On Notice

(notice: this isn’t technically about BlogHer so my aforementioned ban on BlogHer discussion does in fact hold true. Baby steps, people, baby steps.)

This little rant isn’t on a topic that I think is exclusive to United Airlines (my airline of choice last week), so I’m not putting United on notice. Overall, United was a very nice airline to travel with. I truly enjoyed my trip east. My trip west on the other hand…

WHY oh WHY do they still have reclining seats in coach? Can someone answer that for me? Here’s the way I figure it: Either give coach more leg room or get rid of the reclining seats. Because your average human being cannot handle not reclining one of those seats and then I end up with someone’s seat in my lap/face/etc for 3+ hours. I swear, on my flight from Chicago, the jerkoff in front of me reclined his seat as soon as the plane took off and did not return it to it’s full upright position until the stewardess came and told him to, moments from landing. And those few moments left on that torturous flight were the first moments that I could actually put my legs in front of me. For 3+ hours. This was also on a 767, which if you aren’t familiar, is laid out something like this:

(XX XXX XX)

And guess where I was sitting? I dare you, just GUESS. Give up? (the spaces indicate the aisles) Here:

(XX XXX XX)

Oh yes. Right smack in the middle. So I was surrounded by people in front of me, behind me, on the sides of me. No window to gaze out of, no aisle to lean out into or stretch my legs into. No, just an overweight jerkoff with his seat in my lap for 3+ hours. And his kid was a complete brat too, but by that point I sort of expected that.  Also a feature of the 767 is the video screens in the seat back of every seat in coach.  Which would have been nice had I had more than 6 inches between the end of my nose and the video screen (trust me, I measured).  I watched “Premonition” starring Sandra Bullock but found myself getting so damned uncomfortable (on top of already exhausted out of my mind) that I could hardly enjoy it.  Oh, and they only let us watch that one movie.  After the movie was over, we were SOL.  So I watched the plane inch across the digital map (a nifty 767 feature that you can liken to watching a pot full of water come to a boil) and literally WILLED it to hurry up and get to freakin’ San Francisco already.  And I definitely felt some pangs as we flew over Nevada and I wished for a moment that we’d experience some sort of equipment failure and have to make an emergency landing in Reno.

In a word?  The flight was MISERABLE.  I was fine flying out to Chicago because no one flight was over 2 1/2 hours long.  I flew from Reno to Denver and then Denver to Chicago.  We got to watch our shows/movies and all was well.  I never felt as uncomfortable as I did on the Chicago to San Fransisco leg and I totally blame that stupid reclining seat.  So my new rule is that any flight that is longer than 3 hours needs to be business class or better.  And if I can’t afford it?  I’m DRIVING.

For the most part, having sons who are 6 1/2 years apart is pretty easy. Harry doesn’t need as much looking after as he used to and can fetch his own cereal and get himself dressed. He can also help me take care of Liam some. Yesterday he helped me get Liam’s bottle ready and he LOVED it. He’s already pestering me today about when he can make another bottle. He loves his little brother (except when he tries to rip up his favorite magazine, of course) and there isn’t a whole lot of rivalry or envy so far. But there is one problem and that is toys. Harry has since graduated to big boy toys and big boy toys tend to be small and have teeny small parts. Not exactly the sort of thing you want to have around a little baby who is all about exploring and crawling around and putting everything in his mouth.

For the most part, all of Harry’s toys are upstairs either in his room or in the loft/playroom. He’s not really allowed to keep any toys downstairs anyhow. Of course, the occasional toy makes it down here. And then I pester him to take it back upstairs. My new nemesis has become Legos. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rescued them from Liam’s grasp and hollered at Harry to take them upstairs. Lately, however, I’ve taken to just throwing them away. Because Harry NEVER takes them upstairs. Or if he does, more seem to make their way back down again. And I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping Liam’s “areas” Lego free. Until, that is, yesterday.

He had woken up from his nap and true to form, wanted to lay in the pack n play and drink a bottle. As the pack n play is full of baby-appropriate toys, it’s not entirely necessary to keep an eye on him at all times so I’m free to write emails, surf blogs or do dishes (yes, I’m having to do dishes again… AND the trash… how’d that happen?). I hear him kind of choke a little and peek in on him. Doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, and seeing as how this child has inherited his father’s ability to suddenly choke on his own secretions, I’m not too alarmed. It’s not too much longer before he’s done with his bottle and ready for lunch. I set him up in the high chair and give him some diced peaches (his favorite!) and cheerios. I’m fixing my own lunch as well as Harry’s when Liam starts choking again. Except this time, it doesn’t seem to be just spit. I assume it’s a peach or cheerio gone wrong and run over to assist. That’s when he puked.

As I was cleaning him up I noticed A LEGO. In fact, it was a Lego that I KNEW I had pestered Harry just days before to put away. It was small (of course) and circular and just about the worst choking hazard you could imagine. I’m just damn lucky that he threw it up because I would have had no idea he even had it in his throat if he hadn’t. I have no idea how he even got it since he’d been in his pack n play which is devoid of all Legos.  Meanwhile, four more gray hairs sprouted on my head. I think I lost a good ten years on that one. Liam was no worse for the wear. Once he was cleaned up, he smiled and giggled at me and seemed interested in finishing the rest of his lunch. And the Lego? SO got thrown away. From here on out, I’m declaring war on all Legos. If I see ‘em, they’re getting tossed. End of story.

Today, I got out of the house.  It was marvelous.  Finally, five consecutive minutes where Harry wasn’t bugging me for things to do or when the next meal/snack was going to be.  I made plans with NewFriend and OtherFriend (I need new names for these people, Christ) to meet for lunch at the McDonald’s at Lemmon Valley, about five minutes away from our house.  They have an outdoor playland there that the children could run around in like the wild maniacs they are and we could have a few minutes to gossip and giggle.  Sounded like an excellent plan to me!  And it was.  We had a great time, Harry had a great time.  The only one who maybe didn’t have such a great time was Liam but that’s because the child REFUSES to sleep in his stroller.  Whatever, kid, get with the program.

After I’d swallowed my surprisingly palatable premium chicken sandwich, I noticed that Liam was getting a line of wetness around the leg of the pants I’d put on over his onesie.  A sure sign of needing a diaper change if I ever saw one!  So I grabbed him up, swung the diaper bag over my shoulder and made for the bathroom to remedy the situation.  Only, when I got there, I saw that there was NO CHANGING STATION.

What the HELL?  That has to be breaking some kind of law somewhere, don’t you think?  I mean, nevermind the fact that we’re talking about a MCDONALDS that is lacking a changing station, but a McDonalds with a PLAYPLACE.  A place that caters to children and families and those families might conceivably have a BABY who is probably wearing a diaper that will need to be changed at some point.   Are you kidding me?  Can you explain to me what the people who put this McDonald’s together were thinking?  And can you get me some of whatever it was that they were smoking?  Cuz that has to be some great stuff.

So what did I end up having to do?  NewFriend helped me change him on the bench of the picnic table out by the playplace.  God Bless her for it, too.  He had to be changed, or else I would have put it off until we got back home.  I just never heard of such a thing.  A McDonalds without a changing station.  What will they think of next?

You might think that maybe I’m running out of things to bitch about with this one, but I’m totally serious. If you have any experience with reading blogs and using feed readers, you understand a little of what I’m talking about here. But for those of you who aren’t aware, here’s a little example (all efforts have been made to protect both the innocent and the horribly guilty):

This is a snapshot of an offending feed in my Google Reader. You get the title of the post and a little “teaser” but you have to click through to the site to see the rest of the post. That? Makes me ORNERY. I can understand, especially on the more commercial sites, the need to have visitors come to the actual site and see all the shiny ads and whatnot. But you can put ads in feeds these days and there are other ways to encourage the visitor to click through to the site every now and then. When I just want to catch up on my blogs, however, and I come across a site that makes me click through… well that just raises my ire a little. And, I have to admit, I might skim the excerpt a little bit and decide if I really do want to click through or just skip over the post. Because I am “slackermama” and I am lazy. And having to click and open another tab is not on my list of things I want to do. Sorry.

The “experts” agree with me on this. Check out this article from Blogging Pro. One of their suggestions for getting more traffic and subscribers (and keeping them) is:

Offer a full feed, even if it means people visit the site less often. A person reading you is always better than a person not reading you. Make it easy.

Amen, brothers! You tell it! Besides, nothing makes me happier than seeing a favorite blog of mine has updated and I click it, only to be treated to the full post without having to click through to anything. It’s the blog equivalent of being able to kick off my shoes and put my feet up.

the feedreader equivalent of heaven right here… an entire post.

So, you know, in case anyone out there offers only a tiny snippet of their post and coudl have a heart and take pity on a poor, pathetic slacker like myself, I’d be very appreciative.