This is what my computer screen looks like at the moment. (To be specific, this is what it looks like in a good moment - the enormous vertical black line is occasionally replaced with a blinking series of skinnier rainbow lines, plus the occasional screen flicker and a thankfully-more-occasional-but-fucking-terrifying-regardless melt-effect, during which all of the letters on the screen actually fall down on the screen.)

So I'm going to need a little extra time to get today's blog post up, because I need to go panic at the Apple store for a couple of hours, or possibly weeks.

In the meantime, let me leave you with the below evidence that truly next-level photobombing skills can, in fact, be something a person is capable of displaying at the ripe old age of three.

Yeah, I want a pet dragon too.

OK, so at the Renaissance Faire last weekend I decided to switch up my usual floaty look and dress up like a pirate, instead: my son's sword, Kendrick's vest, a big feather thing that's meant to be used in a smudging ceremony, and my awesome J.Crew pants that Kendrick thinks aren't especially awesome because they make me look like a potato. (He is wrong; the potato part is the awesomest part.) What I wore to the Ren Faire has nothing to do with pet dragons, of course - I'm just mentioning my outfit because I was super into it and think that "pirate" is my fair look going forward, and figured you should probably be aware of this.

Moving on: please look at what I found being sold at a stand called Wyverns Of Whimsy.

The first day of school is now 6 days away. Which means we have exactly 6 days left to do ALL THE SUMMER THINGS.

(Mini golf, check.)

I love the fall - perhaps slightly so less out here in California, where fall isn’t all gorgeous foliage and strolls through quaint villages, and is rather “that time when I can’t use the pool anymore” - but this summer has been especially epic, and I’m going to be bummed to see it go. It’s not just the change in weather that’ll be a shift for me, though: my daughter is going into preschool, and my son is going into kindergarten, and so from 9AM to 2PM every day it’ll just be…me.

That rug? Is from Costco. (I KNOW).

I was thirty one years old before I ever set foot in a Costco. (I understand that this is tragic, believe me.) I'd heard that fellow citydwellers occasionally made the exodus to the warehouses located in the 'burbs to stock up on toilet paper and such, but that sounded like a whole lot of hassle, not to mention a hassle that would have resulted in me needing to use stacks of Charmin' as a coffee table (storage space in our apartment was, as they say, "at a premium").

Then I moved to the Hudson Valley, and Kendrick and I made our first voyage to the land of a thousand cheese-dip options, thereby kicking off an obsession bordering on the religious. The snacks! The fancy cheeses! The steaks! THE FURNITURE. That last one is a fairly recent discovery of mine - I'd always just skirted around the edges of the store, picking up paper towels and coffee pods, but a few weeks ago a Costco recently opened up about five minutes away from me, and for whatever reason it's virtually empty during the weekday hours...and so I've spent a lot of time there over the past couple of weeks wandering into the previously-undiscovered lands of rugs and such.

Over the past couple of years, my son and I have been in a bit of a war about clothing - and it is a war that I have very slowly been losing, as the items that I pick out slowly get moved towards the back of his dresser, replaced by piles of gym shorts and t-shirts with pictures of pizza on them.

I would have better luck getting him to be nice to his sister for an entire week (IMAGINE?!?) than I would getting him to put a pair of jeans on his body. Collared shirts? Forget it. Anything that does not, to his mind, qualify as “soft” (which is a very specific term that does not include items that I myself consider soft, like a technically extremely soft shirt that also has a button located somewhere on it) is a no-go.

Now he’s going into kindergarten, which means he’s officially starting his journey through the insanity that is elementary school. I know from vast personal experience how tricky it can be to find your footing in this crazy new world where kids mock you for having the wrong backpack/friends/taste in food/hobbies/everything. I know how it feels to want to - and then fail to - fit in, so my plan is to teach him that nobody gets to tell him what’s cool except for himself. And one little way I can start is by letting him explore the idea of personal style - which may sound silly; superficial even…but I’ve always believed that when we get dressed in the morning we paint a picture of how we want others to see us, and, more importantly, paint a picture of how we see ourselves. That’s a decision that I think he should start making for himself.