Sophie's homeschool curriculum for the day:

Making the beds and putting away the laundry (Personal Responsibility). Eating breakfast - the kids' choices: sprouted grain bread with peanut butter and honey, whole milk yogurt with blueberry preserves (Nutrition).

After dropping Nels at preschool we settle on more formal work. First, her writing and math workbooks. Then online for Language Arts 300 and Science 300. The online stuff is great because when we come up with a reference (today we find The Jungle Book and Old Yeller) I can immediately tab over to the library website and request a hold on the book / dvd / magazine, etc.

Off to pick up Nels and then to La Salvadorena for an $8 lunch (Second Language). My Spanish is so poor I consider it an act of charity that Spanish-speakers here actually help me with it. Today we learn the proprietress' family is from Cuzcatlan, that her son is in his second year of second grade, her mother is 69 years old, and her father died when she was only three. I am slowly piecing together a friendship - or at least comradeship - with this woman. Mostly by volunteering inane things like, "Estoy triste porque hace la llueve." (note I have given up Latin characters until I can figure it out w/Blogger).

Driving in car and clapping to, snapping with, and yelling out the lyrics of Los Campesinos' "You! Me! Dancing!" (Music & Rhythm, Rocking Out). To the library for book check-out.

A good day so far.

* Sophie is working on capitalization of titles when we get to question #6, multiple choice:

How would you properly capitalize this title?

* Sarah Plain and tall
* Sarah Plain and Tall
* Sarah Plain And Tall

Her nose wrinkles up and her little kitten-like fangs come out in confusion: "Sarah Palin"? She asks, clearly disconcerted at the name popping up in her English course. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

Labels: food, music, school, Sophie

Tetrazzini (the shortcut dish I assembled today for tomorrow's dinner) isn't quite an Italian dish per se, although lore has it named after an Italian. I found the story of Madame Tetrazzini fascinating and in looking further I was moved by this video - the laugh at the end is the best part.

Labels: music

I shouldn't have to explain this to anyone who doesn't already remember the video, so I won't:


I always thought nothing in hell could justify how sweaty the hero was at the end of this vid. I mean, I had babies and stuff and didn't sweat that hard.

Labels: hilarity, music, random

If anything bolstered me a few days ago during my trips to hospitals and invasive tests it was my husband's devotion and a sort of, well, chivalry. He accompanied me to the emergency room and did not wait in the waiting are but brought our son along with us which comforted me greatly. He played with Nels on his lap, explaining this or that procedure or instrument, blowing up green latex gloves, tying them off, and drawing features on them. They named two of these balloon-creatures: "Slen" and "Flar" (their respective names, backwards). Ralph held my hand when they inserted a wire in my arm; he took our son out the the vending machines and let him choose his snack and drink. He gave me privacy for changing clothes but stood by me in the hours of waiting. I remember appreciating the gift of this intimacy along with his impeccable respectful behavior.

I was barely back and prescriptioned before heading up for a two-day, one-night spiritual retreat with a girlfriend. I won't lie: being in the presence of Catholicism was both new and a bit intimidating. In large part because I was new to the priory, though, my retreat stayed an internally secular one. My friend and I enjoyed fellowship, talks, knitting projects, uninterrupted meals together, walks in the woods and restful time apart in our rooms (her room was named Hrotsvit and mine Scholastica, both after Benedictine personages). The priory was comfortable but not at all ostentatious - plenty of thick, but well-worn towels for showers and my mattress had a memory foam top! - the food home-cooked and comforting, the environs peaceful and quiet. The sisters themselves were quite terrifying to me (not according to their behavior: they were perfectly friendly and entirely "normal"-seeming); I remained in awe of their way of life and thought about it a great deal during my time there.

While resting last night before dinner I turned the lights off, lay down in my room, and listened to Nat King Cole on my iPod, which was just about as nice an experience as I could conjure for myself. I missed my husband and children, but knew I'd be back to them soon. I had time to reflect on my friend and her nature, a good nature; I appreciated her getting me tea and coffee and offering companionship. I enjoyed having freedom from outside schedules, if only for a bit of time.

Of course, when I got home I was immediately thrown into: phone calls, minor-"emergencies" (my husband had absconded with all keys), dishes, laundry, misbehaving children.

Still. I'd had some time away.

Labels: music, Nels, Ralph, the bod, vacation

The activity and event dominating my last week (and my mother's last couple of weeks) has come and gone: my father's memorial service. I saved my mother some trouble by managing the menu and food delivery. I saved her more trouble by not arguing with her over anything; by making food for company the night before. By giving her the space to have a hard time if she needed to.

The morning of Saturday was hard. I'd given myself too much to get done. My friends Abi, Cynthia, and Amore stepped in and helped quite a bit. We had a friend on coffee detail (three carafes full) and we had music flowing through the house. Music I grew up with; music my father loved that I'd set aside.

My childhood home filled up with people: from my life as a child, family stretching back before my birth; friends from then, friends from Port Townsend, friends from now. Neighbors, coworkers. At one point on the sunny front porch I looked up and saw three of my girlhood friends - I've known since I was eight years old - running up the stairs looking for me. They looked curiously like three distinct kinds of flower. They were beautiful and I was glad to see them. They came back downstairs and we shared childhood stories, stories of high school and college and marriage and children we had and children to come. We laughed and laughed and laughed and told brash stories.

At about 2:30 on my mother's request we gathered to speak a few words about my father. My mother was nervous and antsy. She tried to speak normally, but it came off to me as a sermon. Some things she said flowed well. I felt her real presence when she said, "we had two wonderful kids... and they each have some of David's nature." My sister spoke then and watching her, I felt myself break down a bit. People gradually offered up their thoughts and every word meant something to me.

I started speaking. I said I'd been here for his life fighting cancer. I'd been here for his last week, days, hours, been here more and more. I was with him when he died. I don't remember what all I said. I do know I spoke my thoughts - wondering if, when he was dying, he knew what a hole he'd leave in our lives. I tried to say something of the blow it had felt like in the days after he left. At some point I realized the laughter in the room had turned to sobs - some open, some muffled in throats. I had more to say but I felt breathless. I had only wanted to say a few words but more wanted to spill out.

I did my best but I felt far from eloquent.

Others spoke and shared. Lots of laughter and a few tears. My mother's coworker Lillian spoke of life in a way that so clearly communicated her dignity in the face of loss; her words were wisdom to me. Childhood friends Missy and Tony spoke words of my father that meant a great deal to hear. My friend Cynthia spoke of knowing my father through me, and how unique my father walked in the world. The room laughed and thought - not thought about only my father, but their own lives, their own loves. Do they think of them, care for them every day?

The ensuing silence was broken by my daughter, flashing in with ruffled skirt and holding my mother's hands in urgency. Sophie tries to whisper, "Grandma, we need a jar - we caught a garden snake!" her pigtail braids electric with excitement. Laughter breaks like crystal and the sun settles on those in the room, moving on, moving up for more food and coffee and conversation.

Long after the party was over I came home and was gifted with an hour to myself. I ran the bath and laid on the couch and listened to the music I'd set aside for earlier. The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Willlie Nelson, Cat Stevens. Something about the song I'd heard so much as a child: "this is the peace train," the voices break out with harmony, and I was suddenly flooded with memories of my childhood, the warmth, the music, the safety. Then overcoming me were some of those things I hadn't loved. And then those things I'd loved again and I cried again. I felt my life telescoped, and how much my father had been a part of all of it.

I miss you so very, very much, dad. I always knew I would, and it's still true every day.

Labels: family life, friends, goodbye, music, sorrows, the Ghost of Christmas Bastard

Waitressing again today. I could get used to it. If I'm going to work now and then out of the home I've asked Ralph not to stay in the house and muss it up while I'm gone. He did a great job today. Currently: making up a rice pilau, off to spend time with my lady friends.

Ralph and I made fun of, but secretly listened to, Fleet Foxes. Now we can't get enough of it (esp. the self-titled album). Ralph tells me to do myself a favor and don't do an image search on the band. He and I do depart on the new Weepies album, Happiness. "It sounds like those bad Christian bands you used to listen to," I tell him. "That's part of the appeal," he replies.

Labels: music, paying gig, Ralph

I make playlists up all the time. Occasionally, I actually put them together, type up lyrics or song list, make some album art, and deliver them to friends and family. I'm working on one now and the theme allowed for inclusion of one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums of a favorite artist.

My dewy-eyed Disney-bride what has tried
Swapping your blood with formaldehyde?
Monsters?
Whiskey-plied voices cried fratricide
Jesus don't you know that you coulda died, shoulda died
With the monsters what talk, monsters what walk the earth

She's got red lipstick
And a bright pair of shoes
She's got knee high socks what to cover a bruise
She's got an old death kit she's been meaning to use
She's got blood in her eyes in her eyes for you
She's got blood in her eyes for you

Certain fads: stripes and plaids, singles ads
They run you hot and cold like a rheostat I mean a thermostat
So you bite on a towel, hope it won't hurt too bad

She says I like long walks and sci-fi movies
You're six foot tall and east coast bred
Some lonely night we can get together
And I'm gonna tie your wrists with leather
And drill a tiny hole into your head

I love having children that are six and four because they are increasingly in my world. Now they can read, they can perceive, they ask questions, and they like listening to my music in the car, loudly - just like me!

Nels is obsessed with the old Royal typewriter I have on my desk. We're in the process of getting it into typing shape, but it kind of works. Thus the discussion of "monsters" in the above song lead Nels to type "mosdr" - his own rendering of the word.

Labels: music, Nels

Last night we attended my daughter's kindergarten concert at the HQX high school's theater. It was glum and cold-ish at 6 PM when we biked up and then down a huge, steep awful hill to get there. I had to walk the bike both up and down - the "down" was at such an incline I didn't feel I could safely mount the bike and have Sophie do the same. And in my tippy Danskos at that with middle school students gawking. I don't think so.

The school concert was like being slammed into my own childhood, only I was a Mommy now. It was a familiar experience in some ways but alien in others. Parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, teenagers on chaperoned pseudo-dates filled the seats to overflowing. When the kindergarteners filed onstage parents a sweetness filled the room as parents began rising out of their seats to joyfully signal their own children (whom they'd just dropped off minutes before in the band room). With the hum in the air the rising and falling of parents in their seats reminded me of butterflies lifting and falling out of a swaying meadow. My daughter was in the first group out and the only child to, as she walked, turn and throw her head up to wave with confidence; they were all there to see her.

My son sat in rapt silence, bundled in his coat with his hair falling in his eyes, his gaze fixed on his sister and her big moment. Ralph got there late and snuck out after her performance to meet a friend. And a mere forty five minutes after we took our seats I was biking the kids home in the wet spring evening. We made pizza together in the kitchen and I hung Sophie's dress back up in her closet. Finis.

Labels: bike, family life, HQX, music, Sophie, weather

Big news today in our house: tonight in the bath my son retracted his foreskin. You have to understand that for a year and a half I've been worried about his glans. This horrible, horrible, horrible doctor forcibly retracted his foreskin at age 2 1/2 and for well over a year my boy didn't want anyone to touch his penis, for fear of being hurt again. I couldn't find the blog entry - maybe there wasn't one - regarding this, one of the most upsetting experiences I've yet had as a parent (worse than when Sophie whacked her toe with an axe; I felt, inexplicably, like I should have protected Nels from this unforseen mini-tragedy).

"The foreskin therefore can be likened to a rosebud which remains closed and muzzled. Like a rosebud, it will only blossom when the time is right. No one opens a rosebud to make it blossom." - H. L. Tan, MD (from nocirc.org)

Waiting for me to be ready for Family Movie Night, Ralph finds "Wig In A Box" from Hedwig on YouTube for Nels - my beautiful, cross-dressing loving and lovable boy.

Labels: milestones, music, Nels

Don't tattle on me, but I drove my dad's Ford Lariat XLT today. I think it was meant to be as the thing's tape deck works and, this morning upon plugging in the iPod, my one Bob Seger song came on ("You'll Accompany Me", obtained for the purpose of the excellent mix tape "Stalkin' Rockin'"). The truck feels about one city block wide. I had more sympathy for the huge-ass trucks that somehow manage to not run me down on the bike.

I love having the iPod in the car and later in the day the guilty pleasures playlist continued. Nels joined me for grocery errands in the afternoon whiel Sophie stayed home with a still-sick Ralph. Nels is, oddly, interested in club and dance fare which I have in limited fashion (mostly Beyonce and Timberlake's latest). It's truly frightening because in no way have I encouraged this yet he finds these songs and memorizes them. Today it was Nelly Futado's "Promiscuous"* and DJay and Shug's rendition of "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" - the latter of which he scrolled through the iPod to find while I was inside the house for a few minutes! I think it's the drum machine intro that lets him know he's in for some campy goodness.

I on the other hand felt free to put on Muse's "Bliss" and belt out in my horrifically-bad falsetto (I don't think Ralph likes Muse but I really, really do so I listen to them when on my own). Nels enjoys the distortion guitar crunch far less than the tribal beats and hooks of hip-hop / dance production, but he's willing to give me a chance, asking the name of each song and sometimes, what it's about. The truly amazing thing is he can remember lyrics and elements of a song after only one repetition. And he doesn't mind how loud I turn it up.

* In fact as I typed this entry, he came and found me post-nap and asked for this again which he is now calling his "favorite song".

** today, to "11".

Labels: illness, music, Nels, roadtrip

Early this morning our daughter woke us with crying in her sleep. This interrupted a dream I was having; a dream that we'd moved to a new house. The house was nice, but larger than our current house. We had no furniture. Everything was just a little threadbare but it was a good home. We were sitting in our bare living room wondering what we were going to do next.

Then this morning I got up, made my daughter's breakfast, lunch, and got her to school, fed my son breakfast and began to clean my kitchen. I scrubbed and scrubbed the eighteen layers of paint on the walls and cupboards. I wondered if my family was losing ground. For the first time I wondered if we were headed towards, not away from, poverty. I thought about how we aren't gaining any of the material items of the American Dream in our lives. At all. We aren't putting money toward equity. We have no college fund for our children. We are paying off on a family vehicle that is fast deteriorating and the one that's paid isn't any better off. We have no financial assets whatsoever besides my husband's kernel of retirement and social security. I don't think I'd be thinking about our lives in this way this except I'd listened to an excellent program on our local indie radio recently. I'd heard that families were saving less and owing more; they were working more in two incomes but hating it. I'd heard it was near-impossible to survive on one.

I am grateful not to be one of the "two income trap" families referred to in the radio program. This primarily means our lives have non-material assets instead of quantifiable ones. We live and thrive in creativity, something I wouldn't have guessed would be such a large part of family life. We help others and give to the community of our time - a lot of our time. We have a warm home that we enjoy and feel secure in. We have excellent health insurance that we don't use because we have excellent health. We are feeding, raising, clothing, and loving our children about 89% right (this is a lot, lot of work). We don't have credit cards. We are OK walking or biking where we need to go. We have family nearby that we see often. We are adventurous, purposeful, and try not to be wasteful. We take good care of and treasure the things we do own. Even if I have dreams that hurt, or moments that break my heart, I want to always maintain perspective on what I do have.

As of now it's 11:30 and I haven't yet had a shower. An hour ago I finished deep cleaning the kitchen and I'm currently working on a handful of Christmas CDs for friends. Nels hangs out, decorating and re-decorating our tinsel tree while wearing Sophie's swimsuit and demanding his favorite song (currently Peaches' "Boys Wanna Be Her"). I'm sitting here wondering why I want a smoke; it's been since Amore's last visit months ago. Luckily it's easy to stave off the craving; remembering my son last summer pawing at my smokes really turns me off. I guess I do need a bad habit though; ideas, anyone?

Labels: bad habits, financial panther, holidays, music, Nels

Nobstreater - fifteen 30 from ralph hogaboom on Vimeo.

D'oh!

Takes me back. I think I missed only one show in their two years.

Labels: music, Ralph

Last night I spent five thousand television hours introducing myself to season one of "The Wire", which is now in my opinion the best TV I've ever seen. In the middle of episode five or whatever I was suddenly and surprisingly favored with a guest appearance by Steve Earle, whom I'd never seen in person but recognized immediately by his voice. Probably no one would understand why at 12:30 AM I sat up on the couch, grinning ear to ear at the large, tattooed, partially balding, mumbling former addict who held me in total enthrall.

Today included a last-minute join to shopping with my parents' and a dinner guest invited by Ralph. Also notable: Ralph did every single chore of the day and made dinner to boot. If this is what my husband's day usually feels like it was pretty great. Coupled with his trip to Seattle with the kids, this weekend was nice and relaxing for me. If only I had, oh I don't know, about four more days just like it.

Crossed off my to-do list: besides the TV watching I sewed Nels' Christmas pants, finished Sophie's socks, and started a pair for the Boy.

Labels: film, music

I'm working up a new recipe.* Listening to Dean Martin's "Forever Cool". You know, he has me at Track 01 ("Ain't That A Kick In The Head"). Damn, that man packed some sex appeal in his crooning.

Tonight Cyn sends me a link. I kind of laughed, then I started looking around. And it turns out this is the loneliest, and I mean the loneliest thing I have ever seen. More lonely than the geekiest D&D nerds with their 12-sided die, drinking Mountain Dew all night. More lonely than that dog turd half-squished on the lawn. More lonely than the stale half-donut in the bottom of the box after the Insurance Benefit Primer Workshop at a Community College.

* ETA: we had it for dinner; 'twas amazing!

Labels: food, friends, geekery, inter-tron, music

Today besides the normal drill of fixing breakfast and lunch and getting the kids read for school I cooked a mini-Thanksgiving "feast" of roast turkey, mashed potatoes w/butter, and carrot sticks for Sophie's kindergarten class - fresh out of the shower at 12:40 throwing potatoes in boiling water for a lunch date at 1 PM (yes, I made it and on time too), deep-cleaned the bathroom, entertained my father during a surprise coffee visit (our conversation actually took many turns for the personal depths, much to my surprise), took the kids to the Sweet Shoppe and picked up some catered bread pudding while there (the only item on the T-day menu I'm not making), took the kids to the Y and worked out, and cut out two dresses and two skirts to sew for Sophie. At my parents' tonight I realized I couldn't sew at home; my children / the kitten - someone - had got ahold of my bobbin helmet, a part I truly do need in order to sew. On hearing this my husband offered to haul my Singer 201 down the narrow stairs, put it in the van and drive it to our house to set up; the machine itself weighs 25 lbs. and is in a giant cabinet that isn't easy to carry even over level ground. I opted instead to come home and tear the house apart for the missing piece to my 15-91. *

Here's another reason I like being married to Ralph; tonight at 9 PM when I said, "Oh, you should go rent Roadhouse since the video stores won't be open tomorrow," and he said "Fuckin' A'!", grabbed our son, and left to go do it. So. There are so many, many people who would not have had that response.

Through a misplaced Tweet I found Devil's Night Radio and I'm loving it. Tonight I heard Nick Cave's "Stagger Lee" which I haven't listened to in nine years on account of how much it offended Ralph when I played it in my car.

Oh, and I found out that after working out and not drinking alchool for a little over a week I have dropped six pounds. People, just so you know, this is officially the first time in my life I've ever done anything approximating "dieting". I'm glad to have lost weight but I'm even more amazed at how good I feel.

So yeah. Things are going great around these parts.

* ETA - that was fast. I published my post, walked into the living room, moved one couch and immediately found the little metal part. Good times.

Labels: film, food, holidays, music, Ralph, school, sewing, swayze, the bod

Today I had about two hours to myself with both kids in school. I spent about an hour doing some computer work, thirty minutes of chores, and thirty minutes getting set up to sew. While I was doing all this I was in mellow, steady-moving state. Kind of the perfect time you think a certain little kitten would want some love. I mean, I would have been happy to put down the dishes and sit with a purring furball on my lap for a few minutes.

But no, it wasn't until I sat down and started winding a bobbin that the wee kitty finally stumbled out of bed (currently favoring the "hammock" of fabric in the box spring) and came at me all sleep-eyed with stick paws kind of stumbling around. He climbed up on the sewing table and started to purr then saw thread spools and then started batting with harmless velvety paws. He was really warm from sleep and really energetic.

A few days ago while on our trip our housesitter came up with a good word regarding Harris:

Paige: Harris has only gotten out once!me: Oh, that's good. He seems to know how to come home. I probably won't let him out regularly until I can chip him and collar him.

My neighborhood is a little sketchy so I want him to be fully protected.

Paige: Ah, yeah. He prounced around the back yard for a little bit, letting me know that I couldn't catch him if he didn't want to let me, then he let me.

"Prounced"! That is exactly what kittens do!

I actually love this song and was belting it out in the car today; I felt inspired to search for the video and, um?:


(Billy, check out the move at 1:24. Or the stair declension here at 0:57. Watch and learn).

Labels: Harris, music, random

Nels has been playing with a half dozen 25-cent cars I bought him in Port Townsend shortly before we moved. They are one of the few toys that are his - I'm trying not to feel guilty that at age five and almost-three my children share a room.

But their life, their sharing, seem to go well. Sophie is sad the other morning because I tell her to let Nels play with cars and please don't just grab them out of his hands. Stung, she tearfully subsides and watches. Nels turns to her: "Do you want orange?" (Lord help me never remember the way Nels is prone to pronounce this adjective: "or-ents") he asks, holding one out. Sophie takes the car and, overcome with gratitude, silently hugs him.

Businesslike, Nels asks me, "Do you want green?" and gives me a green car. That's all settled, then - he flips one of his cars over and says, "This one's on fire". ("fi-wre", in Nels' parlance).

Glad we got that all figured out - a flaming death-trap of a car.

He is also obsessed with Scissor Sisters' "Take Your Mama" and constantly asks me to play it and hold him while he sings it. He heard the song once and instantly fell in love. It's growing on me, too.

Labels: music, Nels, Sophie

I don't want to jinx anything, but I believe we may have found a house to land in Hoquiam. A very sweet old place almost directly across the street from my parents' (babysitting score!). I knew the elderly man who owned it (he's passed on, now) and I delivered him papers when a preteen. Not to mention the house - a downgrade in size and bedrooms but an upgrade in kitchen, mine now being the size of a large-ish crate - comes with gas heat and a clawfoot tub. A clawfoot tub. I've been coveting one for years.

I don't want to jinx anything else, but our kitty Fancy is missing. I am really heartsick about this. For one thing, I have a fear of "something going wrong" with a new pet (hence my superstition about naming, my nightly wakeups since she's gone AWOL) - and it now seems something has. She got out of the house last Saturday mid-morning and as of today (Tuesday) we have not heard from her. Those of you who have commiserated and told me it is "normal" for cats to go off for days at a time, thank you. I am earnestly hoping and praying for her return and safety. Today we filled out a detailed report at JCAS; tomorrow is the leaflet campaign coupled with woeful children in a wagon.

I hope I am being a huge asinine freak and she shows up on our doorstep soon, belly full of neighbor's warm milk and entirely sassy that we have been worrying ourselves.

My recent funk where I was tired of cooking? was too boring to blog about, but it seems to have passed - at quite a cost since we ate out a bit the last couple weeks. Tomorrow I'm making The Anticraft's Pie Pie to prove that yes, I'm back, I'm kicking ass, and taking names.

Listening to: this, this and this.
Reading: this.
Contemplating: sleep, de-hiving.

Labels: GH, music, worries

For the second time I find FM transmitter technology just isn't cutting it for the enjoyment of my iPod. Oh sure, sure - it's lame I'm even buying something so chintzy with a weird, cock-like appendage and an even weirder, cock-with-elbow-like secondary extender. After all, there are classier, more expensive ways to put your massive iPod music library in your vehicle. However, the well is not bottomless, and even though my iPod was this year's sole Kelly expendeture from the Hogaboom coffers - well, I am looking for a more reasonable solution. After returning original FM doohickey (and vowing to hate radio technology, despite the lovely and informative article on the cellular phone I read in last edition of Invention & Technology magazine, P.S. I am not kidding, I really do read that magazine) today I find out from an IM conversation, innocently enough, that a simpler and more mechanically-based adapter is available in town. I rush my daughter and I out early for our date so I can hit the store in question and grab it up (and a quarter the price of FM device).

Inside the car I begin tearing at the packaging like a monkey ("That's a little bit awful," observes my biscotti-eating child-date watching me scratch at the vacuum-sealed sarcophagi), finally breaking the seal thanks to my keychain swiss army knife (yes! I'm a dork. But who's laughing now?!?), plug the "cassette" in, mash everything on the face of my iPod (Sophie requests Starsky & Hutch's "Two Dragons" for our maiden listen), only to have the stereo readout tell me in its fuckspeak: "c | n " - a code meaning either, "Please clean your tape deck" or, "I will never work again". Don't know which yet and get to find out.

Once again, no instant gratification for yours truly.

Oh, tonight's movie; Eragon. Don't see it. Billed as "Lord of the Rings Light", I'd phrase it "Lord of the Rings LITE (TM) with 'artificial meat flavors' and Miracle Whip". Why do I watch this crap? Oh yeah: because I have a daughter, and we go on dates, and I refuse to watch kiddy films. This movie works for her because she has a huge affinity for anything scaly (and an even huger affinity for anything huge and scaly). And even SHE was bored by the end. Your average crap fantasy film: a young boy's turn to manhood and the loss of loved ones (you can predict exactly when they'll go); evil badguy (with repetitive idle threats toward his minions that remind me of so many parents on the playground and their errant toddlers, and John Malkovitch enough already and retire please), his really evil-henchman (whose makeup inexplicably gets re-creepified 2/3 of the way through the film, but I still find Robert Carlyle cute only when he's playing a psycho); token buff warrior dude with obligatory horrific mulletude (P.S. Hollywood, I want my Djimon Hounsou served up in a loincloth, gladiator toga, ass-cheeked thong, or half-nude in a period drama, thank you!), blah blah. It actually started to get better by the end, especially when I realized they were going to save some of the typical storyline for, yes! another film. P.S. I think something sexy was going on between the boy dragonrider and his dragon. Or maybe it was just my feverish, bored mind casting for something to enjoy. I gotta admit, it was kind of hot.

So in looking up links for the last paragraph I stumbled upon the fact I have seen two movies in one week with a main character named "King Hrothgar".

Um... look. I've watched a lot of movies in the last few days, people. No really... I've been sick and had nothing else to do. Wait, don't leave ...

I'm going to go hang my head in shame now.

Labels: film, geekery, iBeak, Mac, music, random, Sophie

I had the strangest dream. I was making a really slutty dance mix CD. And you were there, and you were there, and you were there, and you were there..."

Labels: friends, geekery, music

I have discovered recently that I am an overbaker. It comes by naturally - my mom is, too. I'm not sure if my dad or brother ever baked anything but I'm sure if they did, it was crumbly and dry. Never soft, chewy cookies in our household - always the crispy ones which are still better than No Cookies so we made do (did you know cookies should be taken out of the oven while they still look wet?). I have this fear of baking something with a gooey middle, but then I realize it has never happened in my life except that one time at the Farm when the gas oven assed-out on me. So the possibility enters my mind I need to take things out of the oven sooner.

So today I am making a Quick Plain Cake coupled with a rather fancy frosting - the "Best Chocolate Frosting" from Pasta & Co. Coupled on top of my efforts regarding overbaking I have managed to make the moronic error of putting too much flour in the batter, resulting in THREE cakes now cooling on my windowsill. The cake was originally intended for a friend whose dinner we are providing tomorrow; now I have two additional portions to attend to.

As I type this my son is climbing all over me me. He's wearing nothing but his sister's "Friday" panties, a drawn-on goatee he supplied himself with, and a smile.

np - Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" which I really can't help but like. One of those overplayed songs that somehow hasn't lost the charm for me.

Labels: FOO, food, homesteading, music, Nels

Vignettes from this morning's chapter in my quest for a kick-ass bod. Yeah, I've been working out. Did you notice? Check out the ass. Actually, I need more of an ass. This flat, yet broad, expanse of corduroy could use a little ghetto.

So anyway, a local gym is offering free membership for those willing to supervise their daycare mornings. My loverly friend Steph is taking advantage of this great deal and asks me along to her workout this morning. Excellent! I know the gym has a trial membership, but I'm not sure this trial will also include the daycare option... So... I'm a considerate woman (read: schmuck); this morning an hour before Steph picks me up, I call.

I get some pipsqueak on the other end, making powershakes or whatever. I can tell she doesn't "get" the daycare arrangement. She's acting vapid. I continue to press my point, thinking, For heaven's sake, I shouldn't have called! Finally, she breaks her slack-jawed silence: "Are you looking to get free daycare?" she accuses. Vomity little tart. I almost hang up. In a cold fury, I ask if there's someone else I can talk to. She puts a manager on and in two minutes I am off the phone, issue resolved ("Sure! Come on in!" the seemingly more sensible manager chirps).

[Sigh!] OK. Time to get The Girl out of bed (sleeping in, the little sodder), off to preschool, gym bag packed, hurry hurry. 8:45 AM, Obstacle #42 of the morning: I have no athletic shoes (the closest thing being my least butch pair of docs). Aha! The neighbor girl's Vans she left with me - at a 9 1/2, a full two sizes too large. Fuck it. Nothing, not rabid children or bitchy gym-counter girls or the fact I am wearing pajama bottoms, my hospital socks, and clown shoes - will keep me from pumping iron!

We get there. Throw the kids in the childcare room. Flaunt our "personal sweat towels" (Steph's old burp cloths) and my iPod. I do a little time on the elliptical machine. My ass screams in protest. I flail off to do some stretches so I won't be crippled tomorrow. I flop on the mat next to an older black man who is rolling an exercise ball into position. He is at least sixty pounds overweight yet I noted he spent over twently minutes on a stair machine kicking ass. Wearily he settles himself on the ball and picks up a large staff-like object across his shoulders. "Is that your Jedi saber?" I ask him. He sasses back, "More like Friar Tuck!" Giggle, giggle.

It's a good workout and we end up in the steam room (me and Steph, not me and the older dude). My towel is tiny and I am reminded of the locker room scene in Starsky and Hutch. A short shower and a kid pick up, then we're on the road for blessed, blessed coffee.

I feel great. I don't even hate my life for the rest of the day.

Labels: coffee, friends, i'm a hater, music, the bod