Join Me in Snarkville

Life in Snarkville is very, very close to insanity.  In fact, we are three white coats and a short bus from declaring Frankenhouse an asylum and beginning to make moccasins.  So, there is no coherent story with a point, a tear, or anything worthwhile today — today you get bullet points of the randomness in my life.

• You must know that Duke has not worn his NEW red jacket at all.  In fact he has chosen to wear the navy blue jacket that I’ve had all along and did not involve tears or shoplifting accusations to purchase.  Fickle, thy name is FOUR.
• I’ve been walking lately.  Ok, the honest part of me must tell you that I’ve walked between 2 to 3 miles a weekday since last Thursday.  I’m overly proud of myself, well, I was, until I hopped on the scale on Monday morning and saw I’d GAINED a pound.  This is more proof that life is not fair.  I have a pile of sweaty clothes on the floor (I totally mean, lovingly washed, folded and put away) and an extra pound on my butt.  Fickle, thy name is Royal Fat.
• Duke read his very first word on Sunday night.  It brought tears to my eyes and praises beyond belief to my mouth.  Now, I don’t think that we are about to have a reader on our hands, but the first time ever, he connected the letters on the page to spell out and thus say/read the word.  I know this boy of mine, he is his mother’s son, this child can memorize anything and that is not reading.  So, I think we have some time to go before he is sounding through words to figure them out or devouring the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  But, on Sunday Night, curled up in bed, reading Where the Wild Things Are.  My little Duke, pointed to the word and said, “M-A-X says Max.”  Yes, buddy it does.  Growing Up, thy name is reader.
• Prince and I had a long chat this past weekend.  As we were doing some prep work for our trip (and by prep, I mean shopping for things like daypacks and shoes), we went to a local camera store.  Prince was (on my suggestion) looking for a camera backpack [total sidenote here:  Prince prefers to carry his 'gear' on his back.  Which is great for the hands free thing, but not great since he is not a freak of nature with more than one back.  And for the record, we may have as many backpacks in this house as I have shoes -- scary stuff].  So, while we were there, I drooled over the cameras some more.  The nice old guy there and I started talking.
  • Him: So, you want an dSLR?
  • Me: Oh, yes.  But I’m still not sure.  I keep looking at the Nikon D40x; but he thinks I should be like him and go with the Canon.
  • Him: The Canon is a good camera. Do you have multiple lenses for it?
  • Prince: OH YES!!!
  • Him: Perhaps you should consider a “body only” and share.
  • Me,faints
  • Me, recovering: We don’t typically share well.
  • Him, not amused.
  • Me: Thank you I’ll think about it.

  So, we head off to lunch and chat.  About halfway through, it dawns on us — if we share, then one person would have the telephoto and one the wide angle and we’d get DIFFERENT shots and save time on changing the lenses out!!!  Squee.  Hence, winging it’s way to me as I type is my very own dSLR, Canon Rebel XT (yes, I know it isn’t the latest or even the nearly latest — but it was in my price range and I think, since it is the same one Prince has, it will work just fine.) Photographer, thy name is Queen.

• In knitting news — because I think I still have a knitter or two who reads me — I have dipped my toe into working on one project at a time.  I’m desperately trying to get my cardigan done for my trip — I have a little over a week, and I just started the arms.  I tried to do them at the same time and I’m failing, because they are in the round and I don’t do in the round at the same time well.  Plus, I don’t have 2 sets of 3.75mm needles — so I’m working on a make-shift combo/interchangeable set with a 3.5mm on one end and a 3.75mm on the other.  (This will make sense to a knitter.)  I’m knitting with the 3.75mm —so hopefully this weekend I’ll pick up my second set of 3.75mm tips and all will be good again.
• Finally, Prince gifted me with a lovely iTunes card for me to load up my iPod and perhaps a bit of space on my iPhone with videos and stuff for the trip.  I’m officially stumped.  So, I’m reaching out to my reading friends.  If you had what is essentially (to me at least) unlimited fund in iTunes to buy a movie — what would it be?  My preference is something I haven’t seen before (not hard) and something I will want to see a couple of times (harder) and hopefully something that Prince might not also want to see and thus mean that we still leave it on our NetFlix list or he purchase it too (hardest). HELP ME….