Muffin Head is on his way to having two teeth. I think by this time next week he will have two fully erupted lower chompers. The first tooth, as I mentioned in a previous post, came out one week ago. He seemed a bit relieved at first, since the tooth had actually broken through the gum and was probably less painful that way. That blissful period was pretty short though, and we have gone right back to regularly scheduled fussiness and biting/chewing just about anything we can get our tiny little hands on.

The fussiness makes it more difficult to get thrown out of our apartment with a scant moment's notice.

There has been black "snow" coming out of the air duct in our office for the last several weeks or months. I'm not really sure when it started, but I'm certain that it has been going on for a while now. I finally called the apartment office on Monday to put in a maintenance request. They told me they would need to have someone come out a clean the duct work. Fine, I said, schedule it anytime. I'm always here so it will be no problem.

What they failed to mention was that it would be a problem if I was here. The guy showed up today to do the work, and told me I would have to leave. Would have been really nice if the office would have told me in advance. And of course in hindsight it makes sense that I wouldn't want to be here.

So Fussy Pants and I hopped into the car and went over to Michaels. Baby loves some Christmas gaudiness, so this was the perfect place to visit. I can understand it when craft stores start putting up Christmas early, because for crafty stuff you really need to start in oh, say, July. I am however always a bit taken a back when Target starts setting up for Christmas in October.

I guess the real problem is that Thanksgiving is holiday with a slim profit margin. Retailers can't push on you as much crap-that-you-don't-need as they can at other holidays. so they just try to skirt around it.

And speaking of Christmas, there was a designer (Tory Burch) on Martha this morning showing off her holiday line of clothing. The stuff was pretty average/nice looking with a lot of sequins and beads. They march out these four models wearing the clothing, and as you'd expect these models looked desperate for a sandwich. One of them is wearing a dress that is black knit with black beads. Martha asks how much the dress costs, and it's a mere $395.

Wait just a second. Just the tax on that is more than I'm really anxious to pay for a pair of jeans.

How much do people spend on clothes on a annual basis? And I mean REAL people, not Martha Stewart and the rich designers that appear as her guests. $400 is way out of my price range, especially for something that one might wear to a Christmas party, ONCE. Actually, $400 is just about my entire clothing budget for a year.

But somebody has to be buying this stuff, or designers wouldn't be busy dreaming up new lines every year at these outrageous prices. Talk about profit margins. I bet they pay 4 year-olds in India about 12 cents an hour to sew the beads on those dresses. But they'd be making more money than my son is.