soup and mashed potatoes

Recently I've been eating a lot of canned soup, which is easy to bring to work, low in fat, low in calories, and high in sodium*. It looks very sad in a bowl, though. Today I am eating brown liquid with corn. Which tastes better than the glue I accidentally took a swig from this morning.

At work, I have ordered Julia Child's cookbook because of the movie coming out. My favorite Julia Child moment was shortly before her death, when Food Network hosted an all-star tv-chef Christmas party. Someone brought a boneless turkey stuffed with a boneless chicken stuffed with a boneless duck. As the turducken was carved (was sad to learn that the turducken was not actually a real animal), the camera panned across elaborate pastries, fancy stuffings, unrecognizable entrees and desserts. Then there was Julia Child and the host. The host asked, "And what have you brought for us, Julia?" And she held up a big bowl, "Mashed potatoes!" I love her.

*While at the doctor this week, the nurse took my blood pressure and said, "Whoa! Are you feeling ok?" My blood pressure is down at "barely living" levels, so I guess I can handle some soup.

1 year old

The little badger has turned 1! A year ago yesterday, Stephenie Meyer annoyed me into labor, and 13 hours later Leif was born a limp blue thing with his cord twice around his neck. The feeling of him solidifying into a firm living baby with his first breath is one that will never leave me. He's a baby born of a reluctant reconcilliation in the wake of heartbreak, and he has done more to heal our family than we dared hope for. On the news today the pictures of 1 year-old birthday kidlets were narrated with descriptions like, "she enjoys tickle-me-elmo and eating rice" or "he likes to play with his grandma and watch cartoons". Is this the most descriptive thing that can be said about their children? I think there may be more to it than that. This is Leif. He enjoys playing with cat food, eating toilet paper, blowing fart noises, sneaking up and yanking on his brother's hair, and nursing on just one side (am now amazing one-breasted woman). At 12 months, he is cautious about standing and prefers to power-crawl until he forgets to move an arm and face-dives into the floor at high speed. He can say [inconsistently] "dad", "cat", and "piko", and understands "not the catfood!" "stay out of the toilet", "wanna nurse?" and "be nice to the kitty". On the two-hour drives to town he croons himself to sleep and sings along with the radio. At night I sing to him while he drifts off nursing, and he strokes my cheek and shoulder with his chubby hand until it falls limp. I love him so much. Happy birthday, baby boy. 

  

We made brownies instead of cupcakes last night. I had an ambition be ultra-crafty like other blog moms and make a brownie tower with little handmade flags on toothpicks, but in the end we just stood around and ate them out of the pan. That is how we roll.

Library mobs

Proof that our library gets some action!

BOE council member calls the State Librarian a knucklehead:



I really wanted to run up to the top of the building and take a shot of the parking lot, but I figured I maybe didn't want to get my heels pegged in the roof and have 300 people watch my body hurtle down past the windows.

Went home and fell asleep fully dressed at 7:45pm. It was a long day.

Today we ended summer reading with a guest performer, Bobby Norfolk. To kill some time pre-show and allow stragglers to get in, I warmed up the kids by playing a CD of The Wiggles and leading a round of "Shake your sillies out". They all shook and nodded and jumped - except for one kid in the middle, who had his face buried in his hands in embarrassment for me.

Bobby goes all Gunnywolf on their asses:



Bobby and the kids:



Bobby chats up Weird Al, who read Mad Magazine through the performance:



I think Mike wanted me to come home with Al in my trunk. He's doing his workout again (Mike, not Al). The video hunk says: "Tip of the day: don't smash your face." This is the kind of wisdom I can subscribe to.

Want vs. Need

Gossip: the downstairs chain-smoking donkey-sex synthesizer-playing neighbors have been evicted! After being 3 months behind on rent and mooching food, smokes, and miscellaneous supplies from our epileptic surfer neighbor, the wife showed up at the landlord's house at midnight, drunk and high on Oxycontin, and he called the cops because she was "slobbering all over and I didn't know what the fuck". He told them to be out by July 1st, and they abandoned all their possessions and disappeared. They were discovered a week later, squatting in a bed & breakfast where the wife had been hired to change the sheets. And they had broken the B&B's generator. Cops were called again to throw them off the premises. They did not return here, and three days later the cops were called again to evict them from an illegal druggie communal living nest in Kipahulu. Then they lived in their car for a bit, reportedly leaving their kitten in the Buick during the days. Then, I guess when they ran out of floors to sleep on, they came back here and settled in like nothing had happened. The landlord marched over and asked them when they were getting their stuff out, to which they replied, "Oh, like, we have until next Wednesday, so we're cool." Landlord got really mad and waved their eviction notice and said he was calling the cops if they weren't gone by Sunday. That is why I am letting the baby bang on the floor with cat food bowls at 6am. Very excited about dragging the patio chairs out to the front of the house to watch the cops haul them away tomorrow.

And god help them if I ever see their car in town and find their kitten locked in it. I know they can't afford garbage bags to cover a busted window.


Laundry and materialism

One of Mike's jobs as stay-at-home-dad is to do the laundry. So yesterday, after I determined that I would be wearing a cashmere sweater, jogging shorts, maternity panty hose, a thong, and a black lace water bra to work on Monday, we stuffed the car with 3-months' worth of dirty clothes and took over the entire front half of the laundromat to do them in one shot. I got to see a skinny old shirtless man with chest hair that grew in stripes, and a man walking around with his hand jammed down his pants to hold his penis. We walked to the fabric store and discovered that they had set up a giant long-arm quilting machine for people to play with. It was like driving a machine gun. I loved it. Even Mike had to be pried off it by the saleslady. "It has lasers," he whispered as we were leaving.

"We need that machine," I told him as we folded laundry.
"Yeah, but it costs a fourth of what I earn in a year."
"Not if we quit our jobs and become world-famous quilters."
"Yeah! Then it would cost more than what we'd earn in a year."
Well, shit.

Following all this, we went to Costco and I tried out a Canon Rebel digital camera.

Have not felt such a tantrum-provoking surge of greed since I was refused the Optimus Prime action figure when I was 7. Must make it up to my childhood self by finding $900 and buying the camera. My sons need me to properly document their childhoods. 

I'm going to get that camera.

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.