Ruminating Slav

Wherein you, the reader, are redirected

Oh, hi! You still here? I, as you may have noticed, have not been. I've had shockingly little desire to blather on about myself for the past few months. Maybe it's temporary. Maybe not. Who knows! I am full of surprises that way. Either way, I'm still paying the rent over here so don't go and chuck your Slav RSS feed out the window just yet.

Speaking of, though I may not be currently gracing you with bon mots a-plenty, I am still taking plenty of photos. So if you are of the sort who would like to keep up with my goings-on (or of the sort who enjoys macro shots of Crap In My Yard), you can add my flickr RSS feed to your Bloglines (warning: flickr feed tends to skew kid-heavy). I'm attempting to get into the habit of posting a few sentences with every photo I post, so it's like a mini blog-post plus photo in one! Slav Lite! Admit it -- you love it.

objects in mirror may be closer than they appear

objects in mirror may be closer than they appear, originally uploaded by *Karo*.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

So BK's been out of town a lot this month. Baxter was very excited to have him back this weekend.



What has the Slav been up to, you ask? Well! I hope you're sitting down. After I read Harry Potter #7 I was so sad and woeful about the series being over that I went back and read all seven books in a row. After that I was all excited about reading so I read all 13 Stephanie Plum mysteries. I figured this Janet Evanovich couldn't be all bad if she was publicly admitting to reading Buffy Season 8. Now I'm itching to sink my teeth into another thoughtless yet not completely crap mystery series. Suggestions?

Last night BK tried to take me out to eat for my birthday, but seeing as he hadn't actually made any reservations the waiter at Bijoux laughed at us when we strolled in and asked for a table. We ended up at Rouge, which served surprisingly good tapas. I also limited myself to two sangrias, which, as anyone who's ever been around me when I've consumed too much sangria can vouch for, is a very good thing. Then we saw Superbad, which was good fun. I enjoyed all 186 uses of the word "fuck."

This week marks my last week of employment before my shit-canning goes into effect. I guess that's a little bit of boo and yay combined. I've had a laid-off version of senioritis since I heard the news, so it'll be nice to not have to do work seasoned with resentment any more. But then, no more paycheck, however meager. This week we're also tagging along with BK on a business trip to NYC, which should be nice for a change of pace. It might even be cool enough to go outside, something we haven't experienced in the post-8 am hours for months here in Texas. Central Park, here we come!

Ah, sweet mystery of life

Ah, sweet mystery of life, originally uploaded by *Karo*.

Laid back off ... with my mind on my money and my money on my mind

Yesterday I drove up to work because my boss wanted to talk to me about summer projects. Turns out that summer plans involve doing the Dread Annual Report again, immediately followed by being shitcanned. Noice. Three out of the six positions in my departments (that's 50% for all you mathletes out there) are being eliminated, mine being one of the lucky three. So my advice to you, internets, is, if you want it to rain, get your car washed. And if you want to get laid off, enroll your kid in daycare so you can get more work done.

Speaking of daycare, today was introductions day over at the JCC. Songs were sung in Hebrew, and camp t-shirts were passed out. Also, tears fell copiously from the little red-rimmed eyes belonging to my son, who spent the whole hour piteously tugging on my shirt and begging, "Up! Up!" I'm not sure why he was so freaked out since he didn't know WTF was going on -- maybe because BK has taken him to the JCC a few times to work out and left him in the babysitting room there? In any case, next week is going to be quite traumatic for the little dude if today was any indication. Update: Baxter woke up from his nap with an over-103° fever, so I think I have my answer.

Yesterday I made Pecan Crusted Chicken Tenders and Salad with Tangy Maple Dressing for dinner. My first batch of tenders turned out just fine, and then all culinary hell broke loose. The oil got too hot, chicken started burning, the smoke started smoking, and the fire alarm that's connected to the security system started whoop-whoop-whooping. Whoopy! All the doors and window were open, the fans were going, and the alarm was blaring in exactly 2½ minute intervals. We finally had to call the security company and have them reset the system cause momma didn't need no 150-second reminders about what a failure she was in the kitchen.

Mongeese, it is time for me to make a public apology to Neil Patrick Harris. Some time ago I viciously maligned his television show. How wrong I was! Not only am I now a big fan of How I Met Your Mother, but I think I may have a teeny-weeny crush on Barney Stinson. Seriously, WTF? What is it with me and the fictional assholes?

buster, originally uploaded by *Karo*.

In other news, I got my news lens! And I'm in the process of switching over from iPhoto to Aperture and the steep software learning curve is hurting my soft, soft sedentary brains. And I haven't even started shooting in RAW yet, sheesh. Hey, on the bright side, I'll have something to keep me busy while I'm officially unemployed and Baxter is in daycare. What's that? You thought that come the end of July when I'm out of work I'd quit with the daycare? Hahahahahaha.

You'd be wrong.

Also, my kid hates fingerpainting with the fire of one thousand suns:

oh my god what have you done?!?!, originally uploaded by *Karo*.

I dare you to look at Baxter's expression in this photo and not cackle out loud. Dare you.

Meet lolcat Joshua Wanat

lolcat joshua wanat, originally uploaded by *Karo*.

Looky here, internets! You can now create your very-own lolcats in 30 seconds flat thanks to the handy-dandy lolcat generator over at fd's flickr toys. If that's not a fine way to spend an afternoon at work, I don't know what is.

Many thanks to C. for this particular caption.

Recent Baxter photos

Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

Buttery Nikon goodness

Oh internets, I am all a-twitter. Your friend and mine, Tootie, you know the one, is entering the brave new world of DSLR-dom via my Nikon D70. I, therefore, am movin' on up in said -dom. First I went really insane and was going to dooce it up again with the Canon 5D, but quickly came to my senses. Clearly, the Slav does not need that much camera. So then I set my sights on the Nikon D200, but I went and checked it out at a local store and came to the conclusion that it, also, is much fancier than the Slav. Finally I settled on the Nikon D80 cause it's significantly less expensive but has almost the exact same guts as the D200. Plus it maintains all the auto-presets of the D70 so BK will still be able to use it.

Though I am excited about the D80, oh yes I am, I am even more excited about the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens that will arrive some time next month. Oh sweet mother. I think buying this lens forces me to now refer to camera lenses as "glass," oh-most-pretentious of photographer lingo. Next thing you know I'll be throwing around "bokeh" with the best of them, and won't I just be the fanciest girl this side of Mississippi.

And just because when I go all out, I go all out, I will also soon be the proud owner of the Crumpler Sinking Barge, which has been on my amazon wish list for over a year now, so can't call that one an impulse buy. (I own the McBain's Lovechild for my trusty old iBook -- which has gotten much use over the past few months what with the MacBook Pro woes DAMMIT I WASN'T GOING TO MENTION IT IN THIS POST -- and I love it.) Aaaand, I finally got a Speedlight, so I can play with the bounce flash big kids now instead of just yapping around and nipping at their ankles.

Ok, I think that is it. Expect marvels of photographic excellence to be posted here soon. In the meantime I leave you with this picture of my kid, who I promise has had a haircut since:

If this post was a casserole it wouldn't be very tasty

yucking it up
Originally uploaded by *Karo*.

Hi pork chops! Guess what? I done got my baby enrolled in daycare at the local JCC three mornings a week starting next month. Think of it! Twelve oh-so luxurious, child-free hours a week during which I can lay around on the couch stuffing my maw with those proverbial bon-bons do work and go to the gym. Plus, the whole interacting with other human beings his own age has got to be good for the little scamp, right? Right!

Volvo XC90
Originally uploaded by *Karo*.

I also got a ... brand new car! My S40's lease was up soon so the nice people at the Volvo dealership were kind enough to let me pay them even more money monthly for a bigger car that beeps ever-so fearsomely at me if it thinks I'm about to back up into something. The stereo system also has an auxilliary input for that iPod that I never use any more, and plays mp3 CDs. Who needs that iPod when I can have upwards of 1,000 songs in my six-disc changer! Man oh manischewitz, am I ever living now.

I don't even really want to mention it, but since I've been faithfully chronicling my MacBook Pro saga for posterity, I guess I shouldn't omit the fact that I am now on MBP number 4. After my last post I found out that number three had a faulty RAM bay, so I couldn't install my additional memory. So I had to mail it in, and after it came back it started the whole not-sleeping-when-the-lid-is-closed thing that number one used to do, oh joy of joys. I know, right? It'd almost be funny if it weren't so pathetic. The cow I ended up with in tier-two AppleCare kept insisting that it was software related, even though it only started happening after I got the machine back from the repair depot. After the whole litany of "fixes" ending with and archive and install didn't fix it, I went back to the Apple Store and gave it to them, because I had a feeling she was going to make me wipe the hard drive clean next. Anyway, the long and short is that the geniuses replaced it. Again. This one's trackpad button is a little on the wonky side and sometimes doesn't register clicks, but I'm going to ignore that for now because I'm just so disgusted with the whole mess.

green shoes
Originally uploaded by *Karo*.

Oh! So I came across this awesome deal for the Canon SD1000, and because I'm an idiot and cannot pass up a good tech deal I bought one to replace my old point-and-shoot Canon S230. Among other things, it has much better video-taking capabilities than the S230, but it can also do this. --->

Listen up, Dallas! I am now ready to be your crappy "artistic" wedding photographer. Please allow me to take stunning black-and-white photos of your flower girl kissing the ring bearer, and my camera will color up those red flowers she's holding! These priceless and fancy memories can be yours to hang on the wall next to your Thomas Kinkades for the low, low price of two thousand U.S. dollars!

Finally, those of you reading the Buffy Season Eight comic book, or those who aren't and don't mind being spoiled: how awesome is this? Check out J-Dub sticking it to the shippers. Good times.

17.5-month mama & son

17.5-month mama & son second close-up, originally uploaded by *Karo*.