Hey You Guuuuuuuuuuuuys!

Have you heard that the Sesame Workshop (the production company that has produced many great children’s television programs, including Sesame Street, Dragon Tales, and 3-2-1 Contact, among others) has resurrected and revamped The Electric Company?  I fondly remember this show—that featured the likes of Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, and Morgan Freeman, among others—from my childhood.  When I heard it was being rebooted, I was skeptical.  

Check out this Then and Now spot and then come back.  

Sonar X4 and I have watched two of the new episodes, and at first I thought it was completely cheeseball.  But I’m trying to keep an open mind and give it a chance.  The storylines and the acting are fully campy, but familiar features like the Sound-out silhouettes are there.  A number of celebrities have appeared already, including retired NFL player and sports commentator Tiki Barber.  

After one whole episode, I started to warm to it.  The camp aside, the show, which claims to target six to nine year olds, does not talk down to kids, and pulls in a good variety of simple words and more advanced words when demonstrating a concept.  

For example, in the episode we watched today, they were talking about “-ight.”  They started with the standard words—“right,” “light,” “might,” etc.—but went on to do “frightening,” “bullfight” and others that pushed beyond the basics in a clever way.  They even joked about how it can be confusing that sometimes the sound is spelled “-ight” and sometimes it’s spelled “-ite.”

But today, I was completely won over by this closing music video.  I defy you to not get a warm fuzzy feeling in your chest, or to not at least tap your feet.  I admit to doing the electric slide through the kitchen when I listened to the video a second time.  Shh, don’t tell anyone.  

So I’d say the show is worth a look-see (or a Plug in, if you want to follow the electricity metaphors), if it’s available in your area, even if you don’t have a young person around to share it with.  

Changes Afoot

Did you notice how the holidays sort of zoomed by?  Well, ok, they zoomed by for me.  I find myself here, in the middle of January a little flummoxed by how zippy things have been.   On top of that, we’ve had a big change. 

We have been joined by my Sister, who will be living with us for a while.  The kids think she has really cool stuff.  Preparing for her arrival, we turned the house upside down and shook it a little bit, then turned it back the other way and shifted things around.  All but one room in the house had furniture moved in, out, or around.  Here are the twelve feet of lovely shelves Partner added.  

Sister arrived here with her car-full of cool stuff after three days and 1,600 miles of solo driving through wind and rain and caffeine jitters, but finds herself stronger and more resilient for the adventure.  I think she might have a grey hair, but she denies it.  

The good news is that things are settling down.  Sister has several promising leads on jobs, which, in the current economy, leaves us all thankful.  Today she is taking her next brave step, driving over the Bay Bridge.  This is a big deal because she has a thing about bridges.  I patted her on the back and wished her best of luck.  Seriously, after 1,600 miles of American Highway, what’s one little old bridge?  Nothing!  

Somewhere in the haze and shuffle, I forgot all about sending Christmas/End-of-year cards to family and friends.  At this point, if I send them, it looks like they will turn out to be Inauguration Cards.  Ack, and I just realized that I have until Saturday to send something for a cousin’s wedding.  

My usual, organized self is feeling a bit jittery at the thought that something has fallen off the radar, so for now, I am reminding myself to breathe, picking up the second kilt sock, and knitting for the next thirty-five minutes.  Yes.  Thirty-five.  All while glancing sideways at the calendar.  

Baby Oil is my new best friend

The next time you’re cleaning up after staining fine wood furniture, or even cheap wood furniture, and you find yourself fresh out of mineral spirits, take heart, a solution is at hand.  Ahem.  

Today, with my hands covered in brown stain, and a brush in the same condition, I pondered clean-up solutions.  No mineral spirits, per stain label instructions.  I thought of the last time we needed to get off some of the sticky goop left behind by medical tape.  Rubbing alcohol required too much rubbing.   But baby oil takes off the adhesive very easily, and near a fresh wound doesn’t risk screaming pain.  

If you want to know why wood stain made me think of tape adhesive, well, it’s in the chemistry of it all.  The adhesive and the wood stain both have oily, or at least hydrophobic compounds in them.  

So.  I dug out a bottle of baby oil that is as old as at least one of my children, maybe more.   I doused both hands with the oil and rubbed it in.  Then I rubbed in a great glop of dish soap before putting them under the running water.  It worked better when I waited on the water.  And it worked great for my brushes too.  

The hydrophobic stain, bonded with the hydrophobic baby oil.  But that alone wasn’t enough, it merely spread out the stain in a more even coating on my hands.  When I tried to rinse that away, the water just sheeted off (because the water and the stain said, eek! water, get it off!).  So, I needed the magic of soap, which has both hydrophobic parts and hydrophilic (mmm,  water) parts and can form micelles that carry off…. what?  Too much chemistry?  

Ok, anyway, it worked really well.  And left my skin soft to boot.  Later, I took the baby oil and dish soap into the shower to get the spots off of my arms, shoulders, neck and cheek.  Take note, the baby oil and soap will not remove the bruise on your thigh that you got when the rocking horse runner slammed into it yesterday but you forgot about and thought was a splotch of stain that had soaked through your old (favorite) jeans, no matter how much you scrub before you realize it is actually just a bruise and not stain.  Do be careful though, the floor of the tub/shower will be slippery when you’re done.  Leave a note for the next person.  Or better yet, rub the floor of the tub/shower with a soapy rag.  

The stain was for the twenty-one (!), four-foot shelves that were cut, sanded and stained today (their supports were assembled yesterday and stained today as well), that will go on this wall of our living room.  

Or perhaps this one (if I move all of that other stuff).  Notice how for one wall I will have to move stuff but for the other one I won’t.  (Also, please notice on the back of the couch the two-tone blue afghan that my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas.  I love it.  Ok, maybe you can’t so much see it in this picture, but it’s lovely and she had to weave in a bazillion ends in the crocheted hounds tooth pattern, for which I think she is the most lovely person because I know how much work that can be.  Also notice our lovely antennae job, imitating speaker wire thumb-tacked on the wall and stretching across the room.  Oh no, wait, DON’T notice that.)