dept of corrections

This thing has been circulating online, amongst my boards and fb feed.

NO. That is not a beard. That is stubble. Which is nice. But not a beard.

So I fixed it:

The science behind mustaches still stands, though.

out of control

The other day, I laid the baby down to nurse for her nap. When she finally fell asleep, I started to ease myself carefully and quietly from the bed - and then Gavin popped his head into the room and crowed, "WHERE DID YOU COME FROM, WHERE DID YOU GO? WHERE DID YOU COME FROM, COTTON EYE JOE?" He ran down the stairs before I could throw something at him.

Last night, while bathing the baby, Cotton Eye Joe started blaring from the bedroom. When I went to investigate, Gavin had unrolled a yoga mat and was dancing. Zenny laughed and lunged forward like a trout in my arms, so he grabbed up her fat hands and led her in a jig. Leif came skidding into the room and hit the mat. All I could do was give in, the four of us crowded onto the yoga mat and bashing around to Cotton Eye Joe. 

Oh, have you not heard this song? LET ME FIX THAT FOR YOU.

The tween is not afflicted with self-conscious coolness, at least.

sculpting of things

One of the points of getting back to Oahu was to get back into bronze sculpture. It is time to wear a leather apron again. I have not approached a blast furnace since before the punctuation mark that was 2006, when I picked up and ran from myself like a cat with its tail on fire. It takes time, said Marc, and then you see how well the scars blend into the flesh. Maybe the seams will be smoother after sandblasting. This is a lot of metaphor for me to deal with.

So of course, the clay was lost. I dug around in the art cupboards and almost immediately gave up. But then the goldfish went belly-up and required emergency rescue measures, so I made a giant mess in the search of the fish net, and LO, there was the clay, amongst a pile of plaster molds.

And now I am making models of all the cats, starting with the ancient old ones who threaten to expire with every tottering step and croaking maow. Xebo is the best model, since he stays in his cat-nest 20 hours a day.

 

The idea is to make one for every little beast in the house, and line my shelves with little gestural cats. I hope I have enough clay for a miniature Sookie, who was bigger than our Thanksgiving turkey.

closer to normal

The big news is that I went down another pant size. 

"I can see it!" said Mike. "I mean, your belly is still doing its just-had-a-baby thing, but from behind, yeah, there's a difference."

Great.

Later, I put on a cross-front dress and stared down at myself. "Were my boobs this... boobish in this dress before?" Mike nodded. "Oh yeah. Only more lopsided now."

I have named the criminal golf putter merrymigraine  nutcracker. Hope I do not unsheathe it.

More fighting!

A few weeks ago, while walking with the stroller, our neighbor slammed out the front door and walked to his red truck, too fast, avoiding eye contact. I ran with the stroller, narrowly avoiding him as he roared backwards and sped out of the lot. "Was he drunk, or trying to hit us?" Both, maybe. After the fight on Tuesday, my mother went to talk with her biker friend across the driveway from the brawlers, and the clues are these:

• Red Truck Guy doesn't live here; his elderly parents do.

• Nobody likes Red Truck Guy, and there is a restraining order against him.

• Guy Who Looks Like Inflatable Shark is trying to drive him away. Poorly.

Yesterday, the kids got out of school early, and were spreading the limbs of hapless Lego Hero Factory figures all over the floor to construct MEGA HERO (a monstrosity with feet for shoulders and so much armor it would collapse under its own weight) when the screaming and banging started again. Pool Shark and Red Truck were circling each other with fists up. They lumbered around grinning nervously so it looked like they were playing. When the punching started, I called 911. They broke apart, Pool Shark went inside, and Red Truck Guy walked casually to the back of his truck. I was about to tell the operator that it was a false alarm, when Pool Shark lunged outside with a golf club and bashed out the truck windshield. A cop pulled up, and they started punching each other quickly, to get a few hits in before they could be broken up. The cop jumped out, yelling, and I decided I would not be a cop for very long if I tried that career path, because I would be shooting every giant shark-shaped person who charged at me. 

In the evening, we went out with the stroller for our walk. The broken glass was cleaned up, the neighborhood quiet. Across the street, something shiny was in the bushes. I grabbed it. "What are you doing? We don't need that!" said Mike. "Need? This is not about need. Any crap detective or video game player knows to pick up clues when you find them."

I came home, very pleased with myself. I had found criminal golf club.

The cat was impressed, anyway. Some may argue that you only need clues when there is a mystery to solve, and there isn't any real mystery involved here, since we know who the jerks are and what they want, but still. Evidence! Of something! Maybe it will be vital to some twist development, or maybe it will possess me to bash out someone's windshield. Will I get chased down by an angry man for stealing his golf club? THAT is the mystery.

fight!

I am smitten with a pressure cooker. Dinnertime is a nightly experiment in how many things I can put into the pressure cooker. Ribs. Pot roast. Sausages. BBQ chicken. Last night I made ham hocks and beans, and decided that they needed cheese biscuits to go with them. I've never put cheese in biscuits, so I sought out Paula Deen to tell me how to make delicious (hopefully non-racist) breadstuff. Paula Deen just puts cheese in biscuit mix, as it turns out. I did not have biscuit mix, and I wasn't sure if waffle mix was an acceptable substitute, so I just made regular cream biscuits and put cheese in them. Felt like a genius as I pulled them out of the toaster oven, hot and golden and cheesy.

At just that moment, things went apeshit. People were screaming, doors were slamming, and we ran to the windows to watch three of our neighbors tumble out into the parking lot, yelling and kicking and punching at each other while a woman with no pants on cussed at them in operatic volume. A man shaped like an inflatable pool shark in a t-shirt started dancing around on his toes, "One on one! Come on, one on one!" His opponent threw a golf club at him. They ran to opposite sides of a truck, reaching into the bed to throw things at each other. An empty tool box. An aluminum baseball bat. A putter. Pool shark grabbed a shovel and chased the other men in circles. He threw the shovel down, started dancing on his toes again, and one of the other men picked it up and put it back in the truck while the big guy took fake swings at him. By this time everyone on the block was at their door with 911 on the phone - including us. I stood at the screen door and took video with my phone. When the sirens started blaring, the men all leaned casually on the truck and waited for them, while the woman ran to put pants on. A cruiser pulled up and an officer leaned out. "Was somebody fighting over here?" "NO. FUCK YOU." Very convincing. 5 cop cars stuffed into the lot. As soon as there were badges between them, they all started screaming at each other again, feinting forward as if the cops were restraining them. Girlfriend ran across the street and took up her screaming from a safe distance. The cops ignored her, but she almost got hit by a bus while trotting backwards into the street.

Then I remembered my cheese biscuits. Which were now cold. UNACCEPTABLE. I chased everyone to the table and made them eat, eyes straying to the windows.

And so it was that my biscuits were upstaged by hambeasts with garden tools on a Tuesday night. My nosy footage is on its way to the court house with the fed-up father of one of the brawlers. Will be locking the doors tonight.

babies as dumbbells

After a few months of carrying your baby, you may spot yourself in a mirror and notice a difference.

Two-timed by weather

Woke up to torrential rain, and checked news to find a tropical depression and ALSO a small hurricane on top of us. 

And where are the boys this fine day? Why yes, they are camping! Feeling both relieved for refusing to sleep in a tent with a baby, and appalled that I sent my older offspring off to get washed away by a hurricane. An active start to storm season this year. We may need to put more than canned wieners in the hurricane kit.

Pinstress

"Some poll showed that people spend time stressing over their Pinterest boards and feeling like failures because they aren't making enough gorgeous food things," said my mother. "That is ridiculous, it's just a cork board," I said. 

And then I had to ask the boy what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday.

"CREEPERS."

"That is not a flavor."

"PORTAL."

"Also not a flavor."

The other child chimed in, "HARRY POTTER. And also Portal. HARRY PORTAL."

My mother shook her head. "That sounds obscene. You should cover your Harry Portal so nobody sees it."

In the end, we went with creepers. Taking to Pinterest, I found these things:

creeper cupcakes from Candy Bar Cupcakes

Fine. I can make bronze sculptures and knit sweaters, I can make cupcakes for the kid to take to school.

So I pulled out the Kitchen Aid, sprayed and floured the pans, baked them carefully, and lovingly turned them out onto racks. And the cake broke up and flopped out in chunks, because it was not a sweater or a sculpture.

Well, the joke is on you, cake - there are only 6 kids in Leif's class because they split into groups on the first week of kindergarten. Carved 6 squares out of the chunks that were big enough. I win.

The faces are made out of fruit leather. I remember fruit leather being pretty disgusting, but when it's the only candy you can wheedle out of your mother at the health food store, it's still pretty exciting. As it happens, fruit leather technology has improved over the years, and Target sells one that you might even want to finish, instead of licking and sticking to the walls at 3'-high intervals around the living room.

Tip: cut each one into thirds, cut the top off each section for the eyes, and nip bits out of the bottom piece for the mouthy part. Eat the remnants.

There was no spray color to be had, so I thinned down food coloring in a teaspoon of vodka and painted the pixels on.

VICTORY.

Uneven, blotchy victory, but enough to keep me off of pinterest fail, at least.

Next: 5 year-old birthday party at Korean bbq place with fires built into the table. What could go wrong?

Moar sewing

The itch to draw means it's time to start a new book project. And I just...

So I'm sewing things again. My aunt took the boys away for beachy cousin activities, and my brain ground to a halt. The baby went down for a nap, I vacuumed, did dishes, and sat on the couch bobbing my knees, trying to remember what I used to do when I had a brain that functioned. Put on Pandora, trusting the internet to know what to do (because guess what is still stuck in my head? JOLENE. AUGH), and found an old shirt of mine with the elastic blown on the sleeves.

I cut it up, shook cats off it, pinned pinned pinned, laid my hands on my machine in silent prayer - work, motherfucker, or I'm trading you in for a bedazzler - and made a little gathered dress.

IT WORKED!

Every time I dress the kid in clothes I like, people ask, "Ooh, did you make that?" which kind of makes me question my taste in garments, but at least it gives me a reason to just go ahead and make the damn things.

Dresses are the best thing ever, because you can fit SO MUCH of them into your mouth. 

High-five, self.

I did not yet make the underpants to go with it, but someone gave us a pair of baby skinny jeans, so I gave those a try. Getting a baby into skinny jeans is like getting a pig into a pair of skinny jeans. Adult hands are too big to fit up the leg holes to grab the fat little feet, so you have to squinch them up over their hams like pantyhose. But the end effect?

Totally not worth it.