Everyone-hates-me week

The in-laws left in a huff … apparently I had forgotten to say hello when they first arrived (probably due to the fact that I was running around like crazy picking up kids, shopping, finding a place for my parents to stay and trying to actually do my job). They sent a very kind email to us detailing the full extent of the outrages that we (mostly me) had (apparently with malicious intent) perpetrated against them.

Then my parents came to stay in Sant Cugat, which was going great until we found out the hard way that they expected dinner to be prepared for them every time they came over. Yesterday, after my older son threw a fit and decided he hated me and wanted to kill me (first with a heavy book, then with a fork, then with a screwdriver), we kinda forgot to make dinner for them. They left without saying goodbye. I finally managed to reach them by phone and tried to patch things up. We’ll see how that worked out today.

Then I also managed to piss off my partner by doing something (or not doing something, I’m not sure), so we weren’t talking much yesterday either.

My youngest son told me that he still likes me.

Second snow day... and it's over

The people are not pleased with the governments handling of Snow Day 2010. If this was the US, the news would have some fancy graphic and lots of on-the-scene reporters looking chilly.

According to an online El Pais poll, 90% of the people disapproved of the government's handling of the situation. Personally, I think they handled things pretty well given the completely crazy situation. Perhaps the commuters should have looked at the weather forcast and used a bit of common sense before heading off into the blizzard.

Looks like by tonight the scarves, sleds and snow suits can go back into the garage... what a pity.

Snow day in Sant Cugat

One day after telling our visitors that it never ever snows in Sant Cugat, I was proven wrong. Last year we had a tiny bit of snow up in Arrabassada, but this year there's a couple inches.

The kids are super excited about their first snow day from school.

We're off to build some snowmen and throw snowballs....

I wonder if Sant Cugat even has one snow plow.

Adventures in ink-refilling

I had the bad luck this weekend that my printer ran out of ink while printing the pictures for my son's homework assignment. Being a Sunday, buying a new cartridge was out of the question. (Maremagnum is the only mall I know that's open on Sundays but doesn't have any tech stores).

In the US, I would ask the neighbors, but given that our current relationship is still stuck at the "acknowledge existence if we accidentally run into each other" stage, it didn't feel appropriate.

First thing I tried was to resuscitate an old HP printer I had in the garage, but due to having been off for two years it decided that the (newly unwrapped)ink cartridges had expired and were no longer good. I popped out the battery that powers the internal clock, giving the printer amnesia and thinking it was the year 2000. Then it complained that the scanner was broken and wouldn't start up, so I disassembled the scanner, cleaned it, put it back together and... still the same error.

Then I remembered that I had an old Becker color ink refilling kit lying around that I had never tried out. It was for a different brand of printer, but I was desperate.

It came with:

• A metal pokey-thing for making a hole in the cartridge
  
• Three bottles of color ink
  
• Three syringes for inject the ink into the hole
  
• A set of rubber gloves
  

It was surprisingly easy, and my son's homework assignment was saved.

From now on, I'm buying my ink by the liter.

Attack of the beetles

While walking down the stairs at night, I had a rather unpleasant surprise when I felt something moving on the railing. I turned on the lights and saw a nice little hole bored into the railing, with two long antennae sticking out.

In the morning, there were several more holes, each with a confused looking beetle sticking his head out.

The railing itself is painted solid white and has been undisturbed for at least three years.

Weird.

Pouring milk from UHT containers

Even after two years of practice, I still seem to be incapable of pouring a cup of milk without having to clean up that one little drop of milk that went flying out of the glass.

Is there some kind of trick I'm missing? Or does Scotch-Brite have some kind of deal with the dairy industry?