Generation Exhausted

Filed under "I' for "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

When I was a little girl, when I wasn't wishing for a cedar chest of my very own, I wanted a doll house. We'd gone to Frankenmuth and visited the store that had all these different sizes and styles of wooden dollhouses with shingles and stiarcases and wallpapered rooms and themes, and teeny-tiny little magazine racks with teeny-tiny little magazines in the teeny-tiny little living rooms and...oh, it was WONDERFUL. They weren't necessarily dollhouses you played with, you built them and then decorated them and then furnished them, and then, when you were done, you started re-decorating and re-furnishing the one you already had. Or you got a whole new dollhouse and started all over again.

Wait a minute. I've met women who do that with REAL houses.

Anyway. I never got a dollhouse of that sort. I thought, at one point, that one could just be built! from scraps! because after all! I built a clubhouse in the backyard! from scraps! that stood on its own for two whole weeks!

So how hard could it be?

Thus learning at ten years old that while scraps were fine for clubhouses, where you didn't need to measure precisely, they were far less practical for dollhouses. Especially when the scraps at hand were some pieces of two-by-four and a sheet of panelling.

So. Never had a dollhouse. I had multiple variations of Barbie's Dream House, mind you, one with a yellow plastic elevator, that I redecorated using scraps of peel-n-stick carpet squares, but no dollhouse. And from time to time I would go to Frankenmuth and drool my way through the dollhouse store.

Never stopped wanting one, but realistically? Expensive hobby that requires ROOM to work on.

Last year, we took the kids to Frankenmuth. And the little one fell in love with the dollhouse store.

And, because I am who I am, I thought it would be wonderful to buy her a starter dollhouse for Christmas last year. I looked on the Internets but since I made my decision on December 20, I ended up at a local store where I bought the only one they had in stock. Luckily, it was a starter. And I thought of how lucky my little girl was to get a dollhouse, and wouldn't it be a wonderful project for her and her daddy to work on? This would be the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER! I also bought a bottle of glue that was going to be especially for dollhouse building.

Did you know that hundreds of people on eBay are selling dollhouses that are "Brand New!" and "Never took it out of the box!" Also, I've seen them at garage sales, where the box was opened but the house never built. Countless times. And I always wondered: why would anyone be lucky enough to GET a dollhouse and then not ever get around to building it?

Hahahahahaha.

I'll tell you why. because there's no time and no room and when there IS time and maybe room, there's no interest.

Littlest is facing an extra week of Christmas vacation this year, and it occurs to me that this would be a good time to take the dollhouse out of the box. You know, BEFORE this Christmas. Which would be one year after she got the dollhouse. Except I think we've used up the glue.

Maybe when it's built, we can display it on the cedar chest.

Conspiracy Theory #479: It's the light bulbs

See that nifty new counter up there in the masthead? Isn't that cute? My high school graduate helped me figure it out. Of course, the word count creeps along slowly - OBVIOUSLY figuring out that counter was more important. Now, if only I could find which widget it is that would allow me to "facebook" my blog...

Regular readers will know of my love of consipracy theories absolute conviction that conspiracy theories are valid. My most recent suspicions involve the government's current jonesing for CFLs, which stands for Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs. (I think. I know for SURE it has nothing to do with the Canadian Football League) In Canada, plain old 65-cent lightbulbs will eventually become illegal. (Use of them will be policed by the same agency that comes and takes your bed away if you rip the DO NOT REMOVE tag from your mattress.)

They want us all, everyone in the whole True North Strong And Free, to use those spirally things that are better for the environment and supposedly cost less in the long run. Although, of course, I don't think they're going to be lowering the price of electricity or anything. And since this is the True North Strong And Free, the way they get us to do things is to MAKE us do things, by making the alternatives impossible, illegal, or both.

Or something like that.

I am suspicious of the lightbulbs. They look like antennae, and I'm convinced that it's a secret plot on the part of the gov't to monitor the goings on in our homes. Or maybe it's not the government, but Bill Gates. 'Cause you know, someone's watching. I'm pretty sure.

Last week, Middle took part in something called Operation Porchlight. This is not, as the title would suggest, a venture where kids go door to door stealing porchlights. No, instead, they hand out free CFLs. And my suspicions were further deepened when I read the box on my free lightbulb.

"Conforms to FCC standards. May interfere with telephone, satellite or Internet reception."

Or something like that.

Ha HA! I said. Proof - "they" are recording what we're doing. Possibly so that they can send us coupons that are specially targeted to the products we use. Or find out if we're sending emails that talk about world domination.

And then there is the time change. I can accept that my computer knows to change the time. After all, it is connected, via this lovely ethernet cord, to the Internets. And my cell phone obviously has to connect with a satellite sometime, so it knows too.

But my alarm clock? This fancy-schmancy alarm clock that my mom got us for our anniversary? How did IT know? It's just plugged into the wall. And since the public utility is still patting themselves on the back for managing to deliver electricity without it costing jillions of dollars per kilowatt, I doubt it's mastered sending coded messages.

This alarm clock is a little frightening to begin with. It's got the traditional snooze button on top, but it also has a SENSOR - essentially, you can just wave at the clock and the alarm stops buzzing. Sounds cool, right? Perhaps. But very, very dangerous for a sleepyhead like me. Now, instead of flinging off the covers, leaping out of bed and delivering a satisfying SMACK to shut the thing up, I sit straight up and appear to be having a seizure every nine minutes as I flail my arms wildly in the air until silence is delivered.

Or something like that.

I took the CFL out of my office light. It will have to be satisfied to report to whomever's listening that the folks at Chez Haggert spend Sundays watching back-to-back episodes of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody while the woman still in bed waves her arms in the air. Which should reassure them that world domination isn't likely to be attempted around here anytime soon.

Or something like that.

The Art Of Procrastination

Now, how am I supposed to start writing a novel today when I just discovered Chicktionary?