Back to school

I did not get any pictures of my kids going back to school. That's how I fail to roll. The boys are relieved to be back around other children after two months of weekending with their cousins. Yesterday ended in a mediation between the eldest two at the kitchen table, wherein I attempted to play relationship counselor after ingesting a fair amount of rum in a botched attempt to frost a German chocolate cake*. It went smoothly, I think. Like a hydroplaning car.

This summer was a bust, internet. There was no travel, because my work year revolves around summer services, and there was no lounging with margaritas, because I have no patio furniture and gave up alcohol** in order to lose the lychee weight. HOWEVER, my in-laws arrived last night, so there may be lasers and tap dancing to liven things up a bit. I'm not rushing out to buy booze, but my abstinence has been modified to exempt beverages placed firmly in my hand by a hairy-eyeballed spouse.

To prepare for his family's arrival, the man has been hammering away in the bathroom all week to install wainscoting. He dropped the sink. And broke a pipe. And bought the wrong replacement part. As he stood staring wretchedly at the pipe pieces in his hand, I called him into the kids' room. "Don't cry," I warned him, and pointed at the neat row of nails hammered right through the wall. He made a little strangled noise.

So the bathroom isn't finished, but I don't mind, because anything is an improvement over its original abandoned-shack condition.



In other news

* I have endeavored to become better at researching genealogy through our library databases. For practice, I looked up my own ancestors, and found documents dating back to 1782 England. Being a well-established fan of Outlander, I was very interested to see what my relatives would have been up to while Jamie and Claire were off chasing redcoats, if we existed in the same imaginary timeline. According to the documents, young William was round-chinned, dark-eyed, straight-nosed, and in prison for stealing books. Stealing books. Damn it, Willie.

* I bought reading glasses. So I could more easily read about ancestors for whom I am paying karmic retribution.

* The doorbell rang while I was making dinner, and I scared the electrician by answering it in my swimsuit while holding a lot of chopped ham. "Come on in, I've got my hands full of meat!" Oh, ffs, self.




- - -

*the man wanted "something with coconut" for his birthday, so I got out the Booze Cakes cookbook and went for it. Then I poured too much rum into a measuring cup which already had sugar in it, so I couldn't just pour it back into the bottle. Instead, I used the sweetened liquor to brush between the layers of cake. But I had forgotten to level the layers beforehand, and ended up carving the tops off and eating the rum-soaked cake. Then I drank the rest out of the measuring cup. That is frugality, folks.

** except when ruining a cake.

wherein I get a tune-up

So I went to see the doctor for the first time in years. I've reached the age where it is responsible to keep an eye on your health as it gradually rattles apart. I wrote a list of all my grievances, and put the list in my pocket, and immediately forgot about it. I should probably add "premature dementia" to the list. It wasn't until I was in the car and driving away that I realized I had forgotten to mention item #1 on my stupid damn list; the biggest problem, around which I had been doodling an agenda for my bucket list*. It's probably nothing, but COME ON SELF, how did I forget this thing?

For reference, that bucket list includes:

* Go to a painting workshop in Seattle, hosted by one of my favorite painters, Katherine Stone.

* Visit Scotland and tromp around battle sites where my ancestors died, maybe find the decrepit family castle I have heard rumors of. Drink tepid beer.

* Visit the Mutter Museum - which may lose its appeal in the context of hypothetical mortal illness, but OH WELL. College-me wanted to go, and she shall have her wishes granted.

* Eat... something. I had not decided on this, but THINGS WILL BE EATEN.

* Go to Harry Potter World with my kids. Consume all the butter beer (see above).

* Art museums. I'm not picky which. All of them.

* Never go to Maui again. (I've already started this one.)


That's all I've got so far. That should do until I can mention the thing at my next appointment - which is next week, because my doctor made the same face a mechanic makes when you do beat-box noises to describe what's wrong with your car, and he had to schedule separate appointments for every quadrant of my anatomy, just to sort out all the pings and growls. The medical center does training, and in general I am ok with being looked at by these bushy-eyed newbies, being both supportive of learning and sturdy enough that they should have a hard time killing me.** This guy was very eager to name all the tests and drugs he's hoping to try out.

"Ok, so what we are going to do," said the doctor, "is break everything down in order of greatest concern to smallest concern, and work from there."
"Actually, what I was hoping is that we could just sort of nip through all the minor things and then worry about the big things later, since they probably aren't going anywhere?"
"Ehm, no."
Kids these days.

LESSON: routine maintenance, folks. You can't pass inspection with everything duct taped in place.

- - -

*It is my superstition that in order to prevent bad things from happening, you have to act as if you expect the bad things to happen - and then they won't, just to spite you.

** Although they did kill my grandmother, who was likewise sturdy until a botched x-ray.

more produce portraiture

While the man bangs and grouts and saws in an attempt to finish the bathroom before his mom comes to visit, I've been  drawing fruit again.

This month, I endeavored to answer the question: will a diet comprised almost entirely of lychees result in weight loss? The answer: no. No, it won't. 

After canning lychees and preserving lychees in vodka and gin, I ran out of jars and resorted to an attempt to eat the entire tree. They are fat free! 6 calories each! Full of vitamin C! And I gained 8 fucking pounds in 2 weeks. Evidently I am also lucky not to have developed encephalopathy. Fruitarians really are bonkers, folks. SCIENCE.*

So now I'm off lychees and into yoga pants, jogging around the block and pissing off all the neurotic dogs in the neighborhood every evening. Down 2 lbs. 

But I can't stay mad at these things. They are just the best.

And now they are on my wall with General Kale and Tim Ginger. Also that poisonous mushroom my co-workers brought into the library, which I call "a Mushroom for Muu". The lychees had been uncreatively dubbed "Twig and Berries", but I think now I can call them "Encephalopachees".

That is kind of like home improvement.

*Not really. But plausibly.

Designated Wet Blanket

I made a cake. It was a glazed lemon cake topped with fresh berries and whipped cream, and I think that proves that I am supportive of holidays and food. But I did not go to the beach and get sunburned along with everyone else on the 4th of July, and I did not go to the water park and get a neck injury like everyone else the following day. This is because we had a house guest and my introvert's power charge had been expended, and because I have been head-draggingly depressed for reasons related to an upcoming doctor's appointment, and chasing a seizure-prone toddler around slippery concrete was not an appealing holiday activity. REASONS, I told my mother. WET BLANKET, she replied.

So on Monday, I gathered the kids and took them to the Ice Palace for the borrowed child's last day of metropolitan adventure. And I was so determined not to be a wet blanket, and to not ruin my 2 year-old's childhood by Depriving Her of Life Experiences, that I folded under the gaze of the admissions lady and paid for a complete round of ice skates. This is ridiculous, I thought as I tugged tiny blades onto Zenny's feet. This is not a good idea, I thought as I secured her helmet and clomped to the ice rink. THIS IS THE WORST THING I HAVE EVER DONE, I thought as we clung to a walker and slid in a panicky circle around the kiddie area. Zenny tried to climb my legs, I tried to hold her up so we could exit faster, we struggled in place for a terrible half a minute, and then an alarmed ice-lifeguard grabbed us both and shoved us off the ice. I tossed the skates back onto the counter and bought some hot cocoa, instead. We watched the big kids skate, warmed our hands, and I mentally pared items off my shopping list to allow for the cost of my idiot toddler-on-ice endeavor. 

coffee filters; I can use paper towels 

sandwich things for work lunches; I can eat old cans of tuna with a fork

tea bags; old crystal light

pasta sauce; just dump cheese on it

It's all fine. The kids had a great weekend. Nobody got their fingers cut off on the ice rink. There is leftover cake. I am in some of the holiday pictures.

Here is photographic evidence of festivities and things being done.