Clarifications and Updates

Happy Holiday weekend, readers! A few questions seem to have surfaced about my last post. To clarify, I was not in the habit of toasting animal crackers. I have some weird food habits, but toasting cookies isn't one of them. Somehow a plastic bag full of said crackers fell UNDER my toaster oven, and had been roasting underneath it for an undetermined amount of time. My concern was largely that I didn't smell PLASTIC BAGS burning!

This made me realize there are a lot of updates to previous posts that I don’t feel really deserve their own posts, so I thought I would just do a little update post for y’all!

My update to my Comcast woes.
So, a few more techs have come and gone. I was finally informed that because my Tivo is not an HD Tivo, my incompatibility is just a side-effect of Comcast sucking. As of now, my Tivo will tape one item on basic cable, and one item on the other channels. About half of my things don’t tape at all because the basic cable still recognizes it as a channel, but doesn’t actually exist. So like when I want to tape Millionaire Matchmaker (don’t judge, it makes me feel good about being poor), the Tivo defaults to Channel 30, but I get nada. Haven’t figured out how to fix that. I’m trying to figure out  if I can somehow get Comcast to give me their DVR for free and use that credited money to pay off my Tivo contract. Otherwise I’ll have to eventually pay $300 for a new HD Tivo.

My update to my state of sports polygamy.
Well, you guys, loyalty sucks. Basically because I happened to eliminate anyone who goes up against the Patriots…I was left with not much. I’m dead last. Probably my first and last year doing fantasy football.

I think the extra burn for me is that I lost to girls whose husbands totally did their teams for them. And they had ZERO problem cheering for people who go against their supposed loved teams.

Also? The algorithms make no sense. On multiple occasions, my teams won and did well, and yet actually got fewer points than the losing team. Stupid stat geeks.

My update to how much I love home daycare.

My prayers were answered! They are able to take Wee ‘Burb permanently! I am so excited! Wee ‘Burb has really flourished since she has been in our neighbor’s home. Our pediatrician, who incidentally treats the neighbor’s 20-year-old daughter and knows the family well and can not stop singing the virtues, was astounded at Wee ‘Burb’s vocabulary.

I mean as parents we all want to think our kid is advanced. I’m not even pretending she is, she mastered crawling approximately 12 seconds ago. But verbally…the kid is nonstop! And after going to pick her up early one day, I realized why.

First of all, the little preschool boys LOVE her! They fight over who can get her toys and they are always trying to get her involved in their games. As part of that, they NONSTOP talk to her. And I honestly think that’s why she has such a big vocabulary for such a little girl.

Anyway, I am very happy knowing she’s in a safe home with people we love, who love her.

My update to trying to find new mommy friends.

It’s so hard, you guys! So, Scott and I were in church a few weeks ago. And this couple with two preschool-aged kids kept looking adoringly over at Wee ‘Burb. They waved, they gave her a little peace handshake, which she LOVES. And they were all smiles to us.

And Scott and I were paralyzed.

Are they just thinking “oh that kid is cute with her pigtails and Patriots shirt (what? Girl has to show her spirit, church or not!) or are they thinking “hey, this couple looks cool! Look how they have to sit outside the church like us because our kids are unpredictable.” I think it’s worse than dating! Does he like me? Will he call? It’s just so awkward!

Speaking of church, we have seen the public domestic abuse couple a few times, and it has been awkward. Mostly we’ve just been a quick hello and avoiding making any plans.

My update to near death experiences.
Remember my almost death by chocolate? Well, that place closed! I can’t say I am bummed. Although it always makes me sad when local plazas remain empty. The whole world doesn’t have to revolve around Target and Rainbow, does it?

Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have any updates you want to post her, or link to on your blog, feel free to leave in the comments!

How I Became a Polygamist

I’ve crossed over to the dark side. Done what I swore I would never do. I’ve become a polygamist.

When I tell people I am a football or baseball fan, my dad will quickly correct me and tell people I am a Patriots and Red Sox fan. And this is totally true. I typically only watch football games that may affect the Patriots’ standings, and I almost never watch a baseball game that doesn’t influence the Red Sox in some way.

I’ve long held the belief that liking more than one team in a league is sports bigamy. I knew plenty of people who declared themselves Twins fans right up until the Red Sox started going for the first World Series win, and all of a sudden Sox hats were everywhere. I can live with being a Cubs fan and a Red Sox fan, but in the end, you have to have a preference. You can’t neutrally clap for both teams when they come head-to-head in an important match-up. It’s sports bigamy.

And if that’s sports bigamy, then fantasy football is sports polygamy. I found a sports bar here that will play all the Patriots games, and I always have to get there an hour before game time to get any kind of seat because of all the fantasy football people showing up with their laptops and cell phones, ready to make a trade at a moment’s notice. I want to scream “you are not a real GM. You do not have a real team! Your decisions affect nobody!”

I never understood how they could come dressed head to toe in Vikings gear, and yet be rooting for Green Bay or the Bears. It’s just not in me to root for anyone except the Patriots…and whoever is beating the Jets or Indy.

So how did I become one of them, these sports polygamists? I’ve turned down multiple offers to join fantasy teams. But a friend of mine caught me in a weak moment a few weeks ago and said her league of girls was short two teams. Would I be willing to join for $25 so their league could go forward? I sighed and said sure, figuring I’d just pick all the Patriots players and be done with it.

Well, apparently you can’t do that? The stats and algorithms and other dorky scientific theories that go into this “hobby” (or whatever you call it) say you don’t want a team of all one team because, you see, then the bye weeks leave you scoreless.
This is already more thought than I cared to put into this whole thing. But the other problem? As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very competitive. And the idea that a bunch of chicks, most of whom I know for a FACT had their husbands choose their teams for them, beating someone like me that actually KNOWS football was just too much to bear.

So I recruited my other Patriots-loving friend into helping me design a team that could win, but also would not require me to root for anyone at all involved in the Patriots’ standing. And that started a week of actually reading Fantasy Sports magazines (something I had incessantly mocked friends for only a year ago) and doing mock drafts, and…well all sorts of stupid stuff that makes me embarrassed to be a sports fan right now.

After reading those, I decided I had zero interest in sitting through a draft with a bunch of strange chicks, so I set my team up for Yahoo to pick it for me. By setting it up, I mean I excluded all Jets, Indy, Buffalo and Miami players. And then took a few tips from the “pros” in the magazines, and rated a bunch of players for Yahoo to pick from.

So color me surprised when I rated 30 players for Yahoo to pick from, and somehow I ended up with Ben Roethlisberger as a benched player and half a team with a bye in Week 8. What about the algorithms, Yahoo??

It remains to be seen how this goes, but I am already regretting my decision to become a polygamist. If you see me at the sports bar, feel free to shout at me that my team isn’t real and my choices mean nothing. I’ll gladly shout my agreement.

For those of you who care, here’s my team: