Under the Tuscan Drywall
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. read more…
Many questions, few answers
Tomorrow I shall tell you all about what I’m doing today (because it will be funnier after I’ve pulled a muscle or twelve, and BELIEVE YOU ME, that’s coming), but in the meantime I thought you might enjoy knowing what’s brought people ’round here lately. I often forget to check my stats and then when I do, I am invariably delighted to discover all of the reasons stranger stumble upon my little corner of the web.
(And by “delighted” I of course mean “alternately amused and horrified.”)
Shall we take a look? Let’s! read more…
Important announcement
The children are leaving (again) tomorrow, so today I am all aflurry with laundry and packing and snuggling and cooking (motto: When in doubt, BAKE!). I figure that blogging can wait a day, and even if it can’t, tough.
However, as I was making a fresh pitcher of iced tea, this morning, I couldn’t resist a bit of delight, thinking about telling all of you mintphobics that I just brewed my own concoction of mint tea, with MINT! MIIIIIIINT! from my herb garden. It smells divine.
And I always brew my tea without any sweetener, because I’m a complete sugar fiend and am therefore not allowed to have sugar in my beverages. (This is me, cultivating a taste for the unsweetened, grudgingly.) But, you know, I’m going to be having some guests in the next few days, so I had a brilliant thought. read more…
Sometimes love takes muscle
This has not been my favorite week ever.
There’s lots of reasons, of course (many of them already blogged), but the main reason is that this week is sandwiched between a one-week trip and a two-week trip away, for the kids, and I really want us to make the most of our (scant) time together.
Do you know what my daughter wants? She really wants to be angry. She wants to make her DISPLEASURE WITH THE WORLD known, because she is 10 and she’s stuck in a sucky situation and SEETHING OPENLY seems like the logical course of action when you are 10 and stuck in a sucky situation.
I really can’t fault her for that, though I do (of course) wish she were happier. And less argumentative. And less prone to glaring at me as if I were her own personal Satan come to make her life especially difficult. read more…
Stuart Smalley behind the mirror
I’m not the sort of person to blog about what goes on in therapy, usually. I mean, why would I tell you about that when there are so many more interesting things to talk about, like mammograms and surly children and such? The point is that I generally consider that to be a situation above reproach and somewhat sacred/private.
[Well, usually. There was that one marriage counselor my ex and I saw who sat in an oversize rocking chair, sipping I’m not sure what (tea? bourbon?) from a mason jar and telling us—in the midst of what anyone could see was a badly broken marriage—that if we just went out on a date together everything would be fine. Clearly her advice was spot on, because we lived happily ever after. Um, well, I did, six years later, anyway….]
And then, of course, we have the case of the sweet young thing in the teaching program whom I’ve now see twice. Last time, I told you that I wanted to make her a sandwich and tell her to do her homework. This time, it was much worse. read more…
It’s quality time, dammit
I thought it was high time I gave my children’s father something new he could tuck into the “Reasons Why The Mother Of My Children Is Actually The Spawn Of Satan” file. Why, just a few months ago when we were in court he expressed his belief that the problem with the kids being here during the summer was that they would end up “watching television all of the time,” which made me laugh out loud because I’m sort of the TV Nazi. I keep a tight rein on that remote, you know, because I gots to watch Mah Shows while I’m eating Mah BonBons. Obviously.
So, no, it’s not an endless stream of unsupervised, horrible television, here. It’s QUALITY TIME. Whether they like it or not.
The few days between when school ended and the kids left on their first trip really didn’t count, because I somehow managed to blow off all of my work and spend that time with them, unfettered. But this week, I actually have work to do. And Otto is still teaching. Needless to say, this has resulted in UNPARALLELED JOY on the part of the children. read more…
Defender of the banana peppers
Longtime readers know that it’s a minor miracle I’ve been able to keep my children alive, over the years. I’ve killed house plants, I’ve neglected my lawn, I had a series of ill-fated betta fish; my POINT is that I’m not so much with the nurturing life force, it turns out.
The children are a happy exception to this rule, perhaps because—unlike the things I’ve managed to kill by accident—they can open the fridge and get their own cheese. Why, even as I write this, they are fixing their own breakfasts of bagels and cream cheese, which means that later when I go into the kitchen and see the trail of carnage (crumbs, cream cheese smears, toaster oven askew, knives on the counter) I will WANT to kill them, but then I’ll remember that I mostly like them and let it go, because that’s called Being Healthy. Hooray!
Anyway, where was I? Oh! Right! Me and things that are living, and the wonder that is my current container garden. (Hint: Not dead yet!) read more…
Same as it ever was
Me: Whatcha doin’?
Her: Getting some water. It’s HOT out. Can we go to the pond?
Me: No, not right now. We’re going to eat soon. You guys can hang out in the fort until it’s ready, but I don’t want you going all the way to the pond right now. After lunch you can.
Her: Okay. How will we know when lunch is ready?
Me: I’ll call you. Or come out and get you.
Her: Well which one? I need to know! Will you call or come?
Me: One or the other. What does it matter?
Her: I just want to be READY.
Me: Uhh, what are you doing out in the fort that you don’t want me to see, that you’re worried about me coming out there?
Her: Nothing, GEEZ. I just want to be able to come RIGHT BACK and eat the DELICIOUS MEAL YOU ARE PREPARING.
Me: Uh huh.
God, it’s good to have them home.
Some things are private
Our internet is all messed up at home, today (gosh, HOW UNUSUAL), and so I trundled off to my favorite coffee shop to steal borrow their internet. And really, after I pay $5 for a cup of coffee, I think I’m entitled to QUITE A LOT OF INTERNET.
Anyway, first I had to finish up some work that was due this morning. Done.
Then I had to do my regular Friday morning post for Want Not, because if I don’t, a rift will form in the space-time continuum and we are all doomed.
And then when all of THAT was done, I decided (even though I’m done with my coffee) that I could do a quick post for here, before I leave. But there’s a college kid standing behind me waiting for his coffee and totally READING WHAT I’M TYPING.
And you know, I’m a delicate flower with sensitive, private feelings. I can’t be having someone reading over my shoulder what I write for thousands of strangers to read. That would just be wrong.
Shut up.
Love keeps growing
We’re just past the halfway point of the kids’ first week away this summer, and truthfully, the days are passing at a tolerable pace. It helps to have a major catastrophe to tend to, I guess, to take my mind off of other things. LUCKY ME!
Oh, I kid. The whole computer failure and subsequent retreat into the fetal position has only occupied a tiny (gigantic) sliver of my time. Actually, I’ve been quite busy with my little container garden out on the deck. And that’s because I love to garden! Oh, wait. Actually, I think it’s because some sort of mystery bug is eating through my banana pepper plants. I spend a lot of time out there trying to find the culprits, and shaking my fist at the sky, and watering, and pinching the basil, and just generally fussing over my plants because my children aren’t here to fuss at. Don’t judge me. If all YOU had was lemon verbena, you’d spend more time with it, too. read more…