Half-Assed Housewife

The late Erma Bombeck once recounted her ill-fated attempt to start a running program with the following lines from her journal:

“Erma hit the wall, went right up it, and slammed it shut.”

That phrase describes just about every attempt I’ve ever made at serious physical fitness and, unfortunately, also the last several weeks of maintaining this blog.

Like exercise, it turns out that the longer you live life unblogged the harder it is to return. But, for me, writing about my life to strangers on the Internet is something I am strangely compelled to return to again and again. (I wish I could say the same for running.)

There are two main ‘off-line’ reasons for the hiatus:

One, we are expecting a new addition to the family. For personal reasons, I wasn’t ready to talk about it or write about my pregnancy yet, and it felt strange to edit this information about of what I was thinking and doing about the rest of my life. So far, though, things have been going well—am due in late July or early August—and ready to come out of the closet online and in “real life.”

The second reason, one that I’ll blog more about later, is that my first post of 2010 was supposed to be one about New Year’s resolutions. I know! I know! Really! I actually planned them out months in advance, with research and links, etc.

These soon ran into conflict with some economic realities related to being a one-income, three-(soon-to-be four) person household. It turns out The Spouse (earner of the aforementioned sole, and certainly substantial-but-not-infinite, income) had some issue with the economic impact of a number of said resolutions and we have entered into a budget negotiation process, the results of which will also serve as likely blog fodder.

So, here’s wishing everyone a belated happy entrance to 2010. I should have no shortage of stuff to write about if anyone’s still here to listen.

I can’t believe I lived in Georgia for more than a decade (10 years in Atlanta before we moved to Seoul and three in Columbus before that) and just saw Savannah last week.

It’s one of those places that a history person like me instantly fall in love. A place where the distant past still feels so close, just under the surface of the present day. Things that happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago seem to leave an echo. I’ve felt this way before—during visits to New Orleans and San Antonio. Barcelona, definitely. Seoul is like this, but maybe with not as much immediate charm. (Seoul sort of grows on you and then won’t let go.)

Even if you’re not a history person, Savannah is a beautiful place with lots of lovely things to look, fun things to do, and and delicious things to eat. Barely a four-hour trip from Atlanta, David and I are planning to make this an annual (at least) destination.

Some recommendations based on our recent, two-day visit:

Old Town Savannah Trolley Tours – Susana was up for this even though the whole route is about an hour long. You buy a ticket for the day and can get on and off to visit the different stops. There are lots of trolley tours of the city, but I liked this one because the guides were so funny and knowledgeable. Best bet is to see the whole city once through and then budget your time to visit the things you like the most.
City Market – We had lunch at Anna’s Tapas, which had great food and a staff that was super nice to the Kiddo.
The Pirates’ House – Wonderful seafood and a real authentic pirate’s tale to boot. Ask if you can take the informal tour around the house and check out the tunnel through which—legend holds—inebriated locals were involuntarily volunteered for duty on outgoing vessels.
The Telfair Museum (Owens-Thomas House)
Dolphin Magic – Boats that tour the historic waterfront and go out to visit the Atlantic bottlenose dolphins around Tybee Beach.

I hope to update later with some more pictures, but our external hard drive is on strike (negotiations thus far have been non-productive) and all our photos are archived there.

I just went to register on the Target website today for the express purpose of slamming the ridiculous Michael Graves-designed broom and dustpan set I purchased last week.

Since I can’t find it using the search engine, I assume it’s not longer available. I haven’t been back to the store to see if it’s still on the shelves. I went to replace our perfectly functional but worn out Libman. Instead, I purchased the cute blue-and-gray Graves model because it had a matching stand-alone dustpan with a hook for snapping on the broom when not in use.

Brought it home and found that, if you aren’t careful to avoid putting any pressure at all on the dustpan, the cheap plastic on the underside buckles so that you end up brushing all the dust underneath the pan instead of into it. The next day, I was sweeping the kitchen again and the plastic top of the broom handle came off in my hands. The broom was two days’ old!  (Anyone who knows me knows that vigorous cleaning is not my hallmark. Trust me when I say I wasn’t treating the broom roughly by any stretch of the imagination.)

Good design is wonderful, but rendered meaningless when the resulting product is manufactured with the cheapest materials and shoddy workmanship.

It’s now propped against the wall by our back door awaiting at trip to the landfill unless I can find some way to recycle it. (Can’t find the receipt—yeah, yeah, I know, OK?) Avoid at all costs.

I normally love Putumayo’s world music compilations, so I’ve been looking for a few good ones for the kiddo. Since we lived in Korea, I thought Asian Dreamland might be nice.

Asian Dreamland? Not so much. Japanese Dreamland (with a few Random Choices from Elsewhere) is more like it. Six of the 10 songs are from Japan with one song each from Tibet, China, India, and Russia (the Siberian republic of Tartarstan, actually).

We do have several CDs of Korean children’s music, including lots of lullabies, so it’s not like we really need more. But I am offended on behalf of my former host country (and also Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, the Phillipines, Taiwan,  ….)

What gives?