Majink: Michele Ann Jenkins

Of multidemensional arrays and motherhood

August 21, 2008 – 11:59 am
My original intention with this blog (besides writing more than once a month) was to cover a variety of topics, both personal and professional. So far the few-and-far-between posts have really focused on the personal-- travel and family life. It occurred to me that I might be holding back on the other stuff because it would be "weird" to have observations on web development, information science and the like side-by-side with toddler tantrums and the usual stay-at-home-mom venting. It's not like I have an audience in mind here. In fact, I purposely avoid imagining that there is one. After 21 years (whoa, hadn't actually done the math on that before) of private, ink-based, analog journaling, I'd managed to convince myself that personal writing was for my eyes only. I'm not sure how to strike the right tone with the weird world of public-private writing that is the blog-o-sphere. As far as I ...

Posted in interests, thoughts | No Comments »

Familia Insomnia

July 4, 2008 – 12:16 am
We didn't sleep last night The husband because he launched his new site/project/open source code base identi.ca yesterday morning, and hasn't slept since. Upside: wildly successful launch with tons of really smart people thinking and blogging interesting thoughts about the project. Downside: Zombie husband stuck upstairs at parents' Tahoe vacation home. The toddler because of a nagging cough turned bad around three am. It's probably just the leftovers of the last germ-gift from day care exacerbated by altitude and smoke from the four-billion-plus forest fires burning over here. I tried propping her up, rubbing her back, honey, lemon, lemon and honey, steamy shower, walking, rocking, singing. Then I turned to drugs. That's right: I gave my under-6 year old Canadian child children's night time cold meds. Bought here, south of the border. I'm not sure if it helped, but we both were out when the sun rose. I did not sleep a)because of ...

Posted in family, thoughts | No Comments »

I mean to have fun…

July 1, 2008 – 12:35 am
Really. I know you wont believe me, but I start out with every intention of giving you happy, positive, play time. Only, before we go out to the park/beach/ice cream store there are a few things we have to do first: Get dressed. For some reason this makes you cry. And run away from me. And kick at my head when I try to put on your pink and green undies with the kitties on it. Then I get your shirt and pants on, but when I turn around to get your shoes, you take it all off. Get sunscreen on. This makes you scream. And alternate between flailing wildly and curling up in a little ball. Every day I weigh the pain of possibly getting sunscreen in your eyes vs. skin cancer. Go to the potty. You're a big girl now, so we don't want to wear diapers. Do we? That means a ...

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Act your age

June 6, 2008 – 10:10 am
When you're a kid you have a lot of ideas about how great it will be when you're "all grown up." Mostly these ideas revolved around large amounts of junk food available at all times, rooms that never had to be picked up, unbrushed hair, and lots and lots of late night TV. (Funny, that sounds a lot like college.) Anyway, I remember when the fantasy started to collapse for me: the first week I lived 'on my own' (i.e. a shared crumbling Victorian in Santa Cruz crammed with 8 other students). There was no TV, I couldn't afford junk food, didn't own enough stuff to make a room messy (a futon, two milk crates of books, and a flip-book of CDs). My hair was actually pretty messy most of the time, so I get some points for that. Then I had to get my phoneline installed and buy toilet paper. I ...

Posted in family | No Comments »

Local Flavo(u)r

June 4, 2008 – 9:51 pm
After 4 years of talking about it, I finally signed us up for one of those organic produce delivery boxes. We went the somewhat fancy route with Jardin des Anges. They deliver to your door and aren't limited to Quebec produce (which can get pretty durn limited some months). It's all organic, but includes imports such as tropical fruit and veggies from down South (e.g. Florida and Chile). Yes this consumes fossil fuels and is wrong. Noted and thank you. Anyway, our Wednesdays are now full of surprises. I leave a cooler and a check in our side yard and home back to an overflowing bounty of vegetative goodness. Produce ranges from the exotic (organic Mexican pineapples) to the down-home (turnips-- they make great fries!). So far we've managed to cook up and/or eat everything delivered with the exception of one grapefruit that went squishy before I got to it and ...

Posted in family, thoughts | No Comments »

Doesn’t add up

May 21, 2008 – 3:27 pm
So I actually did the math on what it costs to drive AJ to day care, 2 miles away. It comes to $.69, round trip. So when I drive up-and-back to drop her off in the morning and up-and-back to pick her up, it's costing us about $1.40, plus a couple cents of wear-and-tare on the car and making the Earth cry N tears. Now I was hoping this little exercise would give me more reason to slog the 30-minute-each-way-at-best public transportation route. We live less than a block from a metro station and it glares at me mockingly every time I drive by in my gas-consuming personal transportation device. And AJ's day care is also glaring distance from a metro. The problem is that nothing runs from that station directly to ours; we have to transfer. If you're thinking "Not a big deal," you don't have a toddler. AJ can turn ...

Posted in family, thoughts | No Comments »