Devolution

So here is my question, and I'd love to hear everyone's opinion on this.

Will humanity eventually evolve such that it no longer needs rigorous/regular exercise because most focus is mental?

or

Will humankind's shift toward brain-powered advancement come to a screeching halt because of our inability to continue to live our high-stress, sit in a chair all day, unable to find the proper time to exercise lives?

Perhaps (and this is an interesting theory) we will all stop the shift toward bettering our lives by automating and removing tedious or exhausting tasks (washing machines, machine churned butter, automatic car washes, ...cars) and eventually devolve. I hear chimps get plenty of exercise.

Or perhaps we continue the biological science effort and continue to extend the human life expectancy so we can spend more fat and stressed time on this earth.

Discuss.

Bat update

In other news, the Bat departed my deck/screen enclosure yesterday evening and has not returned.

Holy GUANO, Batman!

Last night's adventure at least ended well. I was awoken by "(flap flap flap)". It took me a little while to actually get out of bed and take the large flying thing seriously, and once I did I realized pretty quickly it was a bat. The solution didn't come to me as quickly. I stood frozen in the doorway thinking two thoughts:
"How in the world did that thing get in here?" and
"What do I do? I can't catch a bat!"

Despite what you might think, bats are not very coordinated when in tight spaces. They have no qualms about running right into you and continuing on their merry little way. This was just a bit too disturbing to my exhausted mind which was incapable of thinking anything but the above two thoughts.

It took a few minutes but an eternity for me to realize the obvious solution was to open the sliding glass door and wait for it to go outside. Once outside I would slide the door shut again, thus trapping it in the little screened in porch outside my room. It was a sub-optimal solution, but at least would enable me to put off a more long term solution until I was capable of it. I opened the sliding glass door and bolted to my door leading to the hallway, hoping it wouldn't fly past me and into the main part of the house. I think I fell asleep standing up or something, because all of a sudden it was silent in there and I had no idea where it went.

I stepped into the room cautiously, and cringing every step of the way ventured in far enough to see if it had taken advantage of the open closet door. I prayed this wasn't the case, because it leads to a much larger and more difficult to seal area (the attic). As I walked I was becoming sure it had weaseled its way into the closet/attic. I had even turned full around to look in the closet when it came fwapping upside my head from outside. It had actually gone out the sliding glass door as I had intially intended, but because I fell asleep at the wheel and now it was back in the room with me, whapping and flapping and all. So now because I blew it I had to stand bravely at the door waiting (praying) for it to go out again. By some miracle it did, and I slid the door shut as quickly as I could.

Whew.

The photo above was taken this evening when I went out to the deck to see if he had departed, or if he was going to take up residence on my deck. It looks like he's taking up residence.

Shameless bragging about child

I rarely do this, but this time I just had to blog about it. Mostly because this is, in fact, Nikolai's baby book of sorts. I haven't had time to fill his out (I know, I know, I'm three years and a few months late), so what I blog here is what I'll remember in 10 years.
The night before last we were laying in bed watching some TV (animal planet), and there was a big NEXT on the TV. Nikolai said "That's an N! N for Nikolai!" and so I said "That is an N. It actually spells Next, though. N-E-X-T spells next." He said "G is for Giovanni!" I said "Yes, that's right, it is!" and so he said, slowly and deliberately, thinking between each letter "G--I--V--I--N! Giovanni!" and then paused and said "E!! E!" meaning he'd forgotten the "e" sound at the end.
I think he's ready to read now.
OK, I'm done with the shameless bragging.

oh man, you've gotta see this. I just about blew a gasket.
Babies with their Fathers

props to Brenda for the link.

Cars

On Saturday I got the bright idea that I should introduce Nikolai to a movie theater. We have a tiny little theater in Scotts Valley which is just perfect for first time introductions. We've hesitated up to now because of his unusually sensitive nature which causes a fear of most media (aimed at seriously desensitized children) combined with his tendency to be completely overwhelmed with anything that involves noise above a whisper. Between these two things we figured it could be recipe for disaster, and so we waited patiently for the right movie to come along. This weekend, it did. "Cars" made its debut on the screen on Friday, and by Saturday I had concocted a plan for a visit to the theater on Sunday. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to introduce him to the loud sound of the movies and previews, but figured the perfect solution might strike me when I got there.
Exercising my typical sensibility and foresight, I headed straight to the movies with a three year old with no food, no jacket and not a moment's glance online at movie times. Consequently we got there two hours early for the movie and were challenged with the task of entertaining an eager and excited three year old repeating "we're going to see a movie! and we're going to get popcorn! and candy!! and bubblies!" over and over again until he was getting no respose from the adults and so was just whispering it to himself. We got some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from the grocery store, and actually convinced him to eat a couple (protein...thank goodness.) We visited the birds, bunnies and fishies at the pet store. This visit only lasted about 10 minutes because the birds were so loud he didn't want to stay in the store. We stopped in at the hardware store so I could check out the rototillers and other various gardening supplies. That killed another 10 minutes. The lady at the ticket counter had told us to come about 1/2 an hour early for the movie because she thought it would sell out like the previous showings had, and thought we might want to come early to assure good seating.
About 40 minutes before the movie we could entertain him no longer and decided to head into the theater. He was really excited about the whole thing (popcorn and candy and bubblies...oh my!), and was getting tough to contain. It struck me suddenly what the perfect solution was for introducing him to the overwhelming stimulus of the theater itself -- I would go into the theater while the previous showing was still going!! This way we would miss the action packed previews and noisy evil THX robots with their fiendish bands of cows, and he could just see the cars themselves.
I asked him if he wanted to check it out and he said "Yeah!", so we headed into the theater, standing cautiously by the door. He had his fingers plugged tightly into his ear canals, but was watching the screen intently. He basically did not move for about 3 minutes (blink honey...blink), and so I slowly reached up and tugged on one of fingers 'til it dislodged from his ear canal. He sat there with it poised by his ear for a few moments, and then realizing that the sound would not, in fact, cause him to spontaneously combust, he removed the other finger from his other ear and dropped his arms by his sides.
Realizing this was indeed a solid victory, I remained about 2 more minutes and then carried him out of the theater. He was reaching behind me saying loudly "In there, mama! I wanna go in there! Can we go watch that movie again? Please? Can we?"
I was triumphant.
I would have felt so clever, if it hadn't been for the previous 2 hours of torture resulting from my complete lack of planning.
By the time the movie actually started Nikolai had eaten 3/4 of a box of whoppers and staunchly refused any popcorn or bubbly. About 80% of the way through the movie he started to lose it. The chair was a little too hard (rock hard booster seats -- note to self: next time bring pillow for tiny bottom). The music was a little too loud. The child talking behind us was a tad too distracting and so he insisted on turning around and having a conversation with her. Sugar crash coming on and tantrums inevitable we took him out of the theater.
All in all not a bad experience, and I think next time will be easier. Next time I'll check movie times. Next time I'll bring a pillow for the tiny bottom. Next time I'll get the "kids pack" instead of a full adult size serving of whoppers (never mind that even an adult should not eat a whole box of whoppers). I think he remembers it fondly. I think I always will, too.

B is for ...

Why are there no B's in hard drives and batteries?

sniff

Louise left today. and I'm sick. hope this goes away soon.

we went on a major shopping spree on tuesday at the pacific garden mall here in santa cruz. I didn't have a whole heck of a lot to spend, but we certainly did see everything there was to see. there are so many more stores down there than I thought there were. I haven't been to the south end of the mall in YEARS, and so there were several pleasant surprises there. we got downtown around 9:00 am and after a hearty breakfast at walnut ave. cafe we set off on our shopping mission.
we hit every interesting shop from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, with a brief break for lunch. I think louise was happy to get out of the house, at least.
wednesday we went for a trip to capitola village. lunch at paradise grill was fabulous, as always, and our shopping was brief. we were pooped from the day before, I'm sure, and I didn't realize it but I was actually coming down with the cold I have now.
Last night we begged louise to stay longer, or promise to come back soon, but to no avail. who can blame her? :-D

wooooo hoo!!!!

Well, I got *exactly* what I asked for in terms of salary. I got a job offer, and signed the letter less than 24 hours after the interview process began.
Life is good.

There is hope...there's also a carnivore in our midst

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. This place is AMAZING! Man, I'd love to work here. I spent a good percentage of my time laughing through the interview. The people are fun, the product is really cool and the whole thing strikes me as very happy. I had no idea how down I was at Borland until this place gave me perspective.

Last night, though, Kitten was on a rampage. There were three mice who died yesterday. Two were uneventful deaths but the third was enough to make my skin crawl. I have a tough time ingesting meat to begin with. I've been battling the idea of how disgusting it is to eat a dead animal for many years. Some years I'll eat the meat, other years I won't. I think Kitten cured me of the desire.
Last night in the middle of the night she pranced into my room with the infamous Mommy-I-have-something-dead-for-you-meow. I was dead asleep, so I had to think on my feet to figure out how to keep her from delivering it to my shoulder again. Unlike last time, it actually appeared to be deceased, which was a relief. She was making motions to jump up onto my bed to give me my present, when I loudly and lovingly praised her for her generous offer. She debated a while and finally dropped the dead but otherwise intact mouse on the floor by my bed, then jumped up to get her physical praise. I petted her and praised her thoroughly and she happily popped off the bed back to the mouse. Then it started...
crunch crunch slop crunch sshhhhlop
Ugh. She was actually EATING the mouse. I thought if we fed her cat food she wouldn't need to do this, but I was obviously quite wrong.
Matt said "Well, I guess I'd better go clean that up before she makes a huge mess of it."
He headed down the stairs and the munching got even louder.
crunch CrUnCh CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH!! SLUUUURP
It was roughly 13 seconds from when she began crunching and Matt returned with the paper towell to clean it up. He turned on the light and stared dumbly at the floor beside her, and finally said "There's nothing but a tail."
She ate the WHOLE MOUSE sans tail in about 20 seconds. I said "get her out of here before she poops."
I never did find the owl pellett dissection too fascinating, and can't imagine kitty pellets would be any more fun.
I can't eat meat for a few years now.

Help has arrived!

Louise arrived today. Yay! Nikolai is soooooo happy to see grammy.
I'm supposed to interview tomorrow at 2:00 pm. I'm nervous as all heck, but I guess we'll see how it goes. I haven't really interviewed seriously for quite some time, so I'm pretty short on practice. I hope no one tries to see how smart I am.