Off The Grid

Eighty dollars later I can rejoin the online community thanks to a new charging cord.  The second one in three years.  Apparently we are just super hard on the cord, or else it's an overlooked design flaw meant to net Apple even more money.  Eighty bucks and it's made in China...come on!  It's like the lyrics to the very wise folk duo Flight of the Conchords in their song "Think about It":

"They're turning kids into slaves just to make cheaper sneakers.
But what's the real cost?
'Cause the sneakers don't seem that much cheaper.
Why are we still paying so much for sneakers
When you got them made by little slave kids
What are your overheads?"

Nonetheless I'm still here.  Nonetheless I enjoy using the word nonetheless.  Awesome.  In some ways a couple of weeks away from the computer was nice.  I couldn't believe how many mindless google searches I must do because I'd be talking about something with Brig and I'd say, "Let's google it." and then remember that we couldn't.  I'm a very curious person who regularly looks up the origins of a phrase and other such useless information.  Google is good for that. 

While I was away Ava's soccer season ended.  She played 0 minutes of six games.  She did however cower next to me and emphatically shake her head no when her poor coach would try to get her to play a few minutes.  It was not fun to get her dressed in her gear and drive up there with no assistance from my working husband and spend the next forty minutes chasing Brielle off the fields and try to keep her from grazing on other people's snacks.  Two times I couldn't even convince Ava to exit the vehicle.  Listen, I'm not trying to get her to become some soccer prodigy it's just that I paid money for this...for something that was her idea to have her be weepy the whole time thinking someone was going to drag her onto the field against her will.  It bothered her that she was one of only three girls on the team and it also bothered her that her coach was a man.  If she's not a mini-me I don't know what she is.  Somehow I instilled my fear and loathing of men into her psyche as well.  It wasn't intentional.  I'm sure she'll send me the bill for her future therapy sessions when the time comes.

Brielle is talking constantly.  When bedtime rolls around I'm so happy for the silence I can sit in.  I love my baby, I do, but it's a lot of babbling.  A lot.  She's also taken to eating chapstick.  Ava had a couple of dozen floating around her room and I think Brielle has managed to ravage six of them.  I had to throw out the markers as well.  I have graffiti all down the hall from when I ran to the store and Brig said he'd "watch the girls."  Right. 

I've been writing on a new story and since my computer was not useable I had to write the old fashioned way.  The calloused bump on my right middle finger has returned due to writing this way.  I'm grateful for a keyboard. 

And last of all I started a poetry blog.  It's simply for a creative outlet, but feel free to look at it.  I'll put the link on the sidebar.