So I run into the rental store to pick something out. Get back out to the car, and there's this:

Chris: "So what'd you find?"
Me: "It's called How to Be a Serial Killer."
Chris: "You do know we're on a watch list now."
Kaylee: *cackles maniacally*
Chris: "And that was your influence."
Me: "Guilty."

Chris and I actually went on a date. :-) It's been close to two years since we've had the opportunity to do that, so . . . yeah.

Mom offered to babysit Kaylee for the day, so we dropped her off about 10:00 and headed to Wichita. We were thinking about stopping for lunch first, but after we stopped at Cocoa Dolce (yay chocolate!!) we saw what time it was and realized we should probably hit the museum first to be in time for the movie there. The museum was called Exploration Place. Great view of the river, and we loved their exhibits (they have a wind tunnel! And a whole bunch of other hands-on stuff; we're definitely going to take Chris's nephews later on and Kaylee's going to be visiting a lot when she's a bit older). The traveling one, which is an exhibit about the animatronics of movie monsters, had a ton of set props in it, including some from Pitch Black-- if they had allowed pictures, I so would've gotten my picture next to that one, because I love that movie way too much. We also went to see a short film in their Cyberdome Theater, which was about prehistoric sea monsters and fossil digs and whatnot; really good.

Then we went to Il Vicino for a late lunch. One of these days when we get a chance to go back I'm going to try one of their sandwiches, honest, but I have a hard time passing up their pizza. And they have the best tiramisu ever.

Anyway, Il Vicino's second building in Wichita is right next to Cocoa Dolce's new location-- then I saw that there's also a Barnes and Noble on the corner, so I told Chris to just head home without me; I was going to pitch a tent in the parking lot. :-)

We got back and Kaylee heard the door open and ran to us, shrieking "Mama! Dada!" Entirely too cute.

Today isn't going to be as much fun-- catching up on laundry and dishes, and trying to rearrange the upstairs so that it's some semblance of neat-- but it'll be nice to have things done.

It's been snowing steadily since about 11 a.m. On his way to work, Chris went into the ditch-- he wasn't hurt and the car wasn't damaged, but it freaked him out a little bit and he called to tell us not to drive anywhere unless it's absolutely necessary.

Time to make some hot chocolate, I guess. :-)

Slacktivist is at it again (if you haven't read his essays about the Left Behind series, do so!), this time with a piece about a recent poll showing that 60% of Americans don't believe in evolution.

((I also really like this one.))

When I was growing up, this was something I talked about with mom and dad, but it was never any big controversy as far as either of them was concerned. I remember dad telling me that he believed the whole '7 days' thing was parable-speak, and that God created us and evolution is just the mechanism He used to do it.

Chris and I were both raised as Christians . . . he's still with it, while I'm agnostic. We've had several discussions about how to raise Kaylee with regards to religion. So far we're going with the 'attend church sometimes, have discussions afterwards, and if she doesn't show much interest don't force the issue'.

But the main attitude around here can be summed up by a former college classmate of mine. We were in science class, the book got to its section on evolution, and she says (ostensibly to me, but loudly enough for the teacher to hear), "I don't know why we even have to talk about this. I know I didn't come from any chimp!" and then she elbowed me and grinned like I was going to agree with her. I told her that wasn't how it worked, anyway. And the poor teacher; from the look on her face she'd just gotten an instant headache.

So, yeah. Lot of misinformation going on. Also, have I mentioned, Kansas?

Therefore, my trust in the school system is basically nil. And while I understand the very general basics, I'm far from an expert, so I'm getting to work on gathering information from people who're smarter than me. ;-) I've got those essays above, and we've got a couple of DVDs with various scientists discussing the issue, but I'm just wondering if any of you happen to have any books/movies/articles on evolution that you found particularly good? (bonus points if they're kid-friendly)

Thanks!!

From a little trail we walked around on yesterday:

For the meme I posted the other day, asking people to give me topics outside my normal blogging routines to post about.

that_evening said 'sex'.

Not sure what aspect of it to talk about, so you get random babbling. Lucky you! ;-)

I don't remember how old I was when I found out exactly what was involved, but I do remember the how. I'd overheard a group of older kids talking about it, but couldn't exactly go up to them and ask them to explain. So I did the logical thing: went home and looked up the word in the encyclopedia.

My poor, poor mother. I call up to her from the basement:

"Hey, mom?"
"What?"
"I'm becoming a nun!"
*sigh* "Now what are you reading?"

Skip a few years, and my cousin and I were watching a movie with my grandmother. We had to be careful doing this, because grandma has some strict standards, and if we brought in a movie that offended her then we got the whole extra-scrutiny thing every time we rented a video. It was a romantic drama-- little to no swearing, fade-to-black instead of an explicit sex scene, no violence. My cousin and I thought we were golden. Then the movie ends, and my grandmother says that it was okay, but she really didn't like the fact that the main characters had sex before they were married.

This honestly did not occur to my cousin and I as a possible problem. Skip a few more years, and there's no way I'm bringing up to grandma that I didn't exactly wait, either.

Which I suppose brings us to jbangelo, whose suggestion was:

"when you first met your husband and what your first impression of him was"

Funnily enough, I don't remember the first time we met. We did shows at the community college together for years-- the first one we were both involved in was Picnic when I was fifteen. I played Millie; he worked on set construction. So I know there were weekends working on the set that he was also around, but at the time he was Just Another Guy Who Hopefully Remembers Where I Put the Stupid Paintbrush.

I do remember when I realized I wanted to start dating him. A group of us headed out for a drink one night after rehearsal. One girl was depressed because the guy she was on-again off-again seeing had done something beyond stupid and hurtful. She started crying, and I honestly expected Chris to do what I'd seen guys do before, both in 'funny' movies and in real life-- treat tears like Kryptonite and quickly get out of there. Instead he helped talk her through it, and I thought, "If I was going to try a relationship, I'd want it to be with someone like him". And then I realized that what I actually meant was that I wanted to date him, at which point I freaked. Because I had no idea what the hell I was doing. ((y'know that stage in high school where you date a few people and get used to the general process? Yeah, I kindof skipped that in favor of reading and writing))

So at the next cast party, I got drunk because I figured then I would stop fretting over everything so much and just be able to flirt. Not exactly a brilliant or original strategy. :-)

Will hopefully get to a more in-depth review of latest episodes watched sometime next week (Jus in Bello OMG), but for now:

We're driving back home after ordering some more checks from the bank, and I'm doing my usual 'keep switching stations until I manage to find a good song' thing. And what do I find but "Heat of the Moment".

So of course I go into Dean's point-and-lip-synch routine.

Result? My husband does an actual real-life facepalm. The day is a good one. ;-)

Me: *reading Dr. Seuss to Kaylee*

Chris: "Hey, I get paid tomorrow and we have a little bit extra in the checkbook-- want to go get lunch?"

Me: "Sure!"

We head out, order food. I remember that today's Monday, which means a new episode of My Own Worst Enemy. Life = good. And then:

Migraine: HI!

Me: *whimper*

So mom came over after work to deal with Kaylee while I hid under blankets and prayed for death. It faded off after a couple of hours (yay drugs!) and I rented Kabluey so mom could see it. Suppose it all evens out. :-)

-- Kaylee's figuring out how to use a sippy cup. Right now she's standing at her baby gate, amazingly enough holding the cup the right way instead of trying to drink from it upside-down again. She's also gnawing on the spout just as much as she's trying to drink (can't blame her, really, her top two teeth are starting to come in). The front of her shirt is soaked. I'm debating about whether it would be ethically right to just take her out to the backyard and spritz her down with the hose.

-- Probably not, since when I woke up the house was at 50 degrees. I try not to turn on the heater at all until November, but made an exception for that one. Gah.

-- The house is a complete mess. I'm trying not to concentrate on it, but it's difficult. Especially when Kaylee's figured out how to pull DVDs off the shelf and scatters them around the living room. We need a cabinet with doors. Maybe next paycheck.

-- Chris is working from 4 in the afternoon to 2 a.m. all this week. Considering that Kaylee doesn't usually fall asleep until 12:00 or 1 a.m., it makes for some long nights. It's quite possible that I'm turning into a zombie.

-- My brother just got this cool SAS Survival Handbook. I'm going to go through it for story notes sometime. Possibly at the aforementioned 1 a.m. ;-)

Chris just finally got some vacation time, so we've been busy setting up a garage sale (made $60! Yay) and catching up with the Laundry Piles of Doom and whatnot.

Kaylee sortof took some steps . . . we had her stroller in the kitchen and she clung to the back of it and walked it across the floor. I got video of it on my camera, now if I can just figure out how to upload it to Youtube, I'll be set.

And, My Own Worst Enemy premieres tonight!! *waves from Cloud Nine*

So Chris and Kaylee and mom and I went to Cross Timbers State Park the other day. Intended to just drive around and look at the lake, but when we saw one of the nature trails we decided to go for a walk.

What I was thinking was, "Cool spiderweb! Hey, is that a . . . yeah, that's a deer. Quick, try to get a picture!" (I did not. My camera-fu is not very strong) What I should have been thinking was, "Remember how mosquitoes always head right for you? That means ticks are probably even worse, and here you are walking around without bug spray and in sandals, you idiot."

Alas, I did not think that. Now I could play an extended game of connect-the-dots on my legs. Kaylee, fortunately, didn't inherit my bug magnet genes, so she's fine.

From now on I will only go for nature hikes in the winter.

Poor Chris-- his work schedule changed again. People keep quitting with very little notice, which means everyone else gets to scramble around in order to get shifts covered. Yesterday's was 6 in the evening until 6 in the morning. Yay fun.

On the good side, Kaylee and I had some mother-daughter bonding time, which we spent watching a classic triple feature of Cry_Wolf, Sabretooth, and Alone in the Dark. Because I want her to start appreciating the finer things in life early. ;-)

The kid loves explosions, whether they're onscreen or actual. You should've seen her on the 4th of July. She was grinning and clapping, and then when she finally fell asleep she slept through fireworks that made the rest of us jump.

And she was happy with my commentary during Sabretooth--

Me: "Look out! The bad special effect is going to eat them! Oh no!"
Kaylee: *giggleclapsqueal*

-- Chris is outside working in the yard. Specifically, putting out a birdbath and plotting out what kind of bench and flowers to put in Harley's Garden. :-)

-- The news is depressing me even more than usual, what with the whole "it doesn't matter if you actually pull the trigger, you hussy, we'll send you to jail for killing someone anyway!" thing, so I'm going to write and pretend the world doesn't exist for a while. My sanity will thank me.

-- Kaylee hasn't quite mastered the art of crawling yet. What she does is lie on her stomach, press her face to the blanket, stick her butt up in the air and then push off with her feet, scooting forward. Hee.

-- If I don't get over this stupid cold soon, I'm going to hurt somebody. And/or buy stock in Kleenex.

-- We have no idea what in the world Kaylee's favorite stuffed animal is supposed to be. It's pale green with dark green spots and huge blue feet and it looks like some oddly-colored cross between a cow and a giraffe. So I was playing with her the other day and I dangled the toy in front of her and went, "Grrr. Argh." and Chris laughed and said, "Well, the thing is a mutant", so now the toy's name is Emmy, short for Mutant Enemy. Yeah. We are proud of our geekery around here.

-- Zot is sleeping under my desk. This wouldn't be a problem if he'd stop biting my feet periodically to remind me that he's there.

She adores the Sweeney Todd soundtrack. I was singing the Johanna reprise song to her this morning and she was grinning like crazy. Giggled at the "Mischief! Mischief!" part. Next up: RENT. :-)

For further proof, here's a normal everyday conversation in my family. After watching I Am Legend, Devin read the book , and then this happened--

Devin: "I want to live alone in a world that's been taken over by vampires. That'd be awesome. I could run around naked all day."
Me: "Yeah, on the list of 'mental images I did not want', that one's pretty high up there."
Chris: "The poor, poor vampires."
Devin: "What? They wouldn't be awake. Unless I started singing karaoke."
Chris: "Naked Karaoke in Vampire City. There's the new Sci-Fi Channel original."
Devin: "Cool. Steph, write it. Anyway, I'd leave 'em alone, so I'd live."
Me: "Oh, b.s. you'd leave them alone. . ."
Devin: "Okay, yeah, I would draw mustaches on them while they were asleep."
Me: "Kid, if vampires ever took over you wouldn't even know about it because you'd be holed off in your room playing video games. Then they'd kill you."
Devin: "Long as I finished the level, I'd be cool with that."
Mom: "Devin."
Devin: "What?"
Mom: *shakes head and wisely goes back to her book*
Devin: "I still want to run around naked, though."
Me: "I'm sure there's a nudist beach somewhere that wouldn't kick you out."
Dad: *comes into room* "Um, I should be glad I missed this conversation, shouldn't I?"
Chris: "Very."
Devin: "Maybe at graduation. . ."
Mom: "Devin!"

Specifically, he's participating in the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Lock-Up.

He's working on raising at least $800 in bail money (deadline is April 3), and when we found out that we could set up a website through them to take donations . . . well. :-)

So, if any awesome people happen to be interested: here's his page, and thanks!!

"I guess after the picture came out the insurgency picked up and Iraqis attacked the Americans and the British and they attacked in return and they were just killing each other. I felt bad about it ... no, I felt pissed off. If the media hadn't exposed the pictures to that extent, then thousands of lives would have been saved," she {Lynndie England} was quoted as saying.

And gee, if you and your dumbass buddies hadn't done something that nasty in the first place, then the media wouldn't have had anything to report, right?

Now I certainly have my issues with the media, but I do hate this kind of crap. "Oh, it's the media's fault for paying so much attention to this!" Not, of course, the fault of the people who do things they shouldn't be doing in the first place, oh no. Just blame the eeeevil media for pointing it out and stopping their harmless fun and games!

Idiot.

And in less blood-pressure-raising news, Chris is over at a friend's house with Kaylee, so I have a bit of time to write, and to type out a list of her books so I know what she does and doesn't have for next time we visit a bookstore. Yay organization.

Since we haven't seen enough truly awful movies in the theater this year, Chris and I decided to check out 10,000 B.C. Which fulfills the 'awful movie' quotient until June 2018, I think, but there was one amusing moment.

A scene where the hero is trapped in one of those pits with the spikes in the bottom as it's starting to rain. And when he wakes up, he realizes there's a saber tooth tiger trapped down there, too, pinned by a log. And he picks up his spear and stands there, trying to convince himself to actually kill it, and then finally he sighs and says, "Do not eat me after I set you free." And Chris leans over and whispers, "That has got to be your ancestor."

Been a nice past couple of days-- went on a long drive and wrote a bunch of story notes.
Also, bought Slipstream, which gave new meaning to the word 'weird', but in a good way. I'm probably misinterpreting it wrong or something, but I thought I got most of what was going on-- there's where a scene's getting rewritten, here's some dialogue that's being tweaked, a few snippets of things that influence the later story, etc. I told Chris that I recognized some of that stuff from my own thought processes, and this is what followed:

Chris: "That's how your brain works? I'm scared of you now."
Me: "As well you should be."
Chris: "My brain's more like, 'Hm, I should go get lunch-- ooh, motorcycle! I don't want to go to work today-- ooh, motorcycle!'

In Kaylee news, she slept for 8 hours last night. 8. Hours. Ahahahaha, sleeeeeeep.

Yeah, I've been tired lately. Can you tell? ;-)

And when we were over at mom and dad's house, I picked up a copy of one of dad's magazines, read part of an article in it-- which succeeded in raising my blood pressure a bit-- and then held it up in front of Kaylee.

Me: "Kaylee, you know what this is?"
Kaylee: *URK*
Me: *snickering* "Hey dad! I held up your copy of National Review, and Kaylee threw up!"
Dad: "Hm. She does take after you."

Yesterday was an exercise in hurting myself. I leaned over to get some laundry and whacked my head on the edge of a stack of photo frames that were on top of the dryer, hit my funnybone on a doorframe. . .

But best (worst?) of all, I was getting the cats' food when one of them nudged the door open and raced into the pantry. I automatically reached down to grab him, and my hand got too close to the base of the door. The shooting pain in my finger let me know what had happened (I'd done it once before during a play rehearsal) but I really didn't want to look at it. Chris was in the room by this time, having heard my yelp and subsequent swearing, so I just held out my hand. I knew from his "Ohhhh man" that I'd definitely gotten myself good.

I hurried to the sink and ran cold water over it to numb it, and told Chris to get the camera, deciding that if I was going to zap myself this bad I'd at least get a funny story and accompanying photograph for later.

Managed to pull the splinter out and head into the kitchen before I had to very abruptly sit down.

It's doing better today-- I can actually pick Kaylee up, unlike yesterday-- and so far today (knock on wood) I haven't hurt myself. I'm still not going to operate heavy machinery.

So yesterday was the start of the "get the cats used to the idea that they can't have free run of the bedroom anymore" campaign. Had a bit of trouble getting Daisy to come out from under the bed, since she finally decided that if she could just get herself tangled in the alarm clock/lamp wires, maybe I'd give up. *sigh*

Finally convinced her to come out, shut the door, all was well. Chris got home from work at midnight, and I went into the bedroom and tried to turn on the lamp. No such luck.

Muttering, I peer behind the bed and catch sight of a loose plug. After a couple of minutes fumbling around, I managed to get it plugged back in and tried the lamp again.

Nada.

At which point I gave up. Chris came in and I told him he was welcome to mess with it if he wanted to. A moment later I hear--

"Honey?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I laugh at you?"
"What did I do?"

I look over, and see that the loose plug? Was the plug for the busbar. Which I'd put into the busbar instead of into the wall.

Let's just say Sylar's not going to be coming after my brain anytime soon.