I have read on blogs, and in other places, about people who leave their iPods in their back pockets of jeans and then throw their jeans into the washer. I have a 30G video iPod, and I always think "how can people DO that? How can they not know it's there?" because I picture my large iPod.

This past year, I bought J a shuffle. She is too young for a shuffle, and never used it. She just isn't into music enough to warrant having one.

Then, I started going to the gym, and found my big iPod to be clunky and hard to handle, and thought, "I should get myself a shuffle." Then I thought, "why? J doesn't use hers, who cares that her name is engraved in it, I'm taking it." So I did. She didn't care.

I've been using it since March. Last week, I went around the reservoir, and had the shuffle in my shorts pocket.

Y'all know what I'm going to say, right?

I washed my shorts last night. I went to get the clothes from the dryer, and thought, "what the fuck?" upon opening the dryer and finding my headphones dangling from the dryer door. Then I thought, "oh, shit." I hoped upon all hope that I had done what I intended - taken the shuffle out of my pocket and put it on the charger. Nope. There it was. In the bottom of the dryer.

It wouldn't turn on. (Surprise, surprise). The headphones were wrecked, and the iPod wouldn't turn on. I showed Beloved. He said, "so! try and re-load it, see what happens." I said, "no way! I've heard of people washing them, and they're always ruined." He said to try it anyway. So I put it on the charger ....

and the charging light lit.

This a.m., I took it off the charger and plugged in my Bose headphones (thank GOD those aren't the ones that were in my pocket, I would have died), and pushed play.

And there was Alannis. Singing her heart out to me.

It seems to be working fine.

Amazing.

Labels: laundry, Music, Zuska the Dork

posted by Zuska @ 4:43 PM 1 comments

Thursday, March 29, 2007

random sharing*

Between Beloved and I, there's a lot of .... uh, "old fogie" music in this house. Me and my James Taylor and Billy Joel; him and his Who and Queen and Steve Miller Band. Both of us and our Fleetwood Mac. The list goes on.

But we both keep apprised of recent stuff.

I found and liked Death Cab for Cutie.

He found liked OK Go.

I actually "found them" at the library or whatever some time ago, but wasn't so keen on them. But when I started working out at the gym recently, and was looking for some music more conducive to reaching my "15 minute mile" goal, he threw it at me as an option, and I'm liking them a lot now.

So, when we plug our shuffles into the Bose, there's quite a mix.

I didn't quite go into the very WEIRD music that Beloved also dabbles in. Some of it is for the purpose of making the girls disks of "silly songs," some b/c, well, Beloved's a little weird.

When I came home the other day, E said, "Mom, you know that song, "mediocre people do extraordinary things"? I said no. She said, "it came on [Beloved's] iPod." Which really narrowed it down not at all. I meant to ask him later what the song was, but in typical Zuska fashion, I forgetted.

Today, at the gym, I was sweating buckets on the elliptical, and an OK Go song came on. It was pretty enough. Then they started saying, "mediocre people do exceptional things some of the time" and I thought --- HEY!! This is E's song!!!

The last time she picked up on a song she really liked, it was Death Cab for Cutie. Some song that says "highway, highway, highway" over and over - which I don't really like. But she loved it. Out of the blue.

I think she is properly in sync with her generation.

J has one foot in past generations still. She's most into The Who. I don't have any of them on my iPod. So, she's off in her room practicing her recorder. Next year, she ditches the freaking squeak pipe, and goes to the violin! We are a house of strings! Beloved played the viola, E does the Cello, and J will do the violin. Cool. I don't do crap. Well, I do play my iPod.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

*random seems to be an "in" word right now. Not sure if it's just my kids' school, or if it's nation wide (since I haven't left my town in some time). but EVERYTHING is random. "and then some random 4th grade came burning through the park on his bike, and he said, "hi, E" and ignored my friend, and just burned right in between us on the bike. It was so random." [and also -- "burned?" what the hell).

Labels: kids, Music

posted by Zuska @ 7:31 PM 4 comments

Monday, March 26, 2007

Mean Mom

For E's birthday this year, I gave her an iPod Nano. It's the smallest one (240 songs), and I don't know for certain if I would have given it to her if it wasn't free with the purchase of my MacBook a la the educational deal they have. But it was, and so in August when I ordered my computer, I tucked the Nano away for her.

I knew that J would be insanely jealous. When I received an MP3 player as a gift, I thought that it could appease J's jealousy.

The silly thing wouldn'twork, though, and they'd just come out with the super cool Shuffle that clip onto your clothes and stuff. So I bought her one of those.

Proof that 8 is too young for an iPod: She never uses it. Never ever. At first I thought it was because her little ears don't work with ear buds, but we tried 10 different types of headphones, and finally found some that worked perfectly - she still doesn't care. It's a little weird, because she used to listen to her CD player more than E did.

E does use hers - she listens to books on tape, and she listens to classical music while doing homework, and she finds that it makes road trips more than tolerable. But J doesn't use hers.

As we were walking home with a friend of hers yesterday, she said, "hey, you wanna hear a funny story?" of course her friend did, and J proceeded to tell the following:

The other night, Mom was doing laundry, and she came up from the laundry room and said, "J, I am confiscating your Shuffle" and then she went back downstairs. I was scared, because I thought I left it in my pants pocket or something, and that she was mad at me, but when she came back upstairs, I asked her why, andshe said, "because mine is too big to carry around at the gym." So she's just TAKING it, because she WANTS it!!

Her friend didn't quite get it, but I thought it was funny - to remember the conversation; to know that she was truly worried that she was in trouble; and to realize just how fine she was with the concept. I did buy the damned thing, and it wasn't for her birthday or anything. Why should it sit on her desk unused? It shouldn't.

Last night, I charged up the Shuffle and loaded my gym playlist on it. I brought it with me this a.m., and it was GREAT. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something,when walking away from machines and so forth without that extra thing in my hand. I also felt silly heading to school today with TWO iPods in my pocket.

But, whatever.

J is saying she should get a bigger Nano (bigger than E's) for her bday. I'm not so sure. beloved's been corrupting her with classic rock, and she's loving The Who and Queen. Her tastes are broad (as opposed to E, who likes the Beatles, show tunes, and classical. The end. Oh - that's not true - she likes Death Cab for Cutie whenever they come up on my shuffle, and Corinne Baily Rae, too). Apparently, Beloved told her she needs more than 240 songs.

I think perhaps that will be a gift for later, though. I haven't quite decided.

Labels: kids, Music

posted by Zuska @ 10:53 AM 0 comments

Sunday, March 04, 2007

A Glimpse of Zuska, age 11-18.

I did, in fact, clean my bedroom and do some laundry. Only some ... which is better than none (no?).

I also played 3 games of Yahtzee with the girls, and spent enormous amounts of time raiding both Beloved's (massive) CD collection and iTunes in pursuit of a very "Zuska" playlist for my iPod that is all songs of my childhood(ish).

I downloaded the following:

Aerosmith - Cryin' and Janie's Got a Gun {Looking at the difference of what "nostalgic Aerosmith" means to me, and what it means to Beloved is one of the few situations in which we feel our age difference (11 years) - for me it's Janie's Got a Gun, and for him, it's Sweet Emotion and Dream On - which I also love, but didn't come to appreciate until later}
Blondie - The Tide is High
Bon Jovi - Shot Through The Heart; I Would Die for You; Living on a Prayer; and Never Say Goodbye
Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart
Meatloaf - Two Out of Three Ain't Bad
Men at Work - Down Under and Who Can It Be Now
Motley Crue - Home Sweet Home
The Police - Roxanne; The Invisible Sun; De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da; Don't Stand So Close To Me (which I swear turned me on every time I heard it when I was a teen); King of Pain, and others.
Tone Loc - Funky Cold Medina
Whitesnake - In the Still of the Night
White Lion - When the Children Cry (don't ask)

This was all added to what I already had, which includes Air Supply, Depeche Mode, the Church, The Smiths, Tears for Fears, Def Leppard, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Erasure, Human League, Supertramp, Sinaed O'Connor, and Neil Diamond.

After I monopolized the sound waves in the living room from the hours of 4:30 until our 7 p.m. dinner, Beloved has pulled the girls into our room, with his much better speakers, and is showing them movie clips from a Monkees movie, and now he's explaining the composition a song by the The Who (who J. loves, and apparently he plays for her - very loud - every time I leave the house).

So the girls are getting the 60's, 70's and 80's - all crammed into a single day.

I believe my next project will be a play list of all the classic rock I enjoyed as a teen - my nostalgia list is stuff that was current to the time that I was listening. We had a thriving "classic rock" station in our corner of Connecticut, though, and it was what we all listened to during our evenings in various clearings in the woods, feeling oh-so-old with fires burning and beer bottles.

That play list will take longer to create, but will be FREE - because Beloved owns it all.

**no, seriously, as I was publishing this post, Queen's "We Will Rock You" came blaring from the other room -- I walked in to huge grins on the girls' faces**

Labels: Music

posted by Zuska @ 6:22 PM 1 comments

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