Archive for the 'Ottomatic For the People' Category
It’s funny, because when I wrote about our dinner out and subsequent dessert demolition in the last post, several of you commented that you wish you could’ve seen it. And then I realized that I really wished I had given better description to what the kids did; I titled it “dueling spoons” but that was really a misnomer, because in fact, I have rarely seen the kind of cooperation they showed when it came to scarfing down that dessert.
It was rather like watching Jack Sprat and his wife share a plate, actually. There was no squabbling. There was no “SHE GOT MORE!” or “HE’S EATING MINE!” or anything like that. Monkey—my chocolate monster—ate most of the cake. Chickadee—for whom the perfect world would be coated in vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce—ate most of the rest. It was perfect harmony. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:22 am |
We tried to pack as much family time into the first half of Saturday as we could, before the kids left (again). We got up early and hit the farmer’s market, we came back home and had pancakes (and bacon! for when you love someone enough to feed them PIG FAT!), and then after we’d finished tidying up and making sure the kids were packed, we were sort of just hanging around.
The way our house is set up, the dining room is between the kitchen and the staircase/family room. That is to say, we walk through it about a billion times a day. At some point on Saturday, I grabbed a corner of the wallpaper in there and gave it a tug. You know, just to see how hard it would be to pull it off. It peeled back pretty easily, so I called to Otto, “Hey, I just figured out what we can do while the kids are gone! We can finally redo the walls in here!”
Otto came into the dining room to discuss this plan with me, and then things get a little fuzzy in my memory, but the next thing I knew, Otto and I were ripping paper off the wall while Monkey stomped it all down in a trash bag. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
8:31 am |
Dear Otto,
Happy anniversary, darling! I know I’m a few days late. I’m sorry. This is rather representative of our entire relationship, though, that it somehow just doesn’t work out the way we thought it would, timing-wise. This is not to say that it doesn’t work out, just that planning has become something of a farce ’round here.
Nevertheless, we’ve made it an entire year. It’s official and everything—even our alumni magazine announced the news in its latest issue, so I guess you’re stuck with me now. Nineteen years behind us, one of them married, and do you know what? I still think it was the very smartest thing you ever did. (It was also the smartest thing that I ever did, but I have done so very many stupid things it really wasn’t much of a contest.) (more…)
Posted by Mir @
8:16 am |
There’s that old saying—and it’s absolutely true, just ask anyone—about how moms don’t get sick. We’re supposed to be invincible, you know, and failing that, at least uncomplaining. We’re one step up from mail carriers; neither rain nor sleet nor hacking cough can deter us from our appointed nagging.
Well, I’ve never been invincible and I pretty much complain even when I’m well. It’s not a good set-up for that whole Supermom gig, I guess.
Of course it figures that I would be felled by a virus just as the Today Show furor is dying down, and life is feeling somewhat normal… and then Dooce links me and I am flooded with new visitors. Um, hello! Come on in! Please disregard the mess. And the snot. And the whining about how I want to go back to bed. Really, normally I’m much more entertaining. Or at least showered. And… oh, hey! Have you seen my new grill? Shiny! (more…)
Posted by Mir @
8:56 am |
Our pool is still a murky chasm of waste water.
Oh, I know it’s only been a couple of days. It could take up to a week, everything we read told us. Maybe two! I was prepared to be patient about it, except that I’d forgotten something sort of important.
I’m not a patient person. (Surprise!)
And it didn’t help that a family member who also has a pool sent out some pictures to demonstrate that their newly-opened pool was just as frightening as ours, but then they dumped in a gazillion gallons of liquid shock and just 24 hours later the water was fresh and clean and beautifully blue. Hmph. We prefer the old fashioned method of adding only enough chemicals to cause acute neurological damage each day, rather than emptying our bank accounts and all in one day making the water pretty but capable of instantly killing any renegade hippos who might wander by for a swim. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:05 am |
Yesterday Otto got a wild hair—and by “wild hair” I of course mean that he set out to do EXACTLY what he’d been telling me for two months he was going to do, but I was just sort of hoping ignoring him and practicing denial might stave off the inevitable—and declared it an Outside Work day.
We have a couple of acres, here, and the best part about it is that most of it is WOODS. Woods are awesome, because they’re shady, and they present lots of opportunities for your children to go out and muck around and turn over logs and find gross bugs, but BEST OF ALL, woods do not require mowing, digging, pruning, or other maintenance. They just sort of stand there.
Unfortunately, we also have a rather large garden plot across the front of the house, and then that whole area inside the fence back around the pool, and both areas are not unlike Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. There could totally be bobcats hiding in there, is all I’m saying. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:21 am |
Last night, I had my bi-annual dose of Being A Faculty Wife.
Because Otto is a nice guy and also because he likes to entertain and perhaps ESPECIALLY because his department will reimburse him a whopping $8 per warm body (woo! let’s buy the name-brand soda!), we hosted a barbecue for some of his students. I had my inauguration into this ritual last semester, and I have to say that at the time I found it quite amusing. Especially the part where the students who’d been around for the PREVIOUS gathering at his bachelor pad sat around saying things like, “Otto, dude, you have real furniture now! It’s nice,” and then another student followed up with, “But, wait. Otto, you have KIDS now? WHOA!”
So yesterday it was time to mix up onion dip and put out the deck chairs and open our home to a bunch of young people who all regard me as a possible side-effect hallucination of their final projects and hangovers. Because DUDE, Otto isn’t supposed to have a LIFE much less a WIFE. And yet here I am, providing snacks and sliced tomatoes to put on their hamburgers. WEIRD. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
5:56 pm |
I’m afraid I need to interrupt Love Thursday to bring you a much more pressing matter. (Pssst! Do not fret! I am likely to give you Love Friday, instead.)
Otto and I are having a small disagreement. I would like some input on our dilemma, and to make it fair I won’t even tell you which side of the argument each of us is on. It will be TOTALLY BLIND, because there’s NO WAY you’ll be able to suss out who is who. What? Oh, look over there! Something SHINY!
This is a matter of great importance—I mean, it must be, as it represents the first real argument of our nearly-year of marriage—and since both of us have extremely hard heads and each believe our own personal positions to be correct, I just feel like it’s imperative that we open this up to the floor.
After all, if you can’t use your readers as your moral compass (provided that they say what you want them to), WHAT IS THE POINT OF SOCIETY? (more…)
Posted by Mir @
8:38 am |
Otto had a “work thing” this weekend, and by that I mean that I said goodbye to him on Thursday morning and other than the occasional in-the-wee-hours mumble of “what time is it? did you just get home?” we didn’t see each other again until last night.
Well, that’s not quite accurate—he called late yesterday morning to say he needed to bring some folks over for a late lunch, and could I get to the store? The kids and I ran over to Publix for cold cuts and supplies to make banana pudding; the former so that we could all have sandwiches, and the latter because when it comes to embracing Southern hospitality, my children are ALL ABOUT pudding and Nilla Wafers. Then I got to have lunch with the group before Otto left to take everyone back to the airport. So there was some meaningful conversation inserted in there, sweet nothings like “Hello, I remember you! I think!” and “Dude, why did you take out the ketchup? Do you think people want ketchup sandwiches??” to round out the day. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
9:44 am |
The men in my life are incomparable.
(I like how that word can be used to mean… pretty much whatever you’d like it to mean. It might be great! It might be terrifying!)
The other night as we were finishing up dinner, I leaned over and kissed Otto. I don’t remember why. Probably just because he’s kissable.
Monkey saw this and responded with delight, because he’s going to grow up to be a perverted voyeur. Er, I mean, because he is a little ray of sunshine. “Again!” he demanded. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Kiss AGAIN!” So we kissed again. Hey, there’s no need to beg or anything.
“AGAIN!” Monkey insisted, again. (more…)
Posted by Mir @
10:36 pm |
