Even keel

Quite a week.

* Was politely rejected by a decent-looking man, before I could even properly thoroughly embarrass myself. edit: word has reached me that I did, in fact, properly embarrass myself.
* Ran into a guard rail while dodging a cement truck on the Curvy Road of Doom. edit: the road claimed one of our friends yesterday.
* Missed a call at 4am from my mother, worried because the wasband had gone missing. He was eventually found (not by me).
* My mother subscribed me to groceries-by-mail, so several boxes of bread mix, nutella, coffee, cat food, and canned meats arrived. I love mail. I love food. This was amazing.
* Dragged the boys out to beaches all weekend. Jogged in the surf, nailed them with water canons, yelled about a breaching whale, sacked out in a bikini listening to Led Zeppelin, and talked trash with friends.

I couldn't be assed to take pictures, but we were here (Hamoa):

That big fluffy tree on the beach there? That is me laid out under it, trash-talking. My friend and I watched the paddlers off shore, and I tried to convince him that we should start a Sad Sad Single Person Canoe Club. We agreed that if we just went back and forth in the bay, we could totally watch our kids play on the beach. Exercise AND good parenting. We just need to find boats to steal now. 

Back at home, I made black-eyed peas, fresh bread, and tiny coconut cakes.

There was frisbee in the back yard. We are terrible at it, and all of us are now striped with horizontal bruises; mostly because Leif's strategy is to charge up while you're not paying attention and clock you in the shins with the frisbee (which he calls "playing musubi").

Gavin does not know the rules, either.

Weekends like these are great. Even if I can't get a date. Which brings me to...


Sexy men, please stop reading here

I am not a doll person. I am also not a cat lady. But I remain afflicted with too many cats and I am secretly charmed by miniature things. This would probably manifest like Barbie trashes her dream house if it had free reign. Which it does not. But it would be awesome.

Try to deny this. ALL MINIATURES.

So, having established myself as not a crazy doll person/cat lady - when I was six or seven, my mother shelled out her precious working-college-student dollars to buy me a Sasha doll. This was a doll that could make any little Newfie girl in my Catholic school cluck their tongue enviously and yell, "That's a siiin!" We weren't really clear on what "that's a sin" meant, except that whatever a sin was, it wasn't fair and we wanted one. Later we realized it meant, "that's a shame", and I still use it to annoy my mother if she catches the roast on fire.

This doll traveled to the reservation with me, dressed in little poufy hand-made dresses. I lost one of her shoes - which now cost the same as actual human shoes - and that little white leather shoe has been sitting on some dusty shelf of guilt in the back of my brain for twenty years. My mom stuck her in a box and mailed her to me this week, packed in holly-leaf tissue and padded with mini liquor bottles (my mom wins at package-making).

So I knit her a sweater. And a hat.

And while I sewed on the little clasps, my brain tripped on a 5-htp pill (or one of several mini liquor bottles) and started thinking things like, ooh, I can make tiny Scottish arans! And fair-isle! And Hogwarts uniforms! And I can open an etsy shop and sell doll sweaters for $50 each and get a publishing deal for a book of doll patterns and OH MY GOD SHUT UP BRAIN.

(cat picture, which I BROKE)

"DOLLS LOL"

And you shut it, too, cat.