A few things while my brain slowly dies.

I can’t come up with any kind of compelling anything for you. All I can think about are the boring details of our boring house purchase. As for the house, I wish it were more boring. It is, sadly, a thrilling mélange. Surprises lurk behind every wall, underneath every soffit (I still don’t know what that is). Stop being so fascinating already, house. Please begin to bore me.

That said, it looks like the house will be ours, all ours. The sellers have generously agreed to lop a nice hunk of money off of the sale price, so that we can repair things and not, say, die.

Here is what I have been doing instead of packing.

1. Playing Weboggle. Weboggle is what it sounds like: Boggle on the Web. Clever name, no? You play against other players, all of whom, apparently, are smarter than me. Than I. Smarter than I. Am. This seems fishy to me, as we all know I’m the smartest person alive. How can BoggleGurl52 pop out “heuristic” and “anachronism” and 30 other multisyllabic words, while I’m patting myself on the back for “hail” and “fans”?

Notice that I am not linking to it. This is my service to you, my Internet family. Do not play this game. It is an evil thing. I began playing one day, and the next thing I knew it was five days later and my family had left me and the electricity was turned off and my pants were gone. All I have now are my memories.

2. Watching My Neighbor Totoro with Henry. This, this I can link to. Henry is going through an extraordinarily sensitive phase wherein anything the least bit frightening, upsetting, or pulse-increasing on any show or movie causes him to clamp his eyes shut and announce I DO NOT LIKE THIS. I was sure he wouldn’t make it all the way through Totoro, as it has forest spirits and other vaguely spooky characters, but he was transfixed. And unlike most other movies we watch together, so was I. And unlike every single Disney movie ever made, no dead parents! Take that, Walt! Hope you’re enjoying that grave-spinning!

3. Watching Mysterious Mose. While Henry is easily spooked, he’s also a sucker for a catchy tune and nifty puppets. This was created by friends of our friends, and I don’t know why I feel compelled to tell you this. Does it make me seem cleverer, that I have this distant connection to the creators of this great short? Are you impressed with me yet?

4. Watching every episode of Yacht Rock. (Not with Henry, as he has no time for the smooth grooves of the seventies.) This is the funniest thing on the web, and should be watched quickly before Kenny Loggins uses his fearsome powers to destroy Channel 101. I sent this link to my sister, who admitted that, though she thought it was indeed funny, she had watched only four of the episodes. This makes no sense to me. This is like saying, “That sure was a delicious brownie. I ate a little less than half of it and then I walked away. I don’t know why, I just had stuff to do.” No, no, no. EAT THE BROWNIE. WATCH THE YACHT ROCK.

5. Reading Traveler’s Tales: Prague, a book edited by my friends Jessie and Farley (See how many clever friends I have! Take THAT, BoggleGurl!). Admittedly I wouldn’t have picked this up if I didn’t know them, since I’ve never been to Prague. But boy howdy, is this book making me want to go there. I am always surprised at how compelling travel writing can be, mostly because I’m so bad at it. (“Italy is nice. The car ride made Henry throw up. If you go to Italy with your kid, try not to take him on long car rides. Also, gelato tastes good. The End.”)

Jessie and Farley have gathered together all kinds of impressive contributors for their book, including Myla Goldberg and the esteemed Czech writer Ivan Klima—and Paulina Porizkova, whom I cornered at the launch party so I could tell her that her mother was my midwife. She was quite gracious and said that she gets that a lot. Then she said some other stuff, but I was too busy marveling at her tallness to listen. I spent the rest of the night telling everyone how I told Paulina that her mother saw my cooter. Of course I didn’t, at least not in those words. But SHE KNEW. And I knew. We gazed meaningfully at each other as Rik Ocasek loomed behind me, brushing his head against the ceiling.

Comments

[Mandy]

Congratulations on the house!

[scatterbrain]

you were so right. weboggle is evil. EVIL I SAY!

[emily]

Man, Totoro rules. Saw it in my Japanese language class. I second the Kiki's Delivery Service nomination. Spirited Away might still be a bit too scary. As for word games, I'm antisocial so I am addicted to Text Twist. Man, I'm so going to go play Text Twist now instead of doing work, thanks!

[Y]

*googles webobble*

[Y]

HAHAHAHAH "WEBOBBLE" HAHAHAHHA

you know what I meant.

[Annie]

I've lived in ten residences in the last ten years so I completely sympathize with the packing avoidance.

I love your travelogue snippet. Would you include pictures of Henry throwing up? And maybe a picture of some gelato?

[gwen]

While I appreciate the fact that you left out the link to Weboggle, I must ask one question...Why, oh why did you post the link to the Yacht Rock episodes? Now I must watch them all. You are right about not being able to leave them for later, unfortunately. Or, perhaps, fortunately, since they also made me shoot wine out my nostrils what with the laughing and all.

[Belinda]

Our new house has definitely stopped being fascinating. Especially while or old one remains unlisted and, naturally, unsold. Just give it time.

And the Boggle champs are not smarter than you. My husband is a super-genius, and he could not Boggle his way out of a paper bag. Seriously. And "heuristic?" Come on. She's got some kind of Boggle cheating program, obviously.

[Gumballino]

We just finished watching Howl's Moving Castle which is also by Hayao Miyazaki. Very cute movie, but my 6 year old was a little freaked out by parts, so maybe save it until Henry is a little older. Odd that we watched this movie the same day you posted about Totoro.

http://gumballino.blogspot.com/

[dithers]

My old ob-gyn is dave matthew's first cousin. And I would tell people all the time, and you could see them doing the cooter math in their heads...

[kate c.]

throwingutah, Totoro was made by Studio Ghibli, not by Disney. Disney bought the rights, and unfortunately cut out a couple of things from the DVD release, including a sweet scene in which the dad and two daughters are bathing together in a traditional family tub.

[Debl]

Excuse me, EXCUSE ME, S-Way, I am the one who introduced YOU to Yacht Rock. So this whole thing really began with me. That's right, I am awesome. Finslippy is awesomer, but I totally, virtually, gave her Yacht Rock. You're all welcome.

And yes, I still have the piece of paper with SIDS and LIDS on it. The best part is that he had tried two other four-letter words, but he scratched them out, so the piece of paper looks like this:

XXXX
SIDS
XXXX
LIDS

Ha ha! If only he had stayed that cute and funny. Sigh.

[Debl]

Oh, and congrats on the house! Can't wait to barge in and see it once you get settled in.

[Alice's friend Alex from college]

I am convinced that the majority of Web Boggle players cheat. There is no way that these people are legitimately scoring 200 points in the time allotted. I couldn't even type that many words in time. They must be using a " 'bot" or a "schnozz" or a "tamilflu" or whatever to boost their scores. I demand a congressional investigation.

[Schnozz]

I just dropped by to say I will NEVER FORGIVE YOU for giving me Weboggle. First, I'm addicted to it, and second, I suck at it. It's a recipe for some sort of complex and it is ALL YOUR FAULT.

That's all.

[lisa]

I really wish you hadn't mentioned Weboggle. Some guy named WigglyAppendage keeps kicking my ass.

[Bella]

Is it sad that I don't even know how to play Boggle?

[zhanae]

yesterday, i was playing and saw someone with the handle "new finslippy fan." what name does everyone play under? I'm DonnaMartinGraduates.

[carolyn]

Okay, I know I'm really late on this one, but just had to say...

- I grew up in a small Arizona town, home to an annual bicycle race. When I was about 12 or 13 (this was about 15-17 years ago), I was walking through the downtown area during the race when I spotted a tall, extremely pale man dressed all in black hand in hand with a tall, not as pale woman. Upon further examination, I realized the couple was Ric and Paulina. In my small little town! Imagine my excitement as a child of the 80s.

- I just started reading back postings of finslippy, and I have to say bravo. Totally off topic, your end of breastfeeding post mirrored my own experience.