Everything Sounds Better with an English Accent

Thank you, Boing Boing, for this edifying link: The Periodic Table of Swearing.

Add This to the List of Reasons I Don't Go in the Ocean

Kayaker has rare encounter with blue whale.

Charles Barkley Backs Me Up

Charles Barkley's rant about twitter is a rave for me. Twitter is just plain stupid. I can't wait for it to go the way of geocities, altavista, citysearch, MySpace, and all other lame interwebz phenomena.

I'm Sexy and She Knows It

Every once in a while my car radio does something really annoying. When you go to turn the volume down, it actually cranks it up. WAY up. Eardrum splittingly up. This has never had consequences (other than to my own hearing loss) until today.

On the way to work, I was listening to the radio (my deadPod is useless, so I'm stuck with actual radio broadcasts), and, sick of my usual NPR, I was listening to my guilty pleasure pop station's morning radio jocks. Their banter alternates bewteen stupid and hilarious, but is funny and braindead enough to keep me entertained. The station plays Top 40 tunes, so every once in awhile during their morning show, they play some god-awful tune (and, admittedly, sometimes ones that I find catchy for about a day). Just as I approached my building, they were playing LMFAO's "I'm Sexy and I Know It" as I slowed to a crawl to go over the epic speed humps that are outside my building. I already had my windows down because it was nice out, and I saw my boss' boss approaching. So I went to turn down the radio to say hello, except my car decided it was time to jam. So instead of saying hello, I slowed to a crawl in front of my boss' boss to proclaim I'M SEXY AND I KNOW IT.

Now, my coworkers and the whole neighborhood know it too.

Decision Made

I belong to an audiobook club, where I get one download a month, and I couldn't find anything to use my latest credit on...until I read the following review for Stephen Colbert's I Am America (and So Can You!).

"Now, I have to admit that I was a fan of his TV show, but it soon became apparent after listening to this book that it is not much more than a 3 hour homophobic diatribe. He starts out by saying that "baby carrots are trying to turn me gay" which, I also admit, caused me to chuckle a bit. But this guy is a racist, homophobic Republican who thinks the world should return to the good old days of the 50s. It's not 1955 anymore...deal with it."

Clearly, this reviewer is *not* a fan of his TV show, because that would imply they understand satire. That review alone cinched it. Book selected, and it has been a good selection. Maybe I should base more of my decisions on people's poor reviews, rather than the positive ones. Because people are idiots.

How Local, Exactly?

People at work leave menus from nearby restaurants in our kitchen, and the one on top caught my eye, as it's a new bistro that I've been wanting to check out. The tagline under the bistro's name says "We use local, organic, free-range ingredients." Sweet!

But when I got to the entrees section, their four entrees are: shrimp, rainbow trout, scallops, and mussels. There are shrimp farms here, but otherwise there must be an alternate definition of "local" that I'm not aware of.

Same Bat Show, Same Bat Channel

I end up watching a lot of ESPN. Not because I love it, but because it's got programming even when all other channels are showing infomercials when I'm up with baby at 3 a.m. While it seems that other channels ask the question, "Ok, but how is your show any different from all of the programming we offer?" to those that develop and pitch shows, it seems like ESPN asks, "Ok, but how is your show exactly like all of the other programming we offer?" With the exception of Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption, all ESPN shows are the same roundtable with mostly white guys talking about the strengths of one team pitted against the weaknesses of their opponents.

The Math's the Same

Today is payday, but this week, my paycheck was slashed in half. Money's been lean since my maternity leave, which, other than the 3 weeks paid at 60% by short-term disability, was unpaid. And then when I came back to work, I was only part-time for 2 weeks, so I was only making half of my salary. My previous paycheck was my first full paycheck, but as the first full paycheck in months, it only began to make a dent in our financial deficit. What with daycare, we've been on a tight budget. So we've really been looking forward to getting more of a foothold with a steady full paycheck from me.

Unfortunately, my employer's incompetent HR didn't cooperate with that plan. You see, we elected a flexible spending account for daycare - a pre-tax deduction. And when we filled out the form, which says "Enter your ANNUAL CALENDAR-YEAR contribution, not a per-pay-period amount," we did just that. We multiplied the weekly daycare fees times 52 weeks a year, which came out to way more than the maximum you could withhold, so we elected the maximum - just under $5000. There are 26 paychecks in a year, so that works out to about $192 withheld from every paycheck. Except my HR department seems to have a different understanding. They take whatever you fill in as your annual amount, and divide it by the number of pay periods left in the year at the time you enroll. So, in my case, $5000 divided by 9, or more than $550 to be withheld from every paycheck.

Uh, WHAT?! I had even been contacted by HR when I submitted my form, and they had explained that they calculate whatever amount you elect and divide by the number of remaining paychecks, regardless of your intention for that $5000 to be spread out over the calendar year, as their own language implies. So they "fixed" it, and my last paycheck had only $192 withheld. But today's paycheck? There's $550 withheld. And though I lost my shit brought this to their attention, they were unable to correct it, and so they're adjusting the amount withheld from the remaining 8 paychecks of 2011 to balance out the extra they took out of this single paycheck. Fine, except that doesn't help me pay my bills for the next 2 weeks. Like daycare, for instance, which is now going to constitute half of my pay for the next 2 weeks. And since I'm the only full-time employee in my household, the next 2 weeks are going to be ramen filled.

Then I thought, oh! I can at least recoup alot of what's missing from my paycheck by submitting my daycare receipts for reimbursement, something I haven't done yet. A good plan, but when I logged on to my daycare FSA, it only shows the initial $192 contribution, not the extra $550 they also withheld this time.

I would say that I would work even less today than I normally would on a Friday to express my outrage that half of my net pay is gone because of someone else's incomptence. But then again, 50% times zero is still zero.

Theft Prevention

The lengths I go to to protect my most valuable property at work:

Imagining a World Without Netflix

Just got a whole lot easier thanks to their dumb-ass decisions lately. To further visualize how dumb this Qwikster split is, see The Oatmeal's take.

And to think that just a few short weeks ago, I'd worked out how we were gonna dump DirectTV and just live off of Netflix.

Oh, and MLB.com/TV.

And NBA League Pass.

And Versus/NBC Sports for Tour de France.

Oh, for F8ckssake. It's 2011! Why can't we get this all sorted out already?! I can't track countless separate logins & accounts & instant queues just for entertainment's sake.

9-11-11

The biggest thing about September 11 was that it didn't make sense. I woke to My Better Half yelling to get up & come look on tv because a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Like everyone, I was so confused about how a plane would just accidentally strike a giant building.
Of course it wasn't an accident, and in the days afterward, I took many walks with my dogs to clear my head. While I still haven't succeeded in making sense of such a senseless act, I still remember the absence of planes in the skies - how quiet it was.

Album Art App for Kids Books

After last night's trip to the children's section at the library, I have been thinking about what could make it easier to search among a sea of 1/16" thick spines for a good children's book at the library, so you're not crouched over, duck walking forward, yanking out tiny spine after tiny spine looking for something remotely interesting. Someone needs to make an app that lets you type in a call number (or start at A and work your way forward) that displays your library's collection in album art format so you can flip through the covers on your iPhone Droid and get a visual idea of what's in front of you (and maybe even descriptions and reviews, too!) so you can avoid picking out such sh*t as Goodnight Moon and instead discover kids' books worth reading and illustrations worthy of your discerning eye.

Someone get on that, would you?

Goodnight Moon Sucks

I went to the library after work tonight to get some children's books to read to baby. She loves being read to, and my personal arsenal of stories is thin. One of the things you quickly realize when you have your first baby is how few nursery rhymes and silly tales you remember from your youth, so you basically end up either narrating whatever is happening or just tell the baby your own stories but in a silly baby tone. However, I'm starting to think that stories about hookers and blow probably aren't appropriate for her anyway. (Not until she's 6 or 7, anyway).

So I headed off to the library to get books to read to her. This has a couple advantages. Right now she's too young to be able to hold on to or chew on a book, so library books are fine until then, at which point, we'll let those germ-covered previously slimed-upon tomes stay put and head to the bookstore. Second, it gives me a chance to get reacquainted, or largely, acquainted with kids' books and disocover what's worth buying.

Having never been to the kids' level at the library, I didn't realize what I was in for. The kids' books, which are all less than 1/4" thick are all shelved by author with their spines out, because displaying all the covers would take up way too much room. So you either have to know an author or be prepared to spend a whole lotta time pulling out book after book. And since much of the appeal of these books is in the illustrations, and I'm a visual person, I wanted to see the books I'd be checking out. The only children's book I could recall off the top of my head in the 16 minutes before the library closed was Goodnight Moon. So I got that and grabbed a couple of the books they had displayed on top of the shelves, figuring those were as good a place as any to start.

Good thing I grabbed books other than that piece of shit classic, because, man, Goodnight Moon sucks. Plot wise, it's just trippy and disjointed. "In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon." Um, oh kay. It lists the cak in the room, with my fave being: "...and a comb and a brush and bowl full of mush." A bow full of MUSH? EWWWW! Get that crap to the dishwasher stat! Then it offers a goodnight to each item. "Goodnight air"? LAME! "Goodnight clock"? Who has a clock? Isn't that what cellphones are for? And telephone? Mommy, what's a telephone? And the illustrations? Sucktastic. The "kittens" look like dustbunny squirrels. Just all-around old-fashioned. Not at all modern.

I'm glad I picked up this, this, and this. They, on the other hand were all excellent, and the illustrations were adorable and colorful. Ok, fine, so one of them isn't a children's book, but I think she still enjoyed Gossie.

Whenever is Convenient For You

Today everyone in my department was asked to submit their official working hours. Until now, I've been blessed with a work environment where nobody really cares when you come and go, as long as you do your eight hours. We're all adults, here, after all. For instance, I started working here when I was six months pregnant, and my back was killing me by mid-afternoon every day. So I came in around 7 so that I could leave by 3:30 to go home and lie down before my backache really kicked in. Now I'm no morning person, but I figured that until I can find a job where I report once I'm good and ready and not when corporate America says I should be ready, I'm going to be tired during the week regardless of when I start my workday, so I might as well suck it up, be tired earlier, and get to work early so I can leave early. Plus, being six months pregnant, on the 7-3:30 schedule, I could take my lunch early and go for a walk before it hit 100 million degrees out there.

Now that I have baby, though, that 7-3:30 schedule is out of the question (as is getting anywhere on time ever again). I feed her on demand, meaning that I let her sleep when she's tired and eat when she's hungry. I don't wake her to make her adjust to my schedule - I think that sucks for adults, so I'm certainly not going to do it to a two month old. Some mornings she wakes around 5. Others, not until 7. Not only is it unrealistic for me to get here at 7:00, it's also impossible for me to predict how any given morning will go as far as her waking & eating, not to mention the impossibility of predicting how much little sleep I'll get on any given night. As a result, I've been really enjoying the ability to show up when I can, work my 8 hours, and go home. I mean, c'mon people. It's not like I'm showing up at the crack of 9 because I've been on a bender and I'm hung over. Usually, anyway.

I still attempt to get here as soon as possible in the mornings so I can hang out with my girl, but it just doesn't always work out. The earliest I've been able to get here since I came back to work is 8:00. So I decided to bite the bullet and "commit" (nominally, anyway) to an 8-4:30 schedule. This is going to suck. I've always resented needing to conform to a fixed corporate schedule. That mean that I arrive at work inevitably under-rested and cranky, with a brain that's not yet firing on all cylinders, spending hours staring at my work instead of doing work until I can get my brain and body up to the task at hand. More importantly, though, it also negates the fact that alot of the "work" that I do is thinking. Mulling over how better to communicate some idea. Or problem-solving how to do something really cool on a budget tighter than your 1983 Wranglers. And that stuff doesn't happen just on company time, nor on some set schedule. Like most of the other creative types I know, work happens when your mind and body are rested and rejuvenated caffeinated. The best work environment I've ever had was one where I could write when I was inspired to write and on my own schedule. As long as the task gets done, who the hell cares if it happens between 8 and 5? Would the world end if I finish some project at 3 a.m. and sleep til 10? Creative workers need the mindspace to contemplate, think, and take time away from a task so that they can come back to it once inspiration strikes. Yet employers try to enforce this whole 8-5 Monday-Friday cookie-cutter thing regardless of whether you're on a factory line or writing.

Unfiltered Thoughts: Small House and the Holidays

I have a really small place, at least by some standards. Not NYC standards. Not San Francisco standards. But by middle-America standards. It's 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and less than 900 square feet. It often feels like My Better Half and I are tripping over each other, and it certainly isn't big enough for all of our crap.

So now that summer's over, I was thinking about fall and the upcoming holidays, and was getting a wee bit anxious about My Better Half's family coming to visit. There will be 9 adults, 2 children, 1 baby, and 4 dogs. All in my less-than-900-square-feet place. My first thought was Where the hell are all these people going to sit?! I only have seating for 6*. We need to go get some chairs! Maybe people will stand all day. Because nothing sounds better than having 9 adults, 2 kids, and 4 dogs tripping over my newly crawling infant...

But then I quickly replaced that thought with: Wait a minute. A better strategy is to take *away* some seating, thereby encouraging folks to go hang out somewhere else.

*Unless you count tiny IKEA stools, in which case I can accommodate 10. Because everyone wants to sit on a hard wooden surface with no back support all day long.

I Think There's One Too Many Digits

I just got an automated voicemail from the pharmacy that said "Your prescription is ready for pickup. It will cost $947.76." Clearly I need my hearing checked because I thought you just said that my prescription would cost more than NINE HUNDRED dollars.

I just came down with bronchitis, and my doctor prescribed an inhaler, which I've never had before, so I thought, well, that must be the culprit. Well, that, and I had changed insurance with my new job in April so I thought they must not have my updated insurance information on file. That part was true. But the $900 prescription was not the inhaler, nor the antibiotics, but the stuff I routinely take for hypothyroidism. Once they input my insurance info, the total for four prescriptions came down to $54.

You might be asking "What in the WORLD is her hypothyroidism medication made of? Magical fairy dust?! Gold??" Nope. It's all natural, actually. But it does make me even more grateful for health insurance. Unless I'm working for an employer that offers medical coverage, the only way I can get health insurance is through My Better Half. Because of pre-existing conditions, I don't qualify for any private health insurance. Trust me. I've tried. Eleven times. And I'm not talking about cancer or something serious. I have pretty standard, chronic medical issues that millions of other folks have, and which are easily managed through medication. I'm lucky to have conditions that are so easily managed, and to have good overall health. And I'm fortunate to have a job that offers health insurance. In my experience, many, if not most, of those toiling in nonprofits in particular don't get benefits with their jobs, and are left to fend for themselves on the "open market," only to find they can't get insured unless they have a spotless record of health. Which is why my blood boils over political debates that question the constitutionality of health care reform. Drives. Me. Crazy. Republicans and Tea Partiers Congress routinely makes it their business to block countless initiatives simply because they are introduced by and sponsored by the other party, and that practice especially drives me nuts with health care reform. Because, yes, let's put the interests of your own party in front of the needs of millions of people. And, no, don't offer any of your own alternatives to the reform to which you are so opposed. Just oppose, letting millions of people continue to flail around in a constantly shifting game of choosing which health concerns they can afford to treat.

A Historian to the Core

So I was thinking about getting a baby book to preserve baby's stuff, and then I realized. No need anymore. All the photos? Digital files. My mom had a baby book for me that had all kinds of photos of me, little memories and dates (like my first smile, first time I crawled). That's all recorded in digital pics & videos. Things have changed a lot in 35 29 years.

But there still is stuff to preserve, it's just that it's three-dimensional stuff. Her baby bracelets from the hospital, her first outfit. So I got an acid-free archival box to safeguard those things against the elements. That's just how nerdy of a museum-geek historian I am.

Unfiltered Thoughts: Food Network's Truck Race

On last night's episode of the Great Food Truck Race, contestants were given no startup funds, and had to hit up local businesses in Denver to get them to front them the cash they'd need to make their food. The way the footage was packaged, it appeared that folks just wandered up to restauranteurs, asked for $500, and the restauranteurs instantly obliged.

So I think I'll pay some kids to follow me around with a camera, wander into local businesses, tell them I'm in a reality tv show competition, ask for $500, and see what happens.

File Under Stuff I'll Never Do

Today we went hiking at Apache Lake in the Tonto National Forest. On the way this morning, I saw two hanggliders off to the right. That sounds fun. Because I want to experience all the fun of a plane crash without any of the protection offered by a plane. 

Recommitting to a New Career

Today was my first day back to work after having a baby. It sucked. It was so unbelievably difficult to leave my little infant at daycare, and reaffirmed to me that I need to figure out a way to work for myself. Since we moved here in 2006, I worked in museums (well, and one private art gallery) for four years, making the best of the local museum scene (which ain't much, by the way) before fully abandoning museum work slash getting laid off last fall. Once I was laid off, I had to scramble to find a paycheck, so I took the first full-time benefits-eligible job I could find because I needed to pay our mortgage and eat and stuff. Y'know, the extravagant things in life. But having never had a baby before, I had no idea what to expect about just how hard it would be to put her in daycare and head back into the office. I'm not saying I would want to be a full-time stay-at-home mom, but I certainly wasn't ready to return to work so quickly, and leaving a helpless little 8 week old at daycare was the most heart-wrenching thing I've ever had to do.

It just reaffirms the stuff I learned a couple years ago with career counseling. I need to figure out a way to work for myself, set my own schedule, define my own projects, and work from home. More than ever.

Visual Mute

Why is there no visual mute? I saw an ad today for a new show about OCD. In the spot, a woman with OCD cannot stop pulling her hair out. The hair that is attached to her head. And they show it, and she’s nearly freaking BALD. HOLY GOD

Unfiltered Thoughts: Baby Swings

Baby loves her baby swing. It soothes her, it lulls her to sleep. But when it comes to getting her out of the swing, I have to stop the swing, then lift her awkwardly out of the swing so as to avoid banging her head on the mobile. Why doesn't someone make an adult-sized baby swing, so that I can get in it with her, it'll still lull her to sleep and then I just get up out of the seat with her still snuggled on my shoulder, a seamless transition to bed.

Unfiltered Thoughts: Baby Oil

If vegetable oil comes from vegetables, and olive oil from olives, where does baby oil come from?

Officially Uninhabitable

We've just discovered that our daughter is allergic to dairy, and since I'm breastfeeding, that means I have to cut out dairy. So I'm going through the 7 stages of grief in letting it go. But I just can't get to Acceptance. Phoenix is officially intolerable in the summer without ice cream. Yeah, yeah, I know. There's sorbet. Hrmph to you.

I Scream

Maybe it's because Phoenix is hotter than the surface of the sun. Or maybe it's just that it's the yummiest stuff ever, but I LOVE ice cream in the summer. I haven't had any crazy pregnancy cravings, but I could really go for some fudge ripple ice cream. So I went out to get some, and...Lost. my. mind.

OMG. They do not make fudge ripple anymore. WTF, people?!


Unfiltered Thoughts: Advice for Working with a Pregnant Lady

I just started my new job a few days ago, and unlike at the interview, now I am obviously showing. I've made the switch to maternity clothes and I definitely look pregnant. My new coworkers seem to be really quiet and maybe even shy, so I've been keeping to myself, using my lunch hour for a walk since it seems like everyone here just kind of eats at their desks by themselves. Today, one of my coworkers approached me and said, "So....when are you....uh...." and then made a motion of 'pregnant' across her belly. And when I said "I'm due July 4" she said that she'd be winning the office pool, then. Because that doesn't make the I-just-started-a-new-job-six-months-pregnant-lady feel awkward. At all.

So a bit of advice to those of you working with a pregnant lady, whether she's a new coworker or not:

1. Do not have a behind-her-back office pool about when she's due (or if she's even pregnant). 
2. Do not eat fish at your desk. Or cheeseburgers. Or anything with onions. In fact, stick to foods that produce no odor, or EAT IN THE KITCHEN or GO OUT TO EAT. 
3. Do not act jealous when your new coworker's upcoming maternity leave is announced. That six weeks that sounds like "vaca" to you, moron? That's for her to recover from squeezing a baby out her hoo-ha, and bonding with the little baby. And btw, she might feel bad that she's not getting the 12 weeks that other new moms get at 'real' jobs under FMLA.
4. Under no circumstances should you ask "Are you sure you're not having twins hahaha?"

I'll post more as they come up, but that's a good starting point.

An Embarassment of Riches

Having just landed a new job, and having started it (and it's actually a half-decent job at that), I just got offered another job. I won't say that it's better, except that it is. It pays way better, it's closer to my house, it's less structured, and I really like the people I'd be working for. So when I told them, I'm, uh, 6 months pregnant and will need some time off this summer, they were all, "ok, no problem. How much time will you need?"

So I guess I start a *new* new job in a week!

Conversation with the Neighborhood Kids

Kid: "Did you know one of the kids in the neighborhood is...MISSING?!"

Holy sh*t! I haven't seen any posters up at the park or on the mailboxes, no cops have come to my door.

Me: "Wha?! What do you mean?"

Kid: "Nobody's seen him for, like, 30 minutes!"

Kid, that ain't 'missing.' 

How Should I Be Handling This?

When I was laid off last fall, I was 3 months pregnant. I, of course, knew that, but my employer and coworkers didn't. So while I was ready to move on from museum work, I wasn't exactly looking forward to trying to find work as a pregnant lady. I have been fortunate enough to land a couple of interviews, and finally one of them has materialized into an offer. It's working for University of Phoenix, and at the interview for that job, I had to fill out paperwork that says, "The University takes pride in the quality of employees to whom we have extended employment opportunities. In an effort to ensure that you are taking every advantage of your new employee training period, we highly suggest that you maintain 100% attendance during the training phase. Tardiness and/or absenteeism may result in disciplinary action. To ensure your employment success, we ask employees to keep their schedules free of extended appointments and vacations during the first 6 months of employment. Please provide us with the information below if you are not able to currently modify any future appointments. Requests for time off are not guaranteed and may not be paid during your first 90 days of employment. Leaving this section blank indicates your schedule is free of appointments."

Here's the thing: if I were obviously pregnant, I probably would have been honest on the form because my interviewers would just march back to HR and say, "Either she's pregnant or she swallowed a bowling ball." But I'm not obviously pregnant. Even though I'm due in 3 and a half months, I'm not showing. I was able to wear my regular non-maternity clothes to the interview, and by wearing busy prints on top, I can further distract from what's going on. More importantly, I'm not sure how I was supposed to handle this.

After I'd been laid off, I got in touch with my HR person at my last job and told her I was pregnant and asked how to handle disclosure at job interviews and negotiations, and she said that in no uncertain terms that I should not say anything until I recieve an offer. (An aside: My friends have been incredibly naive about this, btw. They're all up on a soapbox screaming "You can't do that! Employers can't not hire you just because you're pregnant! That's discrimination!") News flash: Sure, employers can't discriminate against you because you're pregnant, but they can find *other* reasons not to hire you, including the all-purpose "It just isn't the right fit right now."

So by saying on the form, uh, I'm going to need time off during training to keep up with my bi-weekly, and soon to be weekly doctor's appointments, that could be a major red flag and they could just say, well, maybe the timing isn't right right now since you can't commit to our training attendance policy. And by saying, uh, I'm going to need at least 6 weeks off this summer, they could not hire me because I'm asking for extensive time off during my probationary phase. So I left it blank and signed it.

Now that they have given me an offer,  I told them, and the hiring HR manager was literally speechless before asking if he could call me back. They told me that as far as being absent during training and needing leave "That's something you'll have to work out with your trainers and, after 6 weeks of training, your manager. It's up to your manager on how to handle any of that" since I don't qualify for FMLA leave. (Another aside: my friends are also aghast that I'm not guaranteed leave. FMLA isn't universal. It's not. You have to have worked for your employer for the 12 months prior to your need for time off, and have worked a minimum number of hours. And that's if you work for an employer that offers FMLA, because not everyone has to.) News flash: Employers can do whatever they want in terms of giving time off for a baby.

The bottom line is that I won't know until 7 weeks from now if I can negotiate any time off for maternity leave. And no time off would obviously be a deal-breaker. I don't mean to be an A-hole and take a job only to ditch it in 3 months if that's the case, but the reality is, I need work, I want this job, and I need the paycheck until then, even if not beyond then. So I start my new job on Monday!

Overheard: Neighborhood Kids

One thing that brings me such joy and entertainment are the neighborhood kids. There's this whole posse of them that all live around me and hang out together, getting into all sorts of antics. And especially during my unemployment, I'm home during the day in the middle of the week, and with the windows open, I get to eavesdrop on their conversations. Today, I heard the following:

Kid #1 to Kid #2: "My mom says we can't play with you anymore because of, well, yesterday's, uh, incident."

A Big Announcement, A Small Space

Now that 2011 is here, I can finally announce to the world that I & My Better Half are expecting a baby on July 4! We've been quietly sharing the good news with family and friends, and one of the most bizarre questions I get is along the lines of "Uh, where's the baby going to, er, go?"

Fair enough, I guess. My house is small, after all (about 900 square feet). One of my college friends once exclaimed that my house was "smaller than [his] first apartment after college!" And the second bedroom is currently a stuffed-to-the-gills office slash guest room (that has no room for guests). But last time I checked, babies are kinda small. I've come up with tons of places the baby can "go": 

• In a bucket.
• In a big tupperware.
• In the bathtub.
• In a dresser drawer.
• In the oven. When it's not on, people. Calm down! 
• In the laundry basket.
• Or my favorite: I'll get one of those over-the-door shoe hanger things & rip out the seams between a few of the pockets. That'll be for the baby, and the remaining intact pockets will be for all their crap - pacifiers, diapers, onesies...