Spray paint on my glove

My iPad is sort of, shall we say, our alternative to a laptop.  And while it's MINE ALL MINE, I do let the rest of the family touch it.  I've got a few apps on there for the girls, but Doodle Dandy--a free app, no less, even though it's totally worth money--is their favorite.  I've got a photo album filled with their creations.  It's fun because they can make patters or drawings, and it has come in very handy during car trips (Johanna can only sit still for so long, and this keeps her very occupied).  I should note that I've tried to make a few pictures myself, but mine are nowhere near as awesome as Abby's and Johanna's.  They have their father's artist eye.  And thank God for that.

(Johanna)

(Abby)

(Abby)

(Johanna)

(Abby)

(Johanna)

Barenaked Ladies, "Every Subway Car."  'Cause it's about graffiti.  And my backpack was faded black, but now it's all blue.

Little boy made a mistake

Oh, Netflix.  This just keeps getting better and better.

And by "better," I actually mean the exact opposite of that.

This morning, we got an email from Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix titled "An Explanation and Some Reflections."  He apparently sent this missive at 6:01 a.m.  I like to think he was up all night, fanatically writing, trying to get down all of his thoughts and feelings, and finally coming to the conclusion it was as good as it was going to get and hitting "send."  Probably it was just some intern and a scheduled mailing to millions, but I think my version is better.  More romantic, anyway.

The letter begins:

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology.

He messed up, all right.  He apparently has no idea that all that feedback was actually about how he took a great service, broke it apart, and turned it to crap.

The rest of the letter is designed to make me feel better, as a consumer, about the increased prices with less service.  (Fail!)  But what really stands out for me is this:

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. 

It's equally hard to read.  I'll bet your fourth-grade teacher is going nuts right now.  That is so not how you spell "quickster."  Actually, "quickster" isn't even a word.  May I suggest "quicker," or "quickly," or "quickest."  Those?  Are real words.

That "Qwik" combo just makes me sad.  I mean, it's bad enough that you've completely ruined something that I enjoyed.  Do you need to ruin spelling, too?

Where's your humanity, Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix?

P.S. Okay, this is sort of awesome.  Maggy Patrick?  You are funny.

Alice in Chains, "Angry Chair."  There are so many great lines in that song that it's hard to pick out just a couple.  I will try: Corporate prison we stay.  Serenity is far away.  I'm also a fan of: Feed me your lies, open wide.  Oh, Alice in Chains.  I want to give you a hug.

What the hell am I doing here?

To quote Johanna: OH. EM. GEE.

This has been a hell of a day, but not in a bad sort of way.  It's just been weird.  AND we've eaten dinner only to discover there isn't any dessert in the house.  I'm wondering why it's my responsibility to make the cookies, if you want to know the truth.  You'd think that with all the feminist advances we've made, someone else would feel comfortable taking care of dessert once in a while.

I mean, come on!

Well, anyway.  Our morning began at 5:41, when my cell started ringing.  I usually have it on vibrate so if it goes off in the office, no one will be able to hear my whack ring tone.  My ring tone options are terrible.  I would upload something by Linkin Park, but I'm 39, not 12, so I don't know how.

Obviously if someone is calling you at 5:41 a.m., it's because someone else has died.  Right?  Why else would anyone call?  So I stumble out of bed toward the phone, only to realize that it's a Spanish-speaking lady on the other end asking for someone whose name is NOT Trisha.  I can't really remember my Spanish, but I tried my best to explain that she had the wrong number.

I don't think she believed me, though (plus my Spanish is really awful), because she called back at 5:43.  Only she just hung up on me after I said hello.  Or maybe someone else hung up on me, I don't know, she could be a perfectly nice lady, but it was the same phone number, anyway.  Caller ID, yo.

And then again at 6:21, apparently, but since it was on vibrate and I was in the shower, I didn't hear it that time.

Oh, and then.  Eric has the alarm set so he can listen to like five minutes of national news before the local news kicks on.  And today's top story was about the satellite hurling towards earth.  And the chances of getting hit by pieces of that thing?  Are 1 in 3,200.  I'm no math major, but considering there are almost 7 billion people in the world, that seems like pretty good odds.  So damn.  That's awesome.

Get the kids to school, yadda yadda yadda, Debbie from work calls before 9 a.m. because she can't find an ad I placed yesterday.  And I'm like, uh, I totally placed that ad, I read it to Stacey, it was there, so I'm not sure what to tell you.  She had to reenter it, I guess.  I felt bad.  But not as bad as I felt when I got to work later that afternoon and she told me that I had been running two ads from the same company, one TOTALLY WRONG, and the lady is all pissed, and.  Well, after thinking about it for a minute, I know what I did.  I started a new ad and forgot to cancel out the old one.  Which I should not have done in the first place, start the second ad, I mean.  So I apologized profusely and Deb was all like, no, it's fine, don't worry, but I still worried, because she has a lot on her work plate without me adding something else to it, and something else that's totally stupid to boot.

Then.  I had to walk to the bank twice because there was an error, and I was hot and sweaty, and deeply regretting my decision to wear socks and closed-toed shoes this morning.  And I was starving, and the little coffee shops downtown?  Not so much on the natural snack end of things.  So I ended up with a $3 baguette and just tore a hunk of bread off right there on the sidewalk and went for it.

Delicious.

So after I get back, I take off my sweater because I'm about to die.  I've got a little black tank on underneath, and really, it's fairly modest, sort of, but I felt self-conscious hanging out like that, so as soon as a customer came to the door, I threw my sweater back on.  And I buttoned a couple of the buttons, as is the Trisha way, and went about my business.

TWO HOURS LATER I go to the bathroom and notice that I had buttoned it up wrong.  Let me recreate the look:

(Special.)

The kicker is that there was this lady who came in with a story, and she was totally in my homeroom in high school (she was a senior, I was a freshman, so yes, I remember.  And also, she pretty much looks the same), and the editor was all like, Trisha will write this story!  And I was all like, cha-ching!  I was wondering why she kept looking down at my sweater.  I thought maybe she was admiring my sweet (as in awesome) abacus-ish necklace I picked up at a craft bazaar not too long ago.  Turns out she was just thinking I was a "special hire" for the paper.

So that was fun, figuring that all out.

Ah, but now I'm home, and I'd had the foresight to make roasted tomato soup for dinner, and that was rather lovely.  I had a handful of chocolate chips for dessert, and I didn't really mention that to the rest of the family, because some things you just need to figure out on your own, you know?

Now I'm off to water the garden.  Eric is a task master.

P.S. Happy 69th anniversary to my Grammie and Gramps!  (Why yes, that IS awesome.)

Radiohead, "Creep."  Because that's how I feel.  I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.  Mostly just a weirdo.  Ah, well.