The Queen's Rambles

So my new jacket is a bust. I thought I could live with a pinkish-purple coat, but it is the most vile shade of pink I’ve ever seen, so I didn’t remove the tags. I wanted to take it out on a cold day and give it a test, just in case it was amazing. I know the weather around here can change on a dime, and it did so this week. We went from 70s to snowing in about 24 hours. I tested the jacket out and it did not keep me as warm as I had envisioned. I’m sure it is a perfectly nice jacket for a cool day, but I thought it was going to be warm like my unattractive make-shift layers. I think I just have to buck up and realize that layers are warm because. . . they are layers. Or something. I don’t even know what I’m talking about. My head is spinning after explaining the suspension of dibelief to Erik.

Erik is obsessed with reading the Magic Tree House books. I’m glad he’s obsessed with reading something and I guess they are supposed to be good for kids, but they drive me crazy. For those who don’t know about these books, they are about these two American kids who find a magic treehouse that sends them on adventures. It turns out that the magic treehouse is the creation of Morgan Le Faye from Camelot and she needs these two American kids to go and learn things (I’m not sure why because Erik likes big numbers, so he will only read the later books, not measly number 1 or 2). Later Merlin sends these kids on missions to do things like convince Charles Dickens to not stop writing. Because MORGAN Le FAYE of CAMELOT is going to build a treehouse. A treehouse that ends up in rural Pennsylvania in the year 20XX. What? IT MAKES NO SENSE.

Tonight the white bread American children are in ancient Japan, trying not to stick out. No one seems to notice the two very white kids in middle of the kingdom that is closed off to all foreigners. One master samurai guy even helps them without even asking them where they are from, what they are doing, or why the girl has blonde hair. ARGH!

I know, I know. They are children’s books. They are vehicles for children to learn about different times and places. They don’t have to make any sense. I should let it go; suspend disbelief; realize I am not the target audience.

Tonight Erik was even asking me why the people they meet want to tell them all about the place they live. “So if the people they meet think they are just normal people who are walking around, why do they start telling them all these facts? Shouldn’t they already know all those facts if they live there?”

Yes, yes indeed.

I tried to explain the whole suspension of disbelief thing to him, but he didn’t get it. He generally doesn’t enjoy fiction anyway because it isn’t real, so I am not surprised he is starting to question the very thinly constructed conceit behind these books.

Anyway, I cleaned the house today–thrill a minute. We went grocery shopping and it was so cold that I couldn’t face going back out for a trip to the gym. If it was just me, that’d be one thing, but Elsa is such a pain to get loaded into the van when the howling wind is ripping my face off. She has to hold her pretzels, water cat and at least one random toy (today it was her “blue mermaid” which is actually purple). She also has to wear her gloves, but she changes her mind about which gloves she wants to wear half-way to the car and sits down screaming until everything has been remedied to her satisfaction. And, of course, she has to go FIRST. You can’t scootch ahead of her. If there is any trash or newspapers or random objects on the way from the house to the car, she has to carefully examine them and possibly lick them (and we wonder why she’s always sick?).

I still needed to work out, but I have been researching fat burning and know from personal experience that a lower heart rate during exercise burns fat (but does not necessarily provide cardio). I decided to do a cleaning “work out” instead of going to the gym, which was kind of nice since it resulted in clean cabinet doors. The whole thing with cleaning though, is that it just sucks. Big revelation at 5! Stay tuned! It is so disheartening to look around thirty minutes later and see that everything that looked great is back to looking like a bunch of rampaging baboons went through the house.

Ok, maybe not *quite* that bad. Erik is pretty good with helping me pick things up, but Elsa is equally good at dumping toys all over the house just for the thrill of dumping them. I’m about to go medieval on her and take away everything but a single doll.

She really is a sweet little thing. She plays so happily and likes to sit on my lap and pretend she’s a dog. She’s just stubborn and has her very particular way of doing things. Nothing strange or noteworthy. She’s a toddler and she acts like one. A very cute, frustrating, delightful, silly toddler.

Oh, and why do shoes have pee in them? When a little girl pees her pants the urine runs down her legs and pools in her shoes. Thankfully that hasn’t happened in a while.