Sometime toady I realized I uploaded the last batch of photos to Keaton’s gallery at 640×480 resolution instead of the 800×600 I usually use. With a little ingenuity, I discovered how to go into the Coppermine database and reset the size without having to redo the entire album. So, for the vision-impaired, the images should now be sized big enough for your challenged oculars.
Today we had the pleasure of an unscheduled doctor appointment for the little one. Being the 1st-timers we are at this whole parenthood deal – we were most alarmed by an extremely foul stink coming from our perfect little daughter’s shriveled beef-jerky-lookin’ umbilical “stump.” All the books say “stink = infection,” so we called it in and headed to the baby-shop. Turns out, she did have the beginnings of an infection and the doc recommended we clean the area with alcohol – something the hospital recommended against. One thing about baby-care advice: it’s a very waffley science. Not to mention, many of the things they told grandma to do with her baby a mere 30yrs ago are now strictly verboten or, much to grandma’s chagrin, recommended against. Nothing’s worse than a well-meaning grandma trying to dispense advice from the trenches she remembers being met with a, “Mom, they actually don’t do that anymore.” I think they probably hear, “Mom, you did things the wrong way back in the stoneage – we don’t use bloodletting anymore, it’s barbaric; you are stupid for ever buying into it and I’m likely damaged as a result of your outdated mothering.” Not that we’ve had that happen with either of our two grandmas, who are both low-touch as grandmas go and fairly unassuming. We got lucky.
It kind of scares me how tuned-in to my life the junkmail syndicate is. They knew when we graduated college, and assaulted us with loan consolidation offers daily. They knew when we bought our house, upping the number of “refi now!” offers we got to mailbox-busting levels. And now, somehow they know we had a baby. We get complimentary magazines, packages of laundry detergent, diapers, formula, and all manner of baby-sundry. I’ve often wondered what my junkmail “profile” looks like. I wish it had a radio button for “shreds every single piece of the shit we send him,” so they’d realize and stem the flow – but, alas, I doubt there’s such a field in the record. I likely show up as a twenty-something married male who makes good money, has a kid, a house, and some college loans. Oh, and if my snail-mail and e-mail junk profiles are one in the same, they’d also mention that I have a ridiculously small penis, desperately want to learn more about human growth hormone and phentermine, and have a 24×7 addiction to online gambling. Based on a profile like that – I better get into some therapy, stat.
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- thinking - 2019
- writer's block - 2010
- lock my tear-drenched heart away inside a steel box - 2007
- the new transformers - 2005
- ghostwriting about ghosts - 2004
There is an opt out option for the junk mail based on your credit score: 1-888-5-OPT-OUT. I did this and it cut my mortgage refi offers from like 5 a day to a couple a week. Not sure if if will work for baby stuff though . . .
Based on your credit score how? The higher your score is, the less mail you get? Thanks for the info, I get so much refi junk mail.