They Might Not Pay for Themselves

The cost effectiveness of compact fluorescent light bulbs goes down considerably if one must take into account inevitable (in our house) breakages and collateral damage. It will take a lot of energy savings to pay for the new sofa slipcover now that we’ve discarded the not-so-old mercury-laden one.

I was thinking that my husband would probably find cleanup instructions somewhere that were less paranoid than EPA’s guidelines. Unfortunately, he came back from his online search saying, “I hate it when the paranoid site is the most convincing.”

Of course, we both have memories of playing with the mercury globules from broken thermometers when we were kids. That could mean “hey, no problem with mercury, we turned out fine!” or that we should be extra careful having already absorbed a lifetime supply of the stuff.

Customer Input

Dear Owner / Manager of New Restaurant Nearby:

Do not put a banner across the front of your restaurant announcing that you are now open if the highly visible playscape next to your patio is not in fact open yet.

Sincerely,

May Never Be a Customer After All

Fortunately, the same shopping center in Tony Enclave We Don’t Live In has another restaurant with a bigger playscape attached, so all was not lost. I could hardly blame Zeb for getting upset when I encouraged him in his exitement about the playscape, only to inform him once we got close that he couldn’t play there after all.

Parenting News Notes

From the NY Times, and for once not in the style section. On the other hand, I’m not sure if they provide much in the way of new information.

1. Sick kids and day care/school. Keep them home if they have a fever or are miserable, take them in despite sniffles and coughs. Wash hands, lots. Who knew? In Science Tuesday.

2. Update on taking breast milk through TSA checkpoints at airports. In the business section.

Bonus: Is Scholastic Book Club taking advantage of its position in schools?

I’ve been reading the NYT in print because I’ve been doing the crossword  puzzles at the cafe down the street from from Zebediah’s day care. It would probably be more cost effective to subscribe to the paper or to the Premium Crosswords online, but that would mean admitting I have a habit.

and a question: why in the world would this blog have a spike in posts today, before I posted? I haven’t even commented anywhere recently.