just finished breakfast. scrambled eggs, grits with plenty of butter and pepper, mango-strawberry-orange smoothie, coffee, happy pills.
delicious.
so very tired. we’ve been working on our money pi house every weekend. the main bathroom, specifically. first the floor, then the ceiling (which i mudded and taped to perfection, thanks for inquiring), now the lights and a new exhaust fan much louder than we’d like but more efficient than we hoped. yesterday, under constant threat of rain, husband spent hours in the attic cutting a large hole in our roof for the install. nothing like a little bad weather to keep you on schedule.
good times.
next up is wallpaper. the wallpaper i bought myself for my 39th birthday. the wallpaper that looks far too fancy for my house but makes my soul sing every time i look at it. Soul-Feeding Wallpaper. it doesn’t get much better than that, y’all.
do you wanna see my new paper? do you? well you’ll have to wait until it’s on the wall. but i will tell you it is tangerine. and i am truly, madly, and deeply in love.
April 18, 2008, 8:00 am
Filed under: learn, remember
i was once set up on a blind date with a guy who showed up in those high-waist polyester snap-front shorts favored by high-school coaches in the early 80’s.
i once went on a blind date to a professional football game and stood on the 50 yard line inadvertently dressed head to toe in the opposing team’s colors.
i once went out for dinner and a movie with a guy whose father owned the actual theater chain, and who talked for the duration of the film about the tiny dot in the upper right hand corner denoting a reel change.
i almost went on a date with a a dude who showed up 1.5 hours late clasping a wilty bunch of yellow roses originally intended for his ex-girlfriend. whom he’d spent the last 1.5 hours trying to convince back into a relationship.
once a guy took me to Hardee’s on a date.
once i was on a date and the car literally ran out of gas 2 miles from anywhere and it was 14 degrees and we had to walk through drifts and ask strangers for a ride and it was 14 degrees.
my high school prom date dumped me for my friend, then called 3 years later from a pub in england and apologized for over 2 hours. it was his dime.
i was set up with a guy who got mad when i told him what my dad had named his boat. he was an air traffic controller.
i went out for a while with a dude who wrote a sonnet about my (then) un-pierced ears. he went to brown.
a man took me to dinner once and spent the entire meal talking about his college fraternity days. he was 32.
my sweet heapers of birthday wishes, meet winifred:
she arrived yesterday (exact time unknown) weighing in at approximately nothing and looking to be about 5cm long, light brown in color, and the spitting (no pun intended but there you go) image of her mother, Elizabeth (sadly no longer with us; this is a posthumous delivery).
we were SO excited to see that one of our 3 egg cases produced a live mantis. they sat on the top of my eldest’s desk from November until yesterday, when we remembered them and thought it maybe a good idea to put the jar on a sunny deck, just to see what might happen.
i don’t need to tell you good things often come to those who wait. and benignly neglect.
we must disclose that winifred, as small, delicate and innocuous as she may appear, immediately consumed the only sibling to emerge from the sac (named scarlet, as we hope she didn’t give a damn), for mantids are cannibals and even (especially?) in the wilds of a suburban backyard will turn on their own kind for nourishment. hard fact, but necessary for a true understanding of the sometimes dark underbelly of the insect world.
i thank you for your birthday love. and so does winifred, who was blown from this stick within a few hours, hopefully carried by the gust to other friendly blades of grass where she* is now munching on microscopic creatures and preparing for her short but productive lifespan.
*of course, she could be a he, in which case we’ve decided on fred, just to be safe.
We’ve been enjoying your high quality Ticonderoga products for years, but last week I purchased two dozen HB2 pencils from [local school supply] that proved useless. These pencils simply will not sharpen, the leads fall out at random, the cedar splinters quickly, etc. We’ve tried new sharpeners and different techniques without success. Obviously a bad batch slipped through the cracks of quality control, as we’ve never experienced a problem with any Ticonderoga product.
I thought you might appreciate knowing of this issue as soon as possible, and thank you in advance for your prompt response.
after my first child was born, i realized one of the best things about new motherhood is that sometimes nice people show up at your door, hand over a foil-covered mystery, peek at your beautiful bundle and head back to their car.
that. is awesome.
when our firstborn arrived we were attending a church that was in some confusion about who was actually in charge of sending the perfunctory 2 weeks of meals to new baby mamas.
we got food for a month and a half.
it. was awesome.
not everyone is so lucky. i realize that. and am so sorry if you never got to participate in the post-partum meals on wheels program, and will be there in a flash after you send me an email with your due date. seriously. you’re so worth the drive.
now it almost goes without saying that not every feast was fabulous. there was undercooked chicken and overcooked pork, a hamburger soup we threw away after lifting the lid, and far too many enchiladas. how many enchiladas can 2 people and a newborn eat? seriously, not that many.
but.
i’ll never forget the sweet lady who gifted us with grilled orange roughy, wild rice and cranberry pilaf and triple chocolate cake - all homemade, all fresh and piping hot. we felt like the king and queen of luckyville. oh, and there was the busy mom who bought us take-out Stroud’s fried chicken with all the fixin’s. all you local girls know when i saw That Bag my mouth began to water.
the lasagnas, all made differently, all delicious. the tortilla soup! the apple salad! the beef stew and homemade cinnamon swirl bread!
yeah, i can’t remember anything from last week’s book club but ask me about a meal from 1998 and you’ll get every juicy detail.
all this to say i adore doing what was once done for me; taking a sleep-deprived couple some good eats, maybe a little something from the flower market, perhaps a wee gift tucked among the dishes.
today it’s chicken and noodles with apple crisp for lydia and her mama, tomorrow some potato soup and another apple crisp for sparrow and her parents.
i never do this. okay, almost never. embed a youtube link? i think not. enjoy them elsewhere, yes, but most of the stuff i watch on youtube is not mama-blog friendly. coach hines? anyone?
but. you know what friday is, don’t you?
::hushed and reverent tone::
it’s the premiere of the last season of the best science fiction show (some would say the best show of any genre) EVAH.
that’s right.
Battlestar, baby.
wait! come back! i know what you’re thinking! you’re thinking: Science Fiction = Ptooey! no no no no a thousand times no. this epic might be set in space, but it is a drama, first and foremost, and a supremely excellent one to boot.
listen to me, do you like The Sopranos? do you like Lost? (i shouldn’t be mentioning Lost in the same sentence as BSG but for the sake of analogy…) do you enjoy Law and Order? are you a fan of Friday Night Lights? Dr. Who? The Office? do you watch television? BSG takes every good drama and and turns it inside out and creates an entirely new genre and then BLOWS YOUR PEA PICKING LITTLE MIND.
and there are cool explosions.
now, you have just enough time to watch the link i’ve so graciously provided below, then run out and rent all the previous seasons, then shave your legs and buy good snacks and adjust the couch cushions and maybe pop in a breath mint and sit down for the Best Thing That Could Happen To Your Television.
me? i’ve somehow scammed my way into the Dinks’ living room and in 3 short days will be enjoying everything with HDTV and mojitos. it’s like christmas and my birthday and Nordstrom’s shoe department with everything on sale in my head right now.
i’ve already watched the previous seasons more times than i will admit here. so distraction is in order. like this star wars funny that has me all giggly like laura roslin before she became the she-devil president who lied about killing hera. i have NO DOUBT she will try and chuck starbuck out an airlock within 10 minutes. you know i’m right.
enjoy. will assume your silent gratitude for the gift i’ve passed on today, but goodies in the post are always appreciated. like vintage buttons or candy. i’m just sayin’.
happy tuesday (only 3 days left!)
(i promise i won’t talk much about BSG after this raving post. or science fiction. or candy. mostly.)
