Monday: Second-hand clothes.

We were thinking about going to Folklife today, but decided that we'd burned out a bit and were just going to sit around the house and do housework. Omaha spent most of the day working on her company and doing the household financials; I changed bedsheets, tidied the upstairs, and vacuumed up every square inch of the carpet.

We went out to a second hand store to get Yamaarashi-chan some clothes, since her current collection is either too small for her or worn out. Five things you should never buy new: a house, a car, CDs and DVDs, musical instruments, and kids clothing. For $25 we got an entire wardrobe that both fits her and looks great. I found a Microsoft Sidewinder Dualshock for $1.50, and I figure I can use it to play some games, and lend it to the kids so they can do head-to-head Sonic The Hedgehog when they want.

After we dropped Yamaarashi-chan back off at her mother's house, Omaha had to head over to the mall so she could consult with a Mac Geek at the Geek Store to get her authentication chain fixed. The consultation ran long and Kouryou-chan and I ended up eating cheap pizza at the food court. Yech. But she's happy now.

Happy Birthday, Yamaarashi-chan!

Yamaarashi-chan officially turned eight yesterday. Sicne I only had a few hours with her, we took her out to her restaurant of choice, Red Robin, where she ate corn puppies and fries and a big ol' birthday sundae, had the waitresses come over and give her a big birthday song that didn't require ASCAP payments (don't they realize how much good will they lose with that stupid policy?).

Omaha and I presented her with one of her gifts, a beautiful hair-tie that she's coveted every time we pass by the store where they're sold, although both Omaha and I struggled to figure out how to put it into her hair.

I also gave Yamaarashi-chan a collection of invitation cards, one for each of her friends at school. Since she doesn't live with us I only know the names of her school friends, and when I asked her mother for phone numbers or email addresses she said she didn't know any of them. The school wouldn't give out private information like that to just some guy over the phone, so this was my best shot at making that list. If just one calls, I can maybe start to collect contact info for the rest of them. But it all depends on Yamaarashi-chan remembering to take the invites to school.

She was very cuddly and joyfull, and I feel happy to have such wonderful kids.

It was raining total buckets when we finally dropped her off at her mother's house. By the time I got home, I could feel a headcold coming on hard over the indigestion I had because of my meal. I slept okay, but this morning I still am congested and low-powered. Bleah.

The Quest for the Perfect Shave, Woo-woo Edition

One of the things I bought at Folklife was a small cake of "Emu oil" soap. Emu is the new snake, as in "snake oil," in that it's being hawked as a miracle cure for everything from dry skin to asthma. But the soap was one of the few high-glycerine products I was able to find in that category and I wanted to try it out for one reason only, as a shaving soap. And for two bucks, it was a cheap experiment.

I prepped the soap in a small bowl with a few spritzes of water and a shaving brush, and I tried shaving with it. My final analysis is that wet-shaving with authentic glycerine soap is a better experience than using modern shaving gels, but it's also more dangerous. The razor is prone to stutter and nick, although I managed to catch myself from doing that too much and only nicked myself once. The final shave was appreciably smoother. The presence of emu did nothing noticeable for me; the soap did dry out my skin a bit, but not terribly so. I'll kill out the cake of soap to see if I can improve on the experience, but thus far I'm inspired to try Taylor of Old Bond Street Lavender or Lush Razorantium next. But the emu thing is just a little too woo-woo for me.