counting down

on my homepage, i've got a couple of baby-related counters on my homepage. One is from babycenter and gives a handy weekly update. But when you're this close, things that change weekly don't change nearly frequently enough. So I have a generic counter that counts down the days and hours, minutes, seconds until baby time. Right now, we're looking at 10 days or approximately 226 hours, 59 minutes and 20...19...18...and so on.

Watching that tick down is pretty gratifying.

a note about the weather

the following are happening concurrently:

rain
hail
snow
sleet

all falling so hard that it looks like it's being shot out of a giant fake snow cannon.

apparently the boys are going to go out in it. i think they're nuts.

taxes

slight errors on tax forms bite. i sorta left off the dub's SSN...weird how they don't want you to take the child tax credits if you can't account for your child! happily it's the kind of thing that's fixed with a phone call.

which, when you come to think of it, is pretty surprising. since when is anything you do for local, state or federal government simple? maybe i'm speaking too soon, though. maybe it's the phone call from hell. even if it isn't, i'm making brandon do it.

in other news--juno was cute, but not as superfantasticOMGawesomeslurpee as everybody made it out to be. much better in the low-key indie vein was wristcutters: a love story. seeing them both so close together made me think that patrick fugit and ellen page should totally do a movie together--and also that i really love what patrick fugit's decided to do with his career. i haven't seen him in a movie i've disliked (then again, i haven't seen Legion of Fire: Killer Ants!).

Hey, I think I have some stuff on my list to cross off. I think I'll check that out.

not technically sick anymore. i think. just a little runny nose.

we're watching the old charlotte's web, and it's really not that good.

we went to the bookstore yesterday (yay!) because i've read almost everything that's lying around our house and i need something to look at besides the terrifying pages of pregnancy guide that convince you that you have every horrible problem and medical calamity on the list.

So...here's what we picked up:
Jesus Land
Gravity's Rainbow
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
The Other Boleyn Girl
House of Leaves

All books for grownups! This is surprising.

We just watched season one of the Tudors, and I guess I got nostalgic for the subject matter without actually challenging myself with the academics of the thing. I gotta say it's been fun to sit on the couch and go "That happened. That didn't. That guy became Elizabeth's Archbishop of Canterbury and that guy got burned at the stake by Mary." And even Brandon got a little charge of insider glee when Cardinal Wolsey said he needed to make a pilgrimage to Walsingham.

It's made me realize, though, that we need to get back to England. There's so much we didn't see! Like Walsingham, for starters.

Robot Space Truck

Isn't it just the coolest thing when phrases like "robot space truck" have actual meaning in the world? I so love living in the future.

Arggh

Sometimes America is not so easy to love/why do people say such stupid things?

She scoffs at the idea of voting for Obama: "I don't want to be a Muslim!" She looks dubious when told Obama is Christian. "Then why did he go see what's-his-name over in Iraq, that Lama?"

She isn't clear about whom she means. She may have seen a photo of Obama wearing traditional clothing during a visit to Africa. "I don't care what color he is, I don't care if he's pink," she said. "I don't think he's got the same education Hillary has, and he's so young. He's arrogant, too."