Eventually Clever

No, the kids didn’t sleep in, but they didn’t charge into the bedroom and wake up Dina until 8:00, so, technically, she was able to sleep in. When they did charge in, they brought their gift bags of Mother’s Day gifts (both storebought and school-made) and helped Dina open everything. The best part of the presents was hearing Ben and Naomi talk - about the gifts, about the wrapping, about how beautiful everything was.

We had a pancake breakfast and then went out to the pool for a round of lessons. Naomi’s went well, but Ben was still tired and cranky from his big Saturday, so he didn’t want to set foot in the water. These things happen.

Once the kids were down for their naps, Dina went to the mall to join the other throngs of moms buying shoes. Just after she left, I realized that Ben and Naomi were just faking their naps. Joke was on me!

They were actually great for the afternoon: Ben built rocketships about of K’Nex, and Naomi pulled a kitchen stair to the sink and helped me wash dishes! (She did this all on her own, I swear. I put her in charge of scrubbing the clean dishes in the rack.) I even managed to get some work done!

Dina came home, showed off her finds, and then the rest of the evening was spent in the usual way…BBQ hamburgers, baths, Little Bear and cups of warm milk.

Once the kids are asleep, the real fun begins: the first episode of Weeds followed by the third episode of The Wire!

The Ottawa portion of Mother’s Day was terrific: good lunch, good visit to the Tulip Festival, and a decent dinner, despite exceedingly long wait and service times.

The kids are the heroes of the day. They stayed up until 9:00 PM without any naps and, more importantly, without any tantrums or breakdowns. Hooray!

(Now here’s hoping they’ll sleep in tomorrow.)

Dina and I haven’t been to the movies together since Death at a Funeral back in December.

Iron Man made for a great reason to return…to be followed by Incredible Hulk, Dark Knight, Get Smart and Hancock and probably some more Iron Man somewhere in there.

From time to time, eBay transactions go bad and I have to file a dispute with Paypal. I’m usually in direct contact with the vendor, and the Paypal claim is there as backup; only once has Paypal actually intervened to get my money back.

This time around, Paypal said they couldn’t accept my dispute, because I filed it after the 45-day window. I checked my calendar and realized that it was, in fact, Day 50. So I sent Paypal an email saying, essentially, “Come on! I’ve been talking to the vendor since Day 30. Don’t let five days stop you from helping me out.”

I didn’t expect Paypal to take my side. That would have been reasonable. I expected a form letter reminding me of all the deadlines that I had missed and acknowledged in my initial email. Like the automatic response from a clerk who starts talking as soon as you step up to the counter and won’t look you in the eye or acknowledge what you’ve just said, this kind of letter is the first line of customer disservice.

That’s the email I got, but I was mightily amused that the letter opened with this paragraph: “Thank you for contacting us. I am sorry to hear about (briefly repeat member’s situation).” [emphasis added]

It’s good to know that Paypal is supposed to pretend to care, but they’re just too lazy.

I’m long past my wide-eyed fixation with the Tarantino oeuvre (though I confess that Death Proof looks pretty sweet), but soundtracks keep running through my head, and I’m passing them along to my children.

To wit, when Naomi wants to get down from her chair/top of the slide/top bookshelf, she says “Get down! Get down! Whoop!”

Because that’s what I say when I let her down.

All thanks my discovery of Jungle Boogie on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack.

(Further evidence: Ben and Naomi can both hum the tune of Magic Carpet Ride, because that’s what I hum while I pull them down the hall on a blanket. When they play the game themselves, or with their stuffed animals, they do the humming. Again, thanks to the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. I’m never teaching them Stuck in the Middle with You.)

While the weekend flu forced me into slumber and unconsciousness, the lingering recovery is enticing me to sleep. I don’t have to sleep, but the the prospect of anything else doesn’t appeal.

This bug’s a real kick in the pants, yes it is!

I’ve had a weird work day.

It all began with an email from a potential new client. On Friday, I had politely declined their initial offer, saying that my current contract didn’t leave me enough flexibility to take on new work. Their response today was: “I thought your contract was over.”

Huh?

Did they know something I didn’t? I checked the name of the person who gave them my contact info - it was indeed somebody who works for my current main client. They may well have known something I didn’t.

So I confirmed with my current client and learned that, yes, my mandate seems to be winding down. (This isn’t a huge surprise. The contract was inititally scoped to cover one project and a set number of hours, but it was phrased in such a way that it could continue indefinitely, so long as the hours of work justified it).

I immediately got in touch with that potential client, shared a laugh, and set up a meeting.

Then I went about my day, doing some work and playing with the kids. When I arrived home, there was a stack of emails waiting from me: from the new client, from my current client with a small job, and from two other clients!

When it rains, it pours, apparently.