live from sublurbia

As you can see by the attached photo, I spent my Saturday afternoon at a local house of commercial worship - IKEA of South Florida. The billboards have popped up along the highways like jarring dandelions in our usual garden of glittery billboards with bizarre sayings such as “IKEA is to South Florida as sunburn is to tourists” (and that one almost makes sense). The media frenzy is building - people can line up starting tomorrow, but … they can’t camp out until the store opens … two days later.

If I hadn’t gotten an early preview shopping pass, though, I considered taking a personal day and swarming in with the rest of them. It’s not just a mob, it’s an adventure. It’s been years since I’ve set foot in an IKEA, and I’ve certainly never been to an opening. I even had my shopping list in mind - a little something to decorate my office, an easel for the kid, and to take loads of pictures.

I got the easel. Pictures … not so much. Even with a plan I was busy experiencing it and ignoring my complaining back and feet for much of three hours. But that was at the end, thinking it all through as I scarfed down a pizza pocket in the cafe beyond the finish like (cash wrap, register line, whatever). Continue Reading »

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And in theory, was it ever? Current threat levels are Orange and Yellow, which I’ll get into later. But I wonder if Blue is a state of mind. And if we can keep our kids blue a little longer.

Meantime, I have one answer for her. Post-it^tm notes. I always lose mine, but a headband or diaper cover works, too.

Insanely busy, back to normal (whatever that will be) eventually.

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Oh, that’s illegal? Darn.

I grew up near a local dairy producer, cows in the field and an onsite processing plant. We’d stop in and get very fresh milk in glass bottles, or pick it up in glass from the corner store.

As I prepared to move our oldest to whole milk and hang up my own milking horns, we experimented with some formula to verify tolerance (we were still in the middle of a cranky hurricane season) and started up with the whole milk when we were ready. It was a rather smooth transition to the brand I’d come to prefer in Florida, but the more I read, the more I was inclined to move our milk over to organic sources, like so many others are. Continue Reading »

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Is give war a chance ….

Gah. Between rocking Helvi while we sit on her little John Lennon blanket, the bits of the State of the Union Address I’ve heard, and the Senate hearings with Mc Cain and the new general for Iraq … I just can’t get that out of my head. Gah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3cwQYx9hDU&eurl=

(hat tip to jnfr.)

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