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I am watching Empire Records right now on the Mojo channel and it’s bothering me. I have seen this movie approximately 8,622 times and when it doesn’t go exactly as I remember it, I get confused!

Plus, I woke up at 5:30 this morning, thanks to my evil baby who apparently does not need to sleep anymore.

So I’m watching it and there are extra scenes! In the beginning, there’s this whole scene where Corey gets her acceptance letter to Harvard and I don’t recall ever seeing that before.

So now I feel like I should sit down and watch it rather than just have it on in the background. I hate that.

On the other hand, this movie is really quite bad but I find myself quoting it an awful lot. Hm.

my apologies to Carly Simon

I guess there’s no escaping the Thought Police, after all. We’ll just all have to get over ourselves and move on. See, I moved thishere blog to my own spanky domain, thinking that I would have a wee bit more control over who sees it and whatnot without having to go so far as to password-protect it. Apparently, it doesn’t matter which door I close on this side because there are sixteen doors on the other side that are wide open.

I thought about that for a couple of days and I decided that I’m perfectly okay with it. Part of the reason why I write on the web and not in my metric ton of spiral notebooks is because anyone can read it. This forces me to be more honest than I might otherwise be.

Honesty and truth are scary things for some people, but I have come to realize that those people are not my problem. I’m fully capable of recognzing and accepting my own faults - and boy oh boy do I have faults - and forgiving myself for them.

So bring it on, Thought Police. I can and will write about whatever strikes my fancy and if that’s a problem for you, then maybe you should think about getting a ladder and getting over yourself.

Jillian learned to crawl a couple of weeks ago. After a few false starts, she was off and crawling and has the slightly calloused knees to prove it.

As with most of her development, she spends a couple of months on a plateau then does everything at once. She got three teeth around six months and decided that was okay with her and is just now getting her next teeth. They have just broken through her gums and should start showing for real in the next few days. I’m very excited for these new teeth, only because I was starting to worry that she didn’t have any more in there. I only have one wisdom tooth, after all.

So the crawling thing happened. It took months for her to figure that out but once she did, she is off and ready to do the next thing: climbing the stairs. And giving Mama a heart attack.

At first, this was a good thing, since we have a step-up from our living area to the dining area, and Jillian will need to learn to negotiate that if she wants to get around. So going up was a big skill to master. A couple of face-plants and a whole lot of yelling, and she can get up that step no problem. Going down is proving to be more difficult, however.

She crawls up the step and through the dining room to the stairs. We have a one-step landing before the stairs properly start, so she climbs up there a lot. That’s where I put the diaper bag most of the time so it’s handy and grab-able on my way out the door. There are lots of pockets and doodads that keep Jillian busy for about forty-five seconds, so it’s a good thing to just leave the diaper bag lying around.

I was sitting on the floor next to the stairs yesterday while Jillian happily emptied the diaper bag. I bent down to scratch my foot and when I looked up, she had made her way to the second stair already. AIEEE!

I thought maybe we’d try walking first, but apparently walking is for people who are intimidated by the stairs. Now, as soon as I put her down on the floor, she motors over to the stairs and starts her ascent.

It should come as no surprise then, that this weekend will be Baby Gate Installation Weekend!

Some random overflow:

I have to go grocery shopping. My pantry is kind of full, though. How is it that I have a cupboard full of food but nothing to eat? The food theme this week is going to be Things That Do Not Need Much Cooking, even though I have a serious urge to make gratin dauphinois from the Les Halles cookbook. Not a summer food, I fear.

Instead of bitching about the crappy produce at the Stop & Shop and bitching about the crazy prices at Whole Foods, I am going to go to one or six of our local farm markets. I got shut out of the CSA thing this year because I am a master procrastinator and put off signing up until it was too late. Oh well - next year.

So I’m either going to drag my cute little family around with me or I’ll go myself but one way or another, GOOD tomatoes will be bought. I love tomatoes. Blueberries are also coming in, so I am going to try to get creative and come up with stuff to do with them that isn’t my Famous Blueberry Crumble or smoothies. I foresee pie, methinks. Also blueberry compote over french vanilla ice cream… drool.

Can I get all the protein I need if I become a pescetarian? I don’t see that happening in a complete or long-term way, but I am tired of meat and chicken and I was wondering if fish is a complete protein or if I’d have to supplement. I wish I could like tofu, but I just can’t. It has to be really really well-camouflaged for me to eat it, which is unfortunate. Guess I’ll have to do some research and stuff.

In garden news, my flowers are blooming again and still, so hooray for me! Perhaps my thumb isn’t as brown as I had feared. My tomato plant has an actual tomato on it, which is super-amazing! I cannot WAIT until I have a YARD in which I can DIG and plant stuff for REAL. I feel like I’m faking it with my container garden, and if I get one or two tomatoes off of my plants, I’ll be as amazed as you. Same for my bell peppers.

My geraniums are suffering a bit, but I looked at them this morning and it seems like they’re just between bloom cycles. I’ll keep coddling them and see if they don’t perk up a bit.

In kid news, Jillian has learned to get up on the step from the living room to the dining room. My wee daredevil is also trying to go DOWN, but so far, it’s too scary. She needs to learn that she can go backwards and then that will help me a lot. She has also started pulling up to her feet, which is scary as hell for me. We’re going to have to assess the sharp corners in the house and start covering some of them so Jillian’s frequent crashes won’t damage her chances of getting into Columbia.

In house news, we’ve decided August 1st is going to be a good target date for putting the house up for sale. Between now and then we have an Ironman triathlon and Jillian’s birthday, so I have no idea when the place is going to be cleaned and de-cluttered, but I’m sure Freddie will have A LOT OF FREE TIME after we get back from Lake Placid so you can bet I’ll but putting his skinny ass to work.

I am not hip. I am not cool. I might have been hip and/or cool for about ten minutes in 1992, but I think that might have been the only time.

So while other people my age might be checking out the Village Voice for some unknown band playing in a dank basement bar on the Lower East Side, Christine and I are going to see Def Leppard.

Completely irony-free.

Ten years ago, I still would have gone, but I would have been rolling my eyes the whole time.

This time, I plan to RAWK OUUUT!

This won’t be my first 21st century foray into The Good Old Days of Hair Metal because Christine and I saw Def Leppard in 2003. Only about 50% ironically, I think. We’ve now outgrown the need to be hip and/or cool and are going to see them again. Why not? It’s FUN to re-live seventh grade! Plus, neither she nor I will be pregnant so we can get a little bit shitty before we go in and have an extra-rockin’ time.

Too bad I don’t have any acid-wash laying around, and too bad I cut my hair or I would bust out the curling iron and make it big. We’re talking Tawny-Kitaen-Whitesnake-video big. I can barely comb my hair these days, but I was in middle school in the late 80’s so I know my way around a curling iron and a can of Aqua-Net.

Jillian does not like “normal” sippy cups. She chews on the tops of them and then looks at me like “What the hell is this?”

On the recommendation of one of the other mommies in our group, I got us some Nuby sippies, which have a straw-thingy. This seems to work out much better, even though I only put water in the cups and Jillian does not like the non-taste of water.

However, the cups have been leaking a bit because I am too stupid to figure out how to put them together again after washing.

I figured it out today, fully five weeks after I first started giving them to Jillian. I am so incredibly smart, it almost hurts.

You’d think that baby stuff would be LESS complicated than it tends to be, what with the Mommy Brain and extreeeeeme sleep deprivation and straight-up tiredness that we all experience. The sleep thing is improving, the Mommy Brain has morphed into my natural stupidness, so my only excuse is the straight-up tired.

Which I so totally am. Jillian is crawling super-fast, and she’s got these really long arms (like me) so she can reach things that look to be out of her reach. She’s a gibbon! I spend my days catching her and turning her around so she can crawl toward something safe. I don’t have time to be figuring out the damn sippy cup!

I got tagged by Alyssa, who taught me how to hack my Blogger template and encouraged me YEARS ago to get my own goddamn website already.

Like her, if you were a long-time Picky Eater reader, there are very few things about me which would surprise you. But I’ll try.

1. I love nail polish.

2. Today, June 22, 2007, marks the ten-year anniversary of me getting my drivers’ license.

3. I do not like roses.

4. I secretly like to watch golf on TV.

5. I have a third nipple. It used to look like a rather large mole, but it got bigger during my pregnancy and even my OB/GYN was like “whoa.”

6. The two things most requested of me for picnics and potlucks are my guacamole and my peanut sauce.

7. I used to be a Girl Scout, and will happily take on the Scouts when Jillian is old enough, if she is so inclined.

8. I only have one wisdom tooth.

I know I should tag some people, but I can’t think right now - Jillian just woke up and I must go rescue her.

Our cat, Chester, is a total nut. We have had him in our home for nearly six years and he still acts like he just got out of the pound. We originally rescued him from the pound, so we don’t know anything about his history, and at first, we totally expected him to act crazy and afraid.

Six years later and he still acts exactly the same way as he did the first week we had him. This cat is totally mental. He’s afraid of EVERYTHING: air, the sound of his food hitting the bowl, wind, air, me, Freddie, Jillian, the TV, air, you name it. The cat is insane.

So.

Our home is not decorated in what you’d call a “style.” We only just got past the post-college-desperation look, where all the furniture was inherited and nothing went with anything. Now we have some things that look nice together and the place looks a little less like a dorm.

Next to our couch, we have a small glass-topped table that we acquired somewhere. I can’t remember who gave it to us, but it’s ugly as hell. It serves its purpose, though, and lives between the couch and the chair so I have someplace to put my candy dish. Next to this table is the floor lamp, which I actually like.

Well, until now. Now I hate the lamp almost as much as I hate that ugly-ass table. I hate the lamp because it tried to kill my kid today.

See, Chester was checking out the baby toys down in the living room while Jillian and I were practicing going up and down the step that separates the living room and dining room. Something happened to scare the cat (he probably got a glimpse of his own tail and was all “OH SHIT! WHAT’S THAT?”) and his fat self tried to dart between the couch and chair to escape.

His plan was foiled when his fat self got entangled in the scrolly-like legs of the table, causing it to fall over, causing the HEAVY GLASS TOP of it to fall off and crash into the lamp, which then fell over, nearly crushing the baby.

It’s a good thing I’m SuperMom because I scooped Jillian up and out of harm’s way.

Can’t say the same for the lamp, however. The faux-stained-glass shade on the lamp got mushed as it hit the carpet and the post on which the lampshade sat was pulled out of its moorings, thus stripping the bolt that secured it.

I’m sure with a little Gorilla Glue and time I could hillbilly-engineer it back, but the shade is messed up and I just don’t want to look at it. SIGH.

I called Freddie at work to see if he would authorize the purchase of a new lamp and if I should get a matching one to replace the table lamp, too, but he’s busy today and not picking up the phone. We always discuss purchases like this, but I might just make an executive decision if he doesn’t call me back before we go out.

So I’m all jittery now, due to the near-crushing of the baby (the lamp wouldn’t have crushed her - it would have probably hit her shoulder and pissed her off but STILL), the cat is upstairs hiding under the bed shedding like a yak because he’s all freaked out, and Jillian is napping peacefully.

…does the lobotomy hurt?

Seriously, though. Maybe it’s because Wheel of Fortune is on after Jeopardy in the NYC market, but the people on that show are jaw-droppingly stupid.

First off, there is never, under any circumstances, any reason whatsoever to buy a fuckin’ vowel. Maybe if you’ve guess a couple of consonants and you’re really, really stumped then I could see considering it, but for the love of Jeffrey, don’t buy a vowel on your first turn.

Shows like this only serve to underline and reinforce my raging superiority complex. Wheel of Fortune was challenging to me when I was ten. It should not pose a problem for any normal-IQ adult, I don’t think.

What an excellent idea this is: a dry-erase refrigerator. Too bad they’re only available in Brazil.

That got me thinking, though. How could this concept work for me? I’m not sure I like the idea of a dry-erase fridge because the markers can be used on other surfaces as well, but there’s another way to go about it.

A chalkboard!

Here’s what I would do - get a chalkboard (or, if your fridge doors are narrow like ours are, a nice piece of wood sanded down and painted with that chalkboard paint) and some Gorilla Glue or some other kind of crazy adhesive and VOILA! An instant art space!

I am totally guilty of having a cluttered front o’ fridge. We have photos of our baby and other people’s babies on there, along with Freddie’s various race numbers, funny stuff, and a comic my brother sent me when we lived in Indianapolis that has traveled with us through our various moves.

Oh, and magnets. Lots of magnets.

So when Jillian is big enough to want to start drawing on stuff, I’m thinking that a chalkboard fridge might be the way to go. It’s not like the fridge is going to be an heirloom or anything - so I have no problem at all with pimping it out. Now, if I could only get a fridge in purple…