Happy Presidents' Day! In honor of the holiday, go see Spielberg's Lincoln, if you have not had a chance already. We are really behind in our movie watching and will be watching the Academy Awards without benefit of having seen many of the films. Since there are now a dozen of nominees in each category, we have no chance of being prepared.
Heading into the week, here's where we are:
1) Bieber Fever: My appreciation is extended to the girls' classmate who introduced the duo to Justin Bieber last week by distributing Valentine's cards emblazened with Bieber's image. Even though it was a long shot, I was hoping to avoid the Beibs.
2) Day in the Life: I have really been meaning to document some of our daily schedules again this year (otherwise 2012-2013 will be a blur). While this intention has been rolling around in my mind, I read this day in the life post last week. See? Some people really do live like Carrie Bradshaw -- even moms of small children!
Why don't we live in a metropolitan area again? Wait, that's right... we want to be close to family. We like having a few thousand square feet in which to bang around. We like owning and driving our cars and parking them in our basement for free. We also don't love crowds. But the take-out would be nice... as would the other amenities.
3) Manicure: I would be hard pressed to remember the last manicure I received. Maybe four years ago? I have a tough time spending money on manicures because a) I do a decent job painting my nails, b) poor ROI - the polish immediately chips or flakes within 24 hours and c) although I would like to dress this up a little, the bottom line is that I am frugal. I realize frugality isn't glamorous, but there you have it. I am far more likely to authorize funding for a pedicure for the opposite reasons above, but I haven't had a pedicure since before William George was born. Maybe I have had nail activity of any kind, say three times in the last six years. It's not a high priority for me. Anyway... my point is this... I was driven to the nail place out of necessity. My cuticles were in disarray. I won't give you details because, yikes, who wants them? They were really bad, and not just from an aesthetics point of view either. They were painful, and they were wound-y. Since my motivation was not cosmetic, I should have been able to file the appointment through my group health carrier or at least use my Health Savings Account debit card to fulfill payment. That manicure would have met the standard for reasonable medical necessity.
With an extra hour in my schedule, I popped into one of those walk-in places and asked for their best "cuticle" person. I either gave her the challenge of her career or forced her out of the industry.
4) Apple: Jobs nailed technology consumers when he said they don't know what they want until you show it to them. When we are given retina display with the iPad 4 and iPhone 5, we suddenly realize we cannot bear to look at the older screen of say, the 4S (or in my case the 3GS). It's analogous to watching football footage from the 1980's - unwatchable! When we sit down to work in front of the iMac, we may not even realize the machine is silent. That is, until we sit in front of another machine and immediately think, "What is with all this noise?" All those squirrelly sounds emanating from a basic laptop and the constant circulation of the fan is unsettling. Suddenly, we cannot live without the zen quality of Apple.
5) 3-D Printing: I'm reading Makers by Chris Anderson. I just got to a sentence, a section about 3-D printing at the molecular scale, that made my brain feel as pliable as Play-Doh.
Today there are "bio printers" that print a layer of a patient's own cells onto a 3-D printed "scaffold"of inert material. Once the cells are in place, they can grow into an organ, with bladders and kidneys already demonstrated in the lab. Print with stem cells, and the tissue will form its own blood vessels and internal structure.
Although my children will someday embrace that concept as accepted fact ("Oh no, you need a new kidney? They can print one for you, right?"), I keep rolling that information around in my mind.
That's about it for us. How was your weekend? Are you one of the lucky few enjoying a three day weekend? We were battling illness this weekend. Unfortunately, we ended up canceling all of our weekend plans and have had the tissues close at hand. Visiting the pediatrician is at the top of our to-do list this morning.
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