Thursday

There is this huge empty lot on the corner of Broad and Washington that right around this time of year becomes overrun by thistle and Queen Anne's Lace and red clover and something that I always thought was periwinkle until this exact moment when I googled periwinkle and realized I was dead wrong.  It's some sort of weedy, stalky plant that grows flowers that are periwinkle, but that aren't periwinkles.

Broad and Washington is prime real estate.  Maybe not the primest, but pretty damned prime.  No one seems to know why it has been empty for so long or remember what was there before.  There are always rumors about what is going to happen there.  Rumors like Will Smith building a movie studio or an alternate site for the Disney complex that never got off the ground at 8th and Market, but they always sound more like urban legends that actual urban plans.
 And once a year Cirque du Soleil sets up camp there.  That happens for real.  But that's about all that happens.

Anyway, it's overrun by weeds and flowers right now and it smells just like the town where I grew up and it makes me feel summery and soccery and other less pleasant things that are probably the reason I moved 425 miles away from the town where I grew up two weeks after my 18th birthday.

Smells are funny like that.

I'm sensitive to smells.

Sometimes I wonder if I am blessed with a superhuman sense of smell or I am cursed with a lasting run of chronic mini-strokes.

I smell EVERYTHING.

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You know your kid is growing up in the inner city when you tell him that your favorite thing to do as soon as school has let out for the summer was to throw away your busted up school shoes and he replies, "but mom, they don't have laces so how are we going to get them up on the wire?"

***

I am all for providing breastmilk for your children for as long as possible, but I feel there is a time where it is more appropriate to give it to your child in a cup rather than allow them to nurse.  And there is a time when the children aren't really getting any nutritional or emotional benefits from it so it's time to stop altogether because I don't feel it is for the betterment of the child but just fulfilling a weird psycho(logical) need for the mother.

There are a lot of things that we, as parents, do that fill our own needs rather than fill the needs of our children.  It is really bad to do that to our children, but we still do it.  All of us.  Because we are needy creatures.

What are the proper time frames for nursing?  I'm not sure. I think it varies on a child to child basis.  The powers that be at the World Health Organization encourage mothers to nurse for at least two years, but for me that wasn't ever going to happen with Jake. I think two years is an excellent goal for nursing moms, but even nursing for one day has amazing benefits for a child.  Nursing for one feeding.  Whatever you can do.  Sometimes you can do a lot, sometimes you can't do any.

When Jacob was about six months old, I took him to the pediatrician for a well baby visit and there were two children playing with those little plastic barnyard animals on the floor.  Making up adventures and precociously telling all the adults in the room random facts about safaris and other crap that kids care about but grown ups really don't worry over too much.  The mom asked the boys to come and get a drink before they go into the exam room.  The grandmom, who was also there, said to the mom as the boys were unbuttoning mom's shirt to get a drink, "so help me Jesus if this doctor doesn't tell you to stop nursing these children I'm going to throw a goddamn fit.  They are five and seven years old for chrissakes".

It was gross.  And awkward.

My mom was there too and she audibly gagged.

***

I'm going to the beach this weekend.  I should try on my bathing suit tonight to see if it still fits so I don't have to traipse around OCNJ tugging on a crotch crawler.  

There is nothing worse than crotch crawling bathing suits.  Or shorts.  It makes me audibly gag when someone is walking around in shorts and one of the legs creeps up and hooks itself up into that place where your inner thigh starts to stick out and the other leg is hanging exactly where it should be.  Or worse when both legs creep up and there is this A-shaped slant that points right to the vaginal/penile area.  It happens with shorter shorts and non-structured shorts like sweat material shorts or light cottony things that should really only be worn to bed.  I think you  know what I'm talking about, I guess I don't have to go on.

Though I could go on if you want me too.

***

I bought new sheets for my bed.
I love new sheets.
They make me feel cleaner.
Even though I'm no cleaner than I was before.
Probably less, actually.

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Kittens are doing well.

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Basement construction is going well, and we should get the estimate on turning the sunroom at the top of the stairs into a real room by the end of the day today.  Depending on how much that is we will either go ahead and start that now or save some money and start that when it's affordable.

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I've been using Tumblr for awhile now, but I don't really love it.  I almost regret shifting all of my pictures over there from Google, but my Google albums were full and I didn't want to pay for space.  On the plus side, they are now saved to one of those little things you stick in the hole on the side of your computer and save stuff on.  I'm sure they  have a name, and that name isn't "floppy disc", but it's basically a non-floppy rectangle thing that acts like a disc but it's not a disc.  

I know a lot about computers.

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I also joined Instagram but maybe I just don't get it.  It seems a lot like Tumblr, so I don't really love that either.

One of the things I hated about Facebook and Twitter were what I called the bologna sandwich posts.  It's where people tell you the most non-important things going on in their lives, like what they are eating or where they are eating it or who they are eating it with or that they are stuck at a red light or in the line at the grocer.

So now with Instagram and Tumblr I don't have to read about bologna sandwiches, I see pictures of bologna sandwiches.

Which is somehow worse.

But at least I can put the Tumblr and Instagram feeds I do like on my Google Reader.
I think you can't follow someone and block them at the same time, so you get stuck looking at a bunch of crap if you want to be polite and follow back everyone that follows you.

 *** 

I think I've reached the end of the internet.

Or the end of my patience.  

I'll decide and let you know.