Three Things At Once

[woodwardiocom]

So, yesterday night:

• Do grocery shopping with buxom_bey.
  
• Unload groceries, bureau drawer, new dehumidifier, and fire-spinning gear from car.
  
• Carry most of that upstairs with B. and cathijosephine.
  
• Put dehumidifer on back porch to go down to basement later.
  
• Note bad smell in house.
  
• Put groceries away with B.
  
• Take drawer upstairs to join its mates.
  
• Strip bed down to boxspring.
  
• Move bed and two dressers 3" to the right, so the new dresser's drawers can open.
  
• Rescue a half-dozen socks from under B.'s side of bed.
  
• Put drawers in new dresser.
  
• Put mattress back on bed.
  
• Take vacuum cleaner downstairs where it belongs.
  
• Open windows in hopes smell was just stuffiness or burnt food.
  
• Start downloading video benchmarker to determine if the new video card I bought is, in fact, suckier than the antique I was previously using.
  
• Take quick break to help CJ use scanner on other computer. Fail.
  
• Take break to help B. with True Blood blu-ray disc that won't play. Advise her to try cleaning disc. This fails.
  
• Rope B. into helping CJ with scanning, while I determine if there's new firmware for our blu-ray player. There is.
  
• Best way to update firmware is to physically connect blu-ray player to network. I dig a cable out of cable bin, and muck around behind TV connecting it.
  
• Where is that smell coming from?
  
• Update firmware.
  
• While waiting for this, switch over to HTPC, install PDF reader, read video card manual. It's a generic manual for all their video cards, and thus useless.
  
• Firmware update finishes. Leave B. to try True Blood again while I go back to see if benchmarker is done downloading.
  
• B. has succeeded in helping CJ with scanning.
  
• True Blood plays now!
  
• Install benchmarker on yellow machine, start it running.
  
• B. goes to close door so CJ and I don't have to listen to southern vampires, notes smell seems to be coming from behind video shelves.
  
• I get flashlight, peer behind shelves. Yep. Dead mouse.
  
• Just last week I took all the videos off those shelves and bolted them together more securely. He couldn't have died before then?
  
• With B.'s help, take about half of videos off shelves.
  
• Move shelves forward.
  
• B. gets gloves for me.
  
• Stuff myself behind shelves, get mouse.
  
• Clean floor.
  
• Set fan to blow behind shelf, clear out smell.
  
• Take mouse outside and dump him.
  
• Wash hands. Yech.
  
• Inform all and sundry that I'm not taking requests for the rest of day.
  
• Note down result of benchmarks on yellow machine.
  
• Install benchmarker on HTPC, run it.
  
• Swap video cards in HTPC, run benchmarker again.
  
• Yep, this new card is crap. Yellow machine is ten years old, and it can do 3D graphics better than new card.
  
• Partly reassemble living room. Leave shelves displaced for moment. Leave lid off HTPC until I can get a grownup video card.
  
• Look at dishes in sink, and say to hell with 'em.

Now I'm trying to imagine this, plus a kid...

Comments

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Been there. Done that.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

It's like we're twins.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

You are the hand.

This is a fine day for non-parents

[drwex]

when you are parents you do some of this. But you don't get upset when it doesn't all get done today. Or even tomorrow. Also, you prioritize - I intuit that having clean dishes is probably more important to your day-to-day existence than video card benchmarking so when your time is more limited you might choose to do that first and the rest leave undone.

Re: This is a fine day for non-parents

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I was going to say, yes, with the baby there, do NOT expect to get all that done, or bother being upset that you don't. That's just going to be the way of it. :-}

[muffyjo]

Yeah, like I can actually add anything useful here. BUT, I can say, GO YOU! I've had to deal with dead things that are decaying nastily before and it's a dirty business you cope with but...ewww...and go you for dealing!

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Oh, it works out. Just take your list, cross off everything that isn't related to grocery shopping or rodent corpses, learn to do everything with either one hand or one hand and a foot, and add in the following:

- Attempt to distract curious child from mouse corpse x 5.
- Attempt to distract curious child from space previously concealed behind shelving x eleventy billion.
- Check child for head injuries resulting from shelf/back of shelf investigation x 22.
- Consider chucking dishes in trash and using paper plates forever and ever x 63.
- Pause to admire cuteness of offspring x 195.
- Sniff baby head, absorbing pheremonal signals that make you happy with this arrangement, roughly every six minutes.