I wish I could find somebody local who wants to go to IKEA or Old Sturbridge Village with me tomorrow, because they're both likely to be deserted....

Actually target is not so bad, at least not yet.

We are replacing our vanity top in the bathroom today! The one there is one of those plastic fake-marble ones which has lots of chips and stains and I have wanted to replace it since we moved in. The bathroom has dark beige tiles, and the woodwork is all a warm off-white, so it's hard to find something to match. We went to Lowe's last night and after much waffling bought this one: [link] a granite top which has brown, gold and cream flecks, with a white sink. I hope it looks good and I REALLY hope we can install it with no mistakes.

Interesting. This article about the octuplets mentions the mother's name. [link] Haven't seen that anywhere in mainstream media before. And it's weirdly buried way down in the middle of the article. (It's actually not that difficult to find. I got curious yesterday, since it seemed weird that they were releasing the grandmother's name but not the mother's name, and it took less than a minute on whitepages.com to figure it out.) The grandmother seems to be talking to the press a lot, though. She said that she's not going to help take care of the kids anymore.

The CBS article I read, Hil, said that the grandparents had released the mother's name to the AP, so a lot more details are emerging.

And you're right-- the grandmother seems really ticked off.

The more that emerges about this, the more... weird it gets, for lack of a better word.

Perverse as I am, the thing that's struck me most forcefully is that this woman a) has, according to her mother, had an obsession with having kids since she was a teenager and b) was working towards a Master's in counseling after a Bachelor's in child and adolescent development.

Maybe it's the writer brain going strange places, but it has an almost Frankenstein feel to it.

the grandmother seems really ticked off.

True. Also, whatever I think of the mother's behavior with regard to having more kids, I think that what the grandmother did in regards to spilling things as she did to the media is simply wrong.

Yes, I'm being judgemental. It's one thing for her to choose not to enable her daughter. I feel strongly that it's another thing entirely to trot her daughter's name and circumstances out to the media like this.

The doggie car seat is really cute. Mona is too short to look out the window, so it boosts her up and attaches to her harness so she won't go flying out the windshield if we're in an accident.

Now, obedience classes. She's ridiculously insane. Doesn't know any commands, and the barking/fear of strangers is awful.

I agree, Anne. I think choosing to reveal her name and make it easier for the media to dig up details is just this side of passive/aggressive. It's as if she really wants her daughter to swim in her own stew from the standpoint of, if the public knows of what can easily be interpreted as some sort of mental instability, they'll be less likely to pour forth with the sympathy and assistance.

Of course, I could just be completely full of it.

I got 3-D Glasses! I didn't even have to go all the way to Target--they had them at the local Safeway.

Damn. I went to my Walgreen's and no 3-D glasses there. I wonder if they have them at the Jewel?

But I'm not going to go out to Jewel 'til tomorrow. Running errands did me in and that's despite taking a lunch break.