I NEED the Recharge Station/Whiteboard:

That's pretty cool.

My father wouldn't let my brother watch Mr. Rogers because he thought that he was gay and would be a bad influence on my brother. Seriously. Thankfully, dad has matured.

Mr. Rogers gave me the major creeps, on the line of "If I knew you in real life, I'd be hiding behind my mother" creeps.

Awww, that makes me inexplicably sad. God knows his show was earnest and simple and sometimes sappy, but it always seemed perfect for its target audience. And from everything I've ever heard about him or read of him, he took it so damn seriously. He worried about kids with distant or overworked or absent parents, who spent too much time with the TV as a babysitter, and he wanted to make a small space that was, as much as possible, quasi-parental, low-key and loving and (inasmuch as a TV show can be) attentive to the kids themselves.

My favorite Mr. Rogers story ever: He was touring grammar schools in NYC, and at a particularly run-down and overcrowded school in Harlem spent an entire day with the biggest kindergarten class. For nearly the first hour, the kids just goggled at him in silence: they'd never imagined that the people in the shiny box actually existed outside that box, and some of them had never seen a white person (who wasn't a cop) that close up. He talked, and sang, and read a story.

Finally one child drifted up to the front of the room, hesitated, and then said softly, "Can I see your hands please?" Mr. Rogers held out his hands, and the 5-year-old scrutinized them closely, tentatively touching them and turning them over to look at the palms and the backs, all amazed that he was touching the hands of someone from the shiny box.

As the child was backing away, Mr. Rogers said, "Is it okay if I see your hands too?" And the kid's face lit up as he raised his hands for inspection. Mr. Rogers examined them, palms and back, and gave them a squeeze and said, "What beautiful hands you have!" And hey presto, the entire class jumped up and formed an excited, twittering line, all waiting for him to look at their hands. Which he spent the entire rest of the morning doing.

I'm such a dork, but I love that man.

oh my, I'm sitting here sniffling over Mr. Rogers ... and I didn't watch him when I was a kid (after my time).

Cash, glad to hear the back's behaving.

juliana, nice chair ... but I'm longing for the big chair and a half with storage ottoman. Just as well it doesn't come in blue.

vw - at least you know your doctors are sharing information!

vw - at least you know your doctors are sharing information!

Oh, yeah. Their computer system is wonderful.

I've been looking for a new place (Craigslist) instead of waiting for Boyfriend Move-In Time.

I have to decide by the end of the month if I'm renewing my lease for a year, or going month-to-month* until The Boy and I move in together.

*(Month-to-month is 10% more, which I'm fine with, but not if we keep dragging our feet to summer 2008, y'know? But oh, ye gods, the amount of effort it's going to take to get The Boy's place in shape and habitable for an extra human being who already has furniture and is VERY allergic to cats -- it's a daunting amount of work, made no less daunting by the fact that he's reluctant to throw *anything* out, and believe me when I tell you that his place is already more than full of stuff. Oy.)

That recharge station is genius. Must have. I have to recharge:

• iPhone (yes, I'm still in the honeymoon phase)
• GF's phone
• 2 iPods (me and GF)
• 2 Nintendo DS units (me and GF)

That's a lot of recharging!

ItotallyON, I started listening to the Ricky Gervais podcasts this morning. That man kills me!

he's reluctant to throw *anything* out, and believe me when I tell you that his place is already more than full of stuff.

Steven has two broken betamax recorders. Need I say more? He won't throw them out because somewhere he has Formula 1 races from the 80's on beta and he thinks he's going to get the vcrs fixed and tapes transfered to dvd.

Which reminds me, I need to see if the history of Formula 1 races is out on dvd yet. He's almost worked his way through his Highway Patrol dvd set.

Beej, there's a feature in today's Home section in the Post - the one where they advise people on what to do with a problem room. One of the things suggested is using magnetic chalkboard wall paint (also magnetic chalkboard primer) to paint a room in so that the entire walls can be used for notes, etc. Could be awesome ... or horrible. But they won't get mad if the kids color on the walls (as long as they use chalk).

Sure the Mr. Rogers talk gets me all mushy, but then I read Robin's link in Press (and bookmarked) and now I am a big old pile of mush. Cutiehead Jason!