the lookout for for at least another decade. Nope. If she could fly, it would be exactly like living in an aviary, and I think you know what I mean.

The worst part is that I can't even complain too much because everything else is great: she's incredibly cute (unbiased opinion, of course), generally good-tempered, loves to smile and laugh, has recently taken to sleeping through the night again, and is in general quite healthy. On the list of things that could go wrong it's small potatoes... but dammit, I really didn't want to get that steam cleaner back out again.

Who Am I?

I'm having a bit of an identity crisis over something that happened to me earlier today. As it stands, I'm just going to explain what went down and you all can judge for yourselves.

The Circuit City near work is going out of business. Well, all Circuit City's are going out of business, obviously, but the one on the way to work is the only one I notice on a day-to-day basis. Over the last couple of weeks I've watched as the numbers on the signs visible from the highway showing "up to XX% off!" have gradually risen. I was vaguely offended by 30 -- you're going out of business, and the best you can offer me is 30% off? Seriously? -- gained some interest when it changed to 50, and as I drove by today and saw it was now 60, decided to stop in just to see if there were any deals. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but as you're probably aware if you're reading this blog, I'm a man who likes his DVDs and video games, so why not take a look, right? So at lunchtime I headed over, anticipating that by now, most of the store would already have been picked over. And it was, but still, there were a few lonely video games, a pretty random smattering of CDs, and a whole bunch of DVDs left, including quite a few TV season sets, all of them at 50% off the normal price.

And here's where it gets weird, because as I browsed among the shelves, it gradually dawned on me that I didn't want anything. You have to understand, TV box sets have traditionally been my crack. I need them. When I get into a show, I have to watch ALL of that show, not whatever haphazard smattering of episodes the networks care to show in syndication that week. So you can imagine my surprise, almost bordering on horror, that I simply couldn't be bothered to bring any of them up to the register and shell out. Granted, the economy sucks, but I wasn't thinking (at least not consciously) of the unnecessary expense factor. Nor is it that there weren't any good ones... I like Seinfeld quite a bit, and they had both seasons 1+2 and 4. And I loved Ren & Stimpy as a kid, but even when confronted with the chance to own seasons 1 and 2 for $15, I just couldn't get worked up. This is a DVD that, four years ago, I had been absolutely positive I would need to own someday. Who could resist all that Powdered Toast Man goodness? And surely when Molly gets older, I'll want a visual aid to warn her against the dangers of whizzing on the electric fence. And yet, when confronted with a prime opportunity to own the set at half price, my mind just could not have been less interested. I know there are still some things that, if they'd had them, I would have snatched up... if there'd been any copies left of Guitar Hero World Tour for 40% off, that bad boy would be sitting in my family room right now. But honestly, at present I'm focused more on the things I know I should have wanted, but just... didn't.

So there's my story, gentle readers. I don't know if it was a subconscious acknowledgement of the shitty financial situation in this country that triggered my apathy, or just the gloomy weather reflected in my mood, but I'm still having a hard time believing I didn't buy a single thing. I mean, good on me, I guess, but it's so out of character. And before you hasten to reply with, "Well, Drew, perhaps you're just maturing"... no, that's not it. Remember, I'm the guy who couldn't help snickering recently when one of his clients' middle and last names were "Gaye Gay." Your witness.

"Leapfrog"

This one's a little different than the norm, but it's too weird not to share. Ann and I worked from home today, and she finished her work before I was done with mine, so she started watching TV. When I finally wrapped things up, I wandered into the living room and found the TV tuned to the ABC Family channel while Ann surfed the internet. I couldn't tell you what show it was, beyond that it had Amanda Bynes, but clearly a teen sitcom type of deal. Anyway, at the time I walked in there were two adult characters lamenting the fact that the woman had had to cancel their planned date from the night before, no doubt due to the shenanigans of those wacky kids. But she planned to make it up to the dude tonight, and had even created a little handmade invitation requesting his presence at a date tonight for just the two of them. At that point the guy looks at the invitation and says, "Is that drawing of us? Why are we playing leapfrog?" To which the woman replies, "Uh, that's not leapfrog."

As you might expect, my reaction was hilarity tempered with amazement. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty funny, and props to fictional dude for getting some, but that's the kind of joke I wouldn't have expected to air on regular ABC in primetime. This was ABC Family in the middle of the afternoon, for crying out loud. It doesn't bother me any, but I'll admit to being pretty damn surprised. Who knew family channels had it in 'em?

Important lessons

While I certainly won't claim to be an expert, I do feel like I'm starting to get slightly more of a handle on being a parent. A lot of that comes down to trial-and-error, of course, making your mistakes and learning from them. For instance, if I could do it over again, I would refrain from buying the model of car seat with the invisible knives and razor wire that apparently pop out at the passenger every time the car slows down or comes to a complete stop. Damn inconvenient, that, and Molly's not shy about sharing her distaste for it either. I also would have invested in a nice gas mask for when she entered day care, as well as a flamethrower to incinerate her clothes at the end of every day. As is, we neglected to take these precautions and she picked up a lovely cold that she managed to pass on to her mother and me, making our trip to Boston last weekend a sniffly, coughing experience for all three of us. Personally, I blame those chubby twins in the infant room. It's always the fat kid's fault. It also helps explain why I haven't updated recently, so apologies for the delay. And finally, I've learned that with my new work schedule and still occasionally having to get up before the alarm rings to feed the little monster, I'm just not able to fight off sleep and stay awake late at night the way I utdssdafffasdfasdasklasdjfasodfkaljfdslslakjnsdafjja.