quilted by monkeys

Progress report.

Here there be zig zags:

The Anna Maria Horner quilt is coming along. Kind of having a problem with crookedness, owing to a small screaming person wrapped around my pedal leg. Hoping that gives it character later.

Stupid baby blanket. My first attempt at that fun, spontaneous, sew-as-you-go patchwork style has resulted in a hot mess. Will try to salvage it with broad colored borders to knock down the busyness. Thinking I am not a quilting prodigy.

Leif said his first word! Dada. Very original. I am still counting his clapping as a word. Also there was banana bread today, a stop at the farmer's market, pasta salad all over the floor of the car (not my fault this time), work on the book illustrations, and minimal shmoopiness. Also gossips: stupid chain-smoking synthesizer-playing donkey-sex neighbors are behind on rent. Landlord has been buying the guy canvases in the hopes that he can sell more crap paintings and pay him. Other neighbor gave them smoking stuffs (ahem) for which they have not paid and are pretending to know nothing about. A few weeks ago they left their kitten alone all weekend with no food or water, so we had to orchestrate a break-in to save it, and now the little thing is up here all the time. We may not have to move after all.

Memorial Day Weekend

More stripes on the quilt top:

Our basil has sprouted, in spite of Gavin helpfully trying to drown it. Maybe we put a few too many seeds in there... I don't know a lot about nature stuff. I like wild growth and overgrown gardens, maybe there's a book for the willfully ignorant gardener I can find somewhere. It'll be short; "plant, water, neglect, repeat".

Sookie has become a ratter, throwing rats all over the lanai, running through the living room with corpses, and then kissing my face with her little ratty lips. Po, feeling peer pressure, has started venturing outside a few steps, then gets scared, scrambles through the house on her tiny legs, poops in the bathtub, and climbs on me to nuzzle with her poo paws. Evidently I am made of an attractive wipey-type material.

Being a holiday weekend, most of the folks around here have opted to avoid a trip to town, and the general stores are cleaned out of meat. Mike came home with giant steaks, which were delicious even though I caught them on fire while he wasn't looking.

Ahead: very exciting stuff.

Misc with the xfh

The heat makes the air heavy, blurring the horizon. I like that, these days. It used to be that I suffered summer, waiting for winter, but the recent years have turned me into a creature of the sun. Several nights ago, I rolled onto my back on the living room floor and saw the moon shining through the skylight, red as a bloody eye and staring. And I remembered, It was red that week. I rolled away before it could pin me to the floor. I am faster than the moon, ha.

I've taken up quilting, which involves a great deal of shaking cats out of batting that is not mentioned in craft books. Mike had been hovering, so I offered him a pair of pinned squares, "Want to try sewing?" "Sure," he said, and he took the fabric, sat down on my stool, fiddled curiously with the unfamiliar machine, and then proceeded to sew a perfect seam. By the end of the evening, he was whirring down the length of my quilt top in a neat line.
"This is what I hate about you," I told him. "You'll try anything, and you'll be good at it, and you have no damned sense about it. 'Scottish dancing? Hey, I'll be an instructor! Knitting? I made a lace kimono! Beer brewing? Here's an Irish Porter! Illicit drugs and sex? Sure, sounds fun! Deliver this box for you?'"
"Fly this plane?"
"'Put this package where?'"
"Crash into what?"


Stupid man.

Trip to town

On the way to town for a meeting, I passed under the now twice-fallen landslide. Kind of furtively.

Am working on first grown-up sized quilt. With bits of cat sewn in.

summertime

The sun is out! Today, with a clean and lovely house, we put on Jack Johnson and cruised down to the beach. Watched Gavin throw himself into the waves, and Leif dig his fists into the sand for the first time. I stood in the sand while the boys swam, drawing letters with my toes and watching the water carry them away. Rinsed and loading into the car, a local woman from the other side gave us ice cream and stroked Leif's fat sand-smeared cheeks. Drove home under the mango trees. Our neighbor smoked himself stupid and played a Beatles disc we burned for him, waving as we walked by his door. I got into the tub with the baby and Mike washed my back with the Man-Sponge (a Japanese sponge he got for Christmas that only said "MAN" on the package). In a fresh dress, I chopped lemongrass and shallots for a steak marinade, mixed drinks for the big people, and the evening glows golden around us. It feels like the lake, it feels like college and love and contentment. Except for Sookie yowling for boy cats out the window. Gavin says, "Sookie is a teenager now! When I get hormones, I'll be going RROAW RROAW RRAOW too, and you'll have to lock me in my bedroom." Sure.


edited to add: oh yeah, and the beer production has been delayed because the beer barrel thing blew up and spewed beer all over the bathroom. Smelled good, though.

Boys on the beach:






the bay:

On the plus side

Easter day was sunny and fine. We prepared a great feast, everyone looked good in their new Easter duds, and Leif crawled for the first time. Our cats were excited to see us, and their caretakers were excited by the box of Krispy Kremes we bribed them with.

Developmental milestones: besides crawling, Leif can pick up cheerios with two fingers, turn pages in a book, hold out his arms to be picked up, yell to get our attention, say "dadada" when Mike is in the room, and attempt escape when you try to wipe his face or butt. He's a genius! Sookie figured out how to catch her own tail and pull herself over and over in somersaults. Need to catch on video, will be world-famous lolcat owner.

foot washing day

Mike plopped Leif down beside me on the floor and took off with the kiddo for school this morning. Leif piled toys on the cat, then climbed onto my lap to paw at my shirt, so I hefted him up, tucked him to my bosom, paused to pull a chunk of carpet out of his mouth when he gagged, and as he settled in to nursing I thought to myself, well, this is a nice time to organize the events of the weekend. What a mess that was.


Saturday: Anticipating an easy weekend of baby-minding, reading, and tidying, I put Leif down on the floor in the kitchen while I swept around him and did some dishes. His stroller sits near the screen door by the stove, ready to serve as an observation/containment perch for the baby while we're cooking, so before long he scooted over to it and pulled it closer. A moment later he began cackling with laughter, then paused, then laughed again. I looked over and at first was charmed; Sookie had climbed into the basket and was peeking out at him. Then I watched as he patted the basket, Sookie shot out and wrapped her front legs around his head and attacked his face, then she sucked herself back into the basket and he broke into hysterical laughter, patting the basket for more. The child who acts like we're pulling his arms off when we change his onesie thinks it's hilarious to be mauled by a cat. Figures.

We slept together in the middle of the bed, guarded by cats. I didn't dream, slipping off to my nightly mental mantra of "no thinking at night, no thinking at night". In the darkness the ghosts get me - those that were and those that are coming.

On Sunday I let the baby and cat pull each other around the floor and made dough for brioche to welcome home the boys. At 3pm I received a phone call from the airport, where Mike and Gavin were stranded after just missing their flight home, having been delayed after a failed attempt to fix my mother's washing machine (the best thing that can be said about this being that nobody's head was crushed - Mike's presence evidently caused the shower to break, too, so he was off to a bad start already). I put the brioche in the fridge and made brownies instead, gave Leif a bath, tucked him in bed, and hemmed my new dress in front of the television. Then came the second bad phone call of the day: "Um, I'm at the car, and..." "Oh no, don't tell me you forgot your keys." "I forgot my keys." And still a 2-hour drive from home. He rented a car.

So on Monday I called in to work, woke up all the neighbors trying to deactivate the alarm on the shiny white rented Malibu, and headed to town to get the car with my spare key. Driving the Malibu was like driving a spacecraft.

Despite the beating on my wallet, I counted the trip to town and back as a success. I managed to buy Easter clothes for everyone, food for everyone, a Safeway deli chicken sandwich for myself, and still made it home in time to pick Gavin up from school - but Mike was not yet finished messing up the weekend. As I lugged groceries into the kitchen he said, "The power cord on the laptop is broken and I accidentally ran it dead in the airport watching a movie while waiting for the plane and all my files for work are on it and WHAT SHOULD I DO?!" I told him what he should do; I put a beer in his hand, made bbq ribs for dinner, then opened up a tub of Ben & Jerrys. We chucked the kids in bed and sat in front of Heroes, and suddenly the power cord flickered to life long enough to siphon all his work files off the laptop. "You're so smart," he said. Yes I am.

The rest of the week has been okay so far. Yesterday Leif horked up a chunk of rug, a hairball, and a dead cockroach (not at the same time), Gavin has had lightsaber duels with his friend from school, Sookie has been sleeping across my neck again after a few weeks of usurping Po's resting nook, and work has been eventful.
 

Time for Easter.

Spring Break

Started Monday by dropping a box cutter on my foot. Rethinking ambition to become professional knife-thrower.

Further insomnia: woke up at 1am and mentally rehashed series-finale episode of Battlestar, searching for answers to gaping plot holes and going off into angry sleepy plans to track down writers and knock their heads against the floor and demand a revised finale.

Am back from a weekend with my mother, having flown over with the kids to drop off Gavin for spring break. The house is empty without him. We both woke last night, certain he had walked into the room and spoken to us, so I phoned my mother first thing in the morning to make sure he had only been dreamwalking and not visiting as a ghost. He said he had dreamed of us, too, and didn't seem surprised we had heard him. Weird.

In other news: Gavin learned to eat with chopsticks, Leif learned to clap, my mother and I saved a colony of enormous toads, and Mike tried to defend a bouncy castle against a horde of teenagers. Productive weekend.

In the AM

Gavin dawdles, I bark, we find sneakers, gather up homework, run out late. Yesterday I didn't feel like barking, so I snuck up to the bathroom to see what was taking so long. Gavin stood in front of the mirror with the lights out, waving his flashing toothbrush as he applied toothpaste, singing. "I'm Captain Hammer, my teeth are shiny and clean, and it's a brand new day! La lala, something something die, my teeth are bright and shiny!" Reasonable.

Last night I was cold, with dreams of being shot at and chased, and I woke up wanting to be next to my boy at 4:30am. Like I had summoned him, Gavin stumbled in and climbed into bed. We went back to sleep until morning. "I didn't have bad dreams after I was next to you," Gavin said. "Neither did I," I agreed. I wish we had a bigger bed. Maybe Mike can sleep in Gavin's room.

with a side of LIONS!

One of my ongoing quests is the hunt for the perfect wonton. So far, the best ones I've found are at the Kin Wah in Kaneohe, our favorite Chinese restaurant, and I insist on eating there every time we visit. Even though there is a blurb on the menu that says "Our meat dishes contain MSG. Extra MSG will not be added upon request."

So on Saturday we dug into our soup and plates of honey-garlic chicken, stuffed eggplant, and gau gee, when suddenly a roar of firecrackers came from the parking lot, and two Chinese lions came dancing into the restaurant with a billow of smoke and crashing drums. Gavin leaped up onto his seat, along with everyone else in the restaurant, and the two lions pushed themselves between the tables towards the birthday girl [old lady with leis up to her ears]. Mike was smashing Leif's head against his chest to protect his ears, and Leif was trying to punch him in the face to get him off. My mom gave Gavin a dollar to stuff into the lion's mouth. It was great. Best wontons ever!