Precious is not changing.

John gave me a great graduation present--a Kindle Fire. (For clarity, I'll call it the Fire and a normal Kindle, Precious. 'Cos that's its name. As in Lord of the Rings "Precious." Not that depressing movie.) My husband ordered Fire for me a month ago and I impatiently awaited it, swapping excited texts with my BFF about it at least weekly. My one hope was that it would make underlining easier. Faster and without freezing my device.

I also wanted to dispense with the devices that populate my purse. I can't leave the house without my phone, my Kindle, and my iPod. I've thought about duct-taping them together, but the adhesive...anyway. I realized I'd still need my phone, but I really thought I could dispense with the iPod, especially since I buy my music from Amazon to begin with.

I am, as I said on FB, a loyal and devoted Amazonian. I distinctly remember reading the story in Wall Street Journal and immediately signing on. At that time, I was keeping QPB in business. Remember QPB? Quality Paperback Bookclub? Whatever happened to them? And who could have predicted Amazon would deliver my books, yarn, shoes, frisbees. Well, Jeff Bezos would have predicted that, of course, but not me. So, it surprises me to have to say that I am not in love with my Kindle Fire. I don't even plan on keeping it.

I'll list my likes first. It's a shorter list.

1. Underlining is infinitely faster.



2. Apps are fun.

3. Being able to see the pictures in your books is cool.

Dislikes, in the order that I found them.

1. You can't name it. It's called Julia's 2nd Kindle. I'm sure I can remedy that by going to the Amazon site but I don't like it that I can't just press that and change it to "Sweet Cheeks" or "Clive."




2. Amazon Prime members get free streaming movies, but the only free Clark Gable movie available is "Band of Angels." Which is the worst Clark Gable movie ever. In fact, it may be the worst movie ever--with anybody in it. It was so bad, Clark and the director, who had been BFFs, never spoke again. I bet Sidney Poitier pretends he didn't make it. (I told you this is my list of dislikes in the order in which I found them.) (And, to be clear, The 5th Element or any Luc Besson movie is the worst movie ever. But I digress.)


3. It's too heavy. One of my favorite things about Precious is how easy it makes the act of reading, particularly in bed. That's my commonly cracked joke: I don't know how books caught on in the first place. They're cumbersome, unwieldy. I did find a free movie I wanted to watch, so I stayed up all night watching "Best In Show" for the thousandth time. Keeping the thing propped up or held up was an annoying challenge. And that's just a 90-minute movie. I stay up all night reading *a lot.*

4. That on-off button is in a stupid place. I turned it off more than once because it's right where you put your hands. I guess they expected people to hold it sideways.

5. There's no way to organize your content. I may have 1000 books, as Sandy likes to say, and, yes, there is enough memory to download them all into "Favorites" but once they're in there, there's no way to organize them. I had my 1000 books in 33 folders on Precious (Folders with names like "The Queue," which is what I'm reading right this minute. "Brit Lit" is, well, you know.) I worked hard to create those folders and put all those titles in those folders. That way it really is like a library in my purse. I use "archives" as, well, archives. The place where books that I finished go. Because it's "archives." See? The carousel can't be organized, favorites can't be organized...

6. There's not enough memory. Precious has 3 GB for content and I have 626 MB free, so yeah, I have a couple of books. And, as I mentioned, I like having access to them as if they were on a shelf. I looked it up and Fire has 6 GB, enough for 10 movies, OR 100 apps OR 6,000 books OR 800 songs...see how I'm saying "or"? When you're thinking this is going to replace all your devices and you have 2000 songs and almost 4 GB of books and all four seasons of "Schoolhouse Rock"...well, pretty soon, you've only got 1.5 GB left. And that's after you've removed there terrible 4th season of Schoolhouse Rock and only downloaded your Christmas music playlist.

7. The screen is shiny. I've been reading in all kinds of environments and the experience on Fire is not like the experience on Precious. You don't lose yourself in a book when you have to keep tilting it to avoid the glare. But I have been told there are anti-glare covers. But what's the point of developing e-ink technology if you're not going to use it?

8. You're tethered. You have to have WiFi to use it the way I want to use it. Since I don't have enough memory to download all my songs, I can't use it in the car the way I use my iPod. You can download movies to watch later, but it uses up your memory. I've said all this before, so...what's the point of developing the WhisperNet if you're not going to use it?

9. It doesn't have the same battery life as Precious. After it was passed around all day Thanksgiving, it was dead on the drive home. It does charge in the car, but Precious would have been rarin' to go and only needed a book light to entertain me all the way home.

10. I can't type on it. I was going to get a stylus to make it easier to type, but since it's only going to be an at-home device, that's really not an issue. So I won't even bemoan the fact that I can't text with it.


11. Kids books on Fire aren't all that. Kids books should be books, anyway, so I only put that here to be whiny.

I know that Amazon will upgrade Fire and eventually it will be what I want it to be, but it will not be $200 anymore. For the time being, I'm going to stick with Precious.

I'm an asshole. No changin' that.

So, I have a 33 year old niece and she is fabulous. She is my sister-in-law's daughter and I couldn't like her more if I'd watched her grow up, but I met her when she was 22  or so. She's beautiful, whip-smart, and funny as hell...I love it that she takes John apart every time she sees him.

We're going to my sister-in-law's for Thanksgiving. We haven't had Thanksgiving there since we were newlyweds. I can't wait for the brother-in-law's wonderful deep-friend turkey. I am also excited for Finn to have a family holiday instead of just us sitting around talking about how much we hate Arizona. He'll be able to hear family stories, eat good food, play with neighborhood kids. Very excited. For him. For me...I'd like to stay home with a Bloody Mary and, perhaps, even a cigarette. Because I am an asshole.

Sunday, John came in after the Redskins game and says Erika is bringing her boyfriend to Thanksgiving. Hooray! Her 47 year old still-married boyfriend. Oh, and did I mention, he's her boss? Oh.

One could say that I don't know all the details. OK, any of the details, but I don't shy away from a knee-jerk reaction.

So I posted a note to my sister-in-law. We had been talking on FB about Finn's birthday, so I just added onto that. It went like this:

Julia E. Pheifer: Um, could you tell me how you want me to act on Thursday because I can't be trusted. But I'll do whatever you tell me to do. I'm pretty sure I'll need alcohol, but I do worry it will make me say things I shouldn't.

Niece of Julia: What would you be worried about?

Yeah. That's right. The note on FB about Finn's birthday was to me, John, sister-in-law and nieces. So I tried to hold my ground and backpedal, which is, of course, impossible.

Julia E. Pheifer: Not being welcoming to your gentleman friend. But I see it is too late to worry about what I might say drunk or sober.

Niece of Julia: Perhaps I am a little late to the show. Why would you not be? I would hope that you would be welcoming to anyone that I am with. I am not sure what John relayed but I imagine it is something along the lines of that he is going through a divorce. I thought honesty would be the best policy. I'm not going to defend my relationship with Steve nor may excuses for it. He's a good man and I should have no reason to believe that will not be welcomed or comfortable in my mother's home with my family.

Yeah. I'm an asshole. Whatever. Ain't nothin' I can do about it now. (And, in my defense, I could give a shit that he's divorced or not divorced. I care that he's 47 and he's her boss. But I did not write that. Because my assholeness does know some bounds.)

John was blissfully unaware of this until my SIL called him and asked to speak to me, rather urgently.

Why did my sister need to speak to you? Is there anything the matter?

No. Not really.

Pregnant pause.

OK, I did something stupid. I don't want to talk about it, so you can just read it.

Five minutes later John comes out of the bedroom and stands staring at me.

Your sister wanted to let me know she's being Switzerland.

And what are you? North Korea?

Well, I prefer to think of myself as Serbia. You know, I do something nutty and small...

North Korea, he said.

Title something to do with

Mom, can I have some milk?

Of course.

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t

Brachiosaurus!

haven’t blogged in a month. Well, it’s because

Two!

because we move

Rectangles!

moved.

three-ee-ee

Super Shapes! For flashlight

We moved and Finn can’t enroll in school. Baltimore county has

No…no…no..

really

Yes! That’s him!

Really strict rules about enrollment because  their schools are so good. (Gets up to find paper work to provide supporting evidence)

Hey, Mom, his hands are popcorn seeds

They’re popcorn seeds?

See? Did you see?

I can’t find the papers, but you have to prove where you live. A lease won’t do, a mortgage won’t do. A contract on a house definitely will not do. (Contracts can be broken.) You have to show three pieces of mail addressed to you at the address you’re trying to use to enroll your kid.

Hey mom, Stegosaurus, stegosaurus

So, today, I am conducting an art project. I am showing you in real time what it’s like when I sit down to do

Two down, two more to go.

When I sit down

Two down two to go or is it one down one to go

When I sit down to do anything. Anything other than sit and stare at Finn and wait for whatever he may ask me to do or listen to or see or say. We take walks with the dogs, of course, and his dad takes him swimming every evening, and he has two hours of tutoring at Sylvan learning center four days a week so his brain won’t rot.

They all got a problem. Mom. Why don’t they just use the elevator?

I don’t know.

So, if I don’t answer, it gets louder and more insistenter. And he can't go where we just bought a house because we're just under contract and he can't go to the school by the hotel because

Rowf! Rowf! (Dogs barking at maids vacuuming outside our door.)

He should be careful with his skates, Mom. Pink yellow, yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow, yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow, yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow, yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow, yellow. Pink yellow yellow. Pink yellow yellow.

Finn, please stop.

I type 90-110 wpm, so I can pretty much capture everything. I thought about recording this and putting it online, but I don’t want anyone seeing my fat ass on video for the rest of my life. Speaking of my fat ass, I had planned to use the exercise equipment here at the hotel to its fullest extent but that was before I knew that Finn wouldn’t be allowed in school. 

Oh, yeah, that’s what I was telling you. So we got a PO Box and started changing our bills over to that. But the phone and the

Rooaarr. What's a dick?

What?

She called them dicks.

She did not. This is a kid's show. A dick is another name for a penis and mom uses that work when she's mad when she's driving and she should not and she's very sorry. Don't ever say that. And she did not say that.

The phone and the bank will not accept a PO Box and that’s the only bills we have right now. And his job, the job we moved here for? They keep sending stuff to our Arizona address. But I think we might have that

Agh! Give me that! (Finn’s playing with my super sharp scissors that are usually kept in my craft basket and why they are not there I do not know.)

Licked. I’m hoping that I can show them two pieces of mail addressed to the hotel and one pices to the PO Box. Oh, and I’m going to cry.

Don’t get me wrong, I rather enjoy taking him all around Baltimore. And I’m still not over thinking I’m going to die, so this

Do you like Olivia?

Yes, I love Olivia.

I love her too. Well, I like her. We should get that pirate ship.

So this is actually pretty precious time for me. But…do you know what I’m saying? I can’t take him downtown every day. I’ve *got* to do laundry today. Each of us have one clean t-shirt. Finn has no clean

I feel light headed. Mom, I feel lightheaded.

Really? Huh.

(He heard the phrase on some show the other day and he’s been experimenting with it since. I have not yet said, “You feel lightheaded? Oh, I’ll make you feel lightheaded” Performs the Homer Simpson

Please get your fingers out of your mouth.

OK, well. That’s all the energy I have for this task. Gotta get this laundry going.

Can I have that? 

What are you going to do with a pink skateboarding girl doll? Get that off! I am not watching Spongebob Squarepants.

Rowf!

(I attest that everything in this blog is true and occurred exactly like this between 11:45 and 12:11, Tuesday, November 15, 20011.)