Easter 06

That's cool with me, it's not my favorite...

I just realized at this moment that it is the pain medication to blame for my recent loopiness. And that you should not swallow pills with boiling tea.




Gavin napped for 3 hours and woke up with the urge to boogie. "Dance!" he commanded as he rolled out my yoga mat. We did manic yoga to The Darkness.

"No, Mike, stroganoff is too fatty," I said at dinner time. 20 minutes later we were eating fried chicken fritters at the Chinese restaurant. Well played.

At RSCDS, Gavin's idea of dancing was to grab my hands, yank me forward, and yell "bonk!" while head butting me. Then he turned, did a little jig, skipped in a circle, and stood doing his alarming little impersonation of Michael Flatley; locking and unlocking his knees spasmodically. I examined the box of organic vegan gummy bears we bought at the health food store (boiled corn syrup, oooh, healthy) and read my book, then fell asleep in the car, mouth hanging open.

Onward to Easter! Ready to eat chocolate again. Gavin has gotten the hang of this Lent business. When I reached for his M&Ms at the theater, he pulled them away and said sweetly, "No, mom, you have to wait until Easter. I'll eat them all." Blast.

136.4

books and cupcakes

All by myself. Well, and my mother and Gavin. Mike flew away into the night, off to New York on his adventure. Gavin slept soundly, barely twitching, while I rolled across the empty side of the bed, so happy to take advantage of the room that I wasn't able to get comfortable.



Gavin tossed apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes into our basket while we were at the store looking for cupcake sprinkles. It is my policy to buy whatever produce he asks for, so I unloaded the pile of fruit at the register with a shrug. We shredded up a whole bag of carrots and made carrot cake cupcakes, smeared with cream cheese frosting. Gavin decorated them with layers of multi-colored sugar balls, and we each ate one. I sat on the bench at the empty park and read my book ("Airborn", by Kenneth Oppel) while Gavin played on the jungle gyms and rolled his trains down the slides. We stuffed ourselves into our tiny tub and washed off the playground dirt, then sat around watching cartoons until dinner. My mother came home and dismantled the DVD player, retrieving the paperclip Gavin poked inside. After dinner, the boy fell asleep on the couch under a blanket while my mother and I drank tea. My cousin and aunt arrived. The kids are eating grapes and cupcakes, I refilled the teapot with English toffee tea. Very domestic.

I'd like to have some adventure too, though.

Pictures

Gavin acts cool as usual:



Me in a skirt for the party last week:



Mike in his kilt today:



New Maui Celtic shirt:

misinformation

No spring break after all, only dentist appointments and hours of silent cataloging. I managed to cut the backlog in half without all the activity that normally interrupts my work day. Tossed some boxes of unwanted donations in the teacher's lounge as freebies. Starting to get a handle on the mountain of books that accumulated over the year before my arrival. Working on an Easter poster for the library. I have been thinking of using my illustration skills to make advocacy/literacy posters and graphics to try to sell to the ALA for library use. Hmm, we will see if I can manage not to make my literacy bunny too cutesy have it come out looking wise and funky. 

I have started listening to NPR at work. I would listen to audio books, but we don't have a tape player, of all things. There's something for my collection development lists. I feel very smart taping barcodes onto books while listening to people rant about social issues on the radio. I finished reading "how i live now", last year's Printz award winner, and it was wonderful. I thought about it while I was looking through the ALA conference schedule, wishing I could justify going for the weekend and attend the "so you want to be a book reviewer" lecture. I wonder if I could score free books for my library while developing a reputation as a reviewer for library journals... something to look into.

I spent some of my royalties on a really cool and enormous hand-carved mirror from Pier 1. I stood staring lovingly at it for 20 minutes before Mike said to just get it. I have a hard time buying big things for myself. I can see it hanging in our own little tin-roof shack some day. I guess I have come to terms with Hawaii, and for the first time in my life the thought of moving to the mainland makes me sad. We may have to live in a tin-roof shack for the cost of a mansion in Texas, but it comes with the weather and the misty mountains.

pooptacular

The poop incident broke the vacuum. The maintenance men, driven into the library by the rain, needed dirt to use on their test runs of the new bagless vacuums (bagless, I am sure, for the swift and efficient collection of forensic evidence), so I helpfully dumped the entire contents of my splenda stash on the floor. I located the spot on the rug where the poop had been and laughed when I saw it was next to the Captain Underpants books. Fitting.

So, how's work going?

I like my job. I get to do fun stuff at my job (make flyers, create displays, get the kids excited about awesome books, buy books, play with tape and stickers) and boring stuff at my job (shelf 100 books a day, write budget reports, catalog teacher resources, kick the copier into working). And like a newly discovered body of water of undetermined gullible depths, people keep sticking their toes in me. Tricky balance, being trained to be helpful and needing to stand up to people.

In order to come to the library during recess, the kids have to sign in and out so we know what time they got here and what time they left. But this is a school for dyslexic children, and the results are creative, optimistic, and completely useless.

Fun reference questions:

Are Gods real?
Are you a Christian?
Where are the books on spells - like, recipes and how to do them?
If girls have equal rights, can I chop off his head?
How do you give birth?
Where are all the books on axolotls?
Did Nazis go to church?

Fluffer nutter sandwich and Amy Tan book over lunch break. Happy librarian on Hit By Truck Day (5 classes down, 2 to go!).

Indulge and repent

Gordon Biersch, Mardi Gras. Mike showed his club card and we got to sit down ahead of everyone else, ha. I picked garlic fries and crispy artichoke hearts off the plates while Mike and my mom enjoyed their beers. Mike was happy, right at home in his favorite place. "We can't move anywhere without a Gordon Biersch. If we're moving to Seattle, we have to see their Gordon Biersch first to make sure it's as good as this one," he said.

Gavin and I went out into the holiday crowd at Aloha Tower when we were stuffed. We filled a bag with mixed candy at the chocolate shop, and Gavin held the paper bag in his fist while I carried him on my hip. A jazz band was playing, old people tottered to the music, military guys stalked in predatory herds, grumpy parents shuffled their kids through the crowd. All at once the parade started, with pounding and clanking, whistles and hoots. Gavin pressed his fist, still clutching the candy bag, up against his ear as the parade-goers danced by. A woman in a sparkling bikini gave him a strand of beads. He pulled it off indignantly when she turned away and handed it to me. I bounced him on my hip and danced along with the crowd back down to Gordon Biersch. They yelled and crashed through the brewery, and I dropped back down into my seat in front of Mike. He raised an eyebrow at my beads, and I fluttered my eyelashes innocently at him. As the parade made its way through the open patio and the noise faded around the building, I ushered our party-goers to the car and drove home.

And now it is Lent. We subscribe to Lent, more as a novelty than a religious event. We swore off chocolate. I broadened my sacrifice to include all caffeine. Mike tried to swear off getting fat, but I argued that the chocolate was a root cause.

The night was warm, so I kicked off my pajama pants and then spent the entire night dreaming that had no pants on. As I was having murder-mystery dreams, this was not great.

Ball '06 pictures

Gavin is enthused about his suit:


 

 

 

 

 

 

The Red Eye Family:


 

 

 

 

Gavin spends too much time at the bar:


 

 

 

 

The couple on the beach:


 

 

 

 

 

 

Gavin uses me as a maypole:


 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike dances with my mom:

Flop

Valentine's Day. Mike's face dropped when he realized that he had not bought me anything, no chocolate or flowers, but had instead done our taxes and cost us a lot of money. His face sagged further when Gavin gave him the box of candy I had helped him pick out for his dad; Mike had not arranged for Gavin to give me a valentine, either. My present was supposed to be Thai food, but the restaurant was closed. Mike scoured the phone book outside the dark restaurant for alternatives. The phone book binder on the pay phone covered the number of the restaurant we wanted, so he told us to get into the car and he drove all the way to Kailua in the driving rain. We finally had some luck and went back home with a steaming pile of curries, sticky rice, and spring rolls. I then spent a romantic evening in the storage room of my uncle-in-law's coffee shop watching the kids play choo choos while kneading a stress ball and drinking iced chai.

For our anniversary last night, Mike and I drove down to Ala Moana for an evening together. We went upstairs into the tourist comfort-food arena of upscale chain restaurants and hit the Macaroni Grill. Traditionally, we spend some time talking over the events of the previous year, but that didn't last very long. I spent most of this year tramping to the end of my leash and howling at the moon. I picked up the crayons next to my grilled salmon and drew stick figures on the paper tablecloth. The waitress came by to inspect my crude handiwork.
"This is us when we got married 3 years ago," I said, pointing to the stick figure in a kilt and the bubble figure holding a stick baby. "This is us now," I pointed to the stick family with stick toddler, "and this is us next year," indicating the stick figures with new stick baby and stick preschooler. I decided that I looked like a South Park character in the first picture, so I scribbled, "cheesy poofs" next to my head.
"What happened to him here?" asked the waitress, pointing to the third picture.
"He gained a lot of weight with the second baby," I said.
"And who's this?"
"That's Jack Black in our basement."
"RAWK!"
I drew a circle around Jack Black, crossed out "basement" and wrote in "hot tub".

After cheesecake, we went down to the Apple store and I choked on the price of the web cam Mike wanted. He doesn't even need one. We left empty handed, then couldn't find anything for me, either. Finally we decided that we could not return home without something for Gavin, and spent the rest of our time digging through Thomas the Tank Engine books at Barnes and Noble. I used a gift card to buy a book for my library, and we left without buying each other gifts. "Well it's not our fault 2/3 of the mall is devoted to overpriced handbags," Mike said. We agreed that we owe each other something nice in the future, went home, and fell asleep. There will be no second stick baby at this rate, but at least the eating's good.

This morning I rolled out of bed into the shower, ran downstairs in my librarian disguise, and remembered that I had to have snacks for a baby shower at work this afternoon. And that is why I was baking cookies at 5:30am. I pulled out a Tupperware container and sent the contents of the cabinet crashing out onto the floor, shattering a glass pie pan. The cats streaked like bullets out the door, but somehow the household slept through it.  Friday. Friday. Friday!