Get Shirty

Sack o' Potatoes

2011-02-24T08:35:00.004-05:00

I think I've written once or twice about my Las Vegas uncle and his child bride. He's my mom's elder brother, and will turn 62 in June. He is a survivor of the Vietnam war and a recent brawl with prostate cancer, and a dentist who specializes in doing work on and for the elderly. His diet is maniacally healthy, his main sources of exercise are regular walking and tango dancing, and he takes enormous pleasure in using "shocking" language and wearing garish shirts that appear to be imported from a Hawaiian tailor with dreams of outfitting the mafia. Basically, my uncles is a nice old guy who despite his basic goodness enjoys acting like an asshole.

His wife of several years is not yet 30, and a year older than my cousin Z, my uncle's up-to-this-point only child. See, when my uncle discovered he had cancer, he and his wife (who really is a very nice person, and who plainly loves my uncle very much--something I find confounding, but comforting) decided to take steps to ensure that no matter what might happen with his cancer, they could still have a baby if they one day felt it was right for them.

Fast-forward a year or two, when my uncle nearly choked to death swallowing one of his post-cancer horse pills, and his wife collapsed next to him on the kitchen floor realized tearfully that she wanted very much to have his child, to have something left of him in the likely event that he dies before she does.

He assented, and thanks to the wonders of medicine and technology, my newest first cousin was born--fully 25 years after my last first cousin. The Boy finds it hilarious that I have a cousin who's 40 years my junior, and I have to agree. The baby was born premature, weighing only three pounds, but healthy and gaining weight by the hour. She'll be able to leave the hospital in a month, and her parents are ecstatic. My mom is dubious about the event, feeling that her brother was irresponsible to give life to a child he won't see grow up, but had to admit I was right when I reminded her that no father can ever guarantee that he'll live to see his child grow up.

I'm happy for them, and am knitting a baby cocoon and hat combo for the wee thing. The yarn is a much nicer cotton than I normally knit with, silky soft, and I love the colors. As it's knitting up, though, I've noticed that while the word cocoon sounds lovely and snugly and made for swaddling, I am essentially knitting a sack to stuff a baby in. Congratulations on your tiny miracle--here's a bag you can shove her into! Mazel tov!

Strange Things Afoot at the Circle K

2011-02-14T14:38:00.004-05:00

Remember how I said I was so in love with the Ninth Doctor? Well . . . that's kind of over. He's now someone I look back on fondly, like an old flame. David Tennant, however, has lodged himself into my head and heart as the Best Doctor Ever, and is now on my list of Secret Boyfriends, ahead of James Marsters, David Sedaris, and Alan Bennett. He's running neck and neck with Nathan Fillion, in fact, and would be a clear first if it weren't for the fact that the Fillion character I love so much is HUMAN, and therefore more accessible to me than Tennant's Time Lord. Yes, that's how these things get decided. Shut up.

I'm through the fourth season of Doctor Who, and now I have the series of specials to watch. I have decided that I won't be watching Season 6, as I don't like the looks of the kid who plays the Eleventh Doctor. He's too young, for one thing, and much too smirk-y, and he just rubs me the wrong way. I'll happily read about what happens, but I don't think I'll be watching.

***

These two photos are of a single full-page ad in my local newspaper:
What an opportunity for romance! You GO, Denny's! You go! Can't you just feel the romance? Can't you hear Barry White in the background? Don't forget the coupon!

***

I took this photo at the grocery store yesterday, as The Boy and I were standing in line at the deli counter. I noticed it first and pointed it out, and we both reached for our phones at the same time, to take a picture:

These were lovingly made with a label maker, and pasted carefully onto the handle of this shopping cart. Why? Some kind of public service announcement? I don't have a girl, so I couldn't punch her even if I did smoke weed. And where was Jerry Stone? Was he hiding amongst the produce? Was he spying on us? Or was the message meant for The Boy and me especially? My sister and ex-husband both shop at the same supermarket--maybe one of them was trying to tell us something? Or was it a secret code, meant to lead us to untold riches hidden behind the toilet paper?

The world may never know.

Lucy Locket Lost Her Pocket

2011-01-29T17:51:00.003-05:00

And I found it! My old wallet--I think I'd had it for five or six years--finally fell apart, and had to be replaced. Look how cute this new one is! It's the same size as my old one, which was important to me, because it fits in my pocket so I can go out without a purse if I need to, and it makes me happy whenever I see or touch it.

In other, non-wallet news, I went to Barnes & Noble today and came back with Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People, because I love Amy Sedaris and her completely wackadoo way of looking at things, and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, which jumped off the shelf at me. I couldn't think of why at first, but it's because BableBabe is reading it.

Both books and the wallet were paid for with gift cards I've been holding on to since Christmas, which means I got to go on a mini shopping spree without spending much money at all. Merry Christmas to me!

Conspicuous consumption aside, I don't have much going on these days. I've started watching the recent (2005, Ninth Doctor) run of Doctor Who on Netflix, and I'm really enjoying it (thanks, P!). The Doctor from the first series is wonderful and brilliant and fierce and dorky all at the same time, Rose is smart and brave and feisty but far from perfect, and the stories are fun and very well told. I'm well into the second series, and while it's kind of fun to see The Doctor played by the adorable (and I really do mean adorable) David Tennant, I haven't developed the love for him I have for his predecessor. P assures me this will change, and the show is so much fun that I'm happy to wait.

An incidental Doctor Who character I've really enjoyed (Harriet Jones, former back bencher MP for Flydale North and current Prime Minister) just showed up on Downton Abbey, which my friend K recommended and which I've been loving. Click the link, and you'll know immediately whether it's your cup of tea. If it is, you'll love it.

It seems I would consume no media unrelated to football, The Boy, or Joss Whedon if it weren't for the recommendations of my friends. I'm lucky they have such good taste.

Other than reading and watching endless good television, I've been writing a lot. The success of NaNoWriMo has given me the confidence to start another book, and . . . this one actually seems to be going somewhere. It's not pouring out of me at the breakneck pace of the NaNo book, but it's coming. And it's a hell of a lot more readable and interesting, let me tell you. Fingers crossed that I can keep up with it--because for me, it's all about having the discipline to sit down at the computer and work on it everyday. It's HARD. I'm LAZY. But this is important to me, so I think I can handle it.

Cross your fingers for me!

Stuff & Nonsense

2011-01-11T08:47:00.003-05:00

I don't quite understand The Guardian Project. Is Stan Lee a big hockey fan? And while the guardians that I've seen look pretty cool, the Penguin turns me off because I never liked Cyclops from X-Men. How Jean Gray could prefer him to Wolverine always baffled me.

More important than my feelings for the Penguin, however, is my curiosity over some of the other teams' guardians. I mean, how tough can a Toronto Maple Leaf be made to look? Or a Blue Jacket? Or a Senator? Or a Duck? Or a . . . Blue? I suppose the Blue could be a bad-ass blues guy, with Dealt with the Devil-type powers. Or something. I dunno.

****

Example #4,589,628 of The Boy making me proud: He was the only kid in his Spanish class who knew what a pince nez is, and how to pronounce and spell it. I'm pretty sure this has to do with our listening to Jim Dale read the Harry Potter books, because I think that's how I learned how to pronounce it.

****

Oh! Happy New Year! It sounds weird to say that, since all the holiday stuff feels so long gone, but the year is only eleven days old, after all.

I will be 40 in six days. It sounds kind of weird to say *that*, too, but whatever. Maybe I'll finally start feeling like a grown woman? Maybe I'll wake up on Monday with a mad desire to wear pumps and lipstick? Time will tell.

Silly Ladies, with their Cute Little Hoop Dreams

2010-12-22T11:09:00.003-05:00

I am not a basketball fan. I can appreciate the grace and athleticism required to play the sport well, but I’m content to just admire the players via Sports Center highlights. Maybe it’s because Pittsburgh never had an NBA team, or maybe it’s because I don’t like to hear rubber-soled shoes squeak on a gym floor. Maybe it’s because the idea of having sweaty, barely-clothed strangers getting into my personal space is a total turn-off, but whatever the reason, basketball just isn’t for me.

That said, I’m happy for the UConn Huskies women’s team, who now hold the longest winning streak in NCAA basketball history. That freaking rocks! Records are fun and interesting, pretty much regardless of circumstances, and winning 89 games of anything in a row is impressive, to say the least. The whole thing to me seemed to be a nice story. I was pleased to see a women’s team getting national attention, and pleased that my fourteen-year-old son knows and cares who Maya Moore is, even though we aren’t a UConn or basketball household. Up until yesterday, I was under the impression that the situation said a lot about the positive state of women’s sports in general.

That all went out the window when I turned on my local sports-talk radio station after work and heard the afternoon drive team arguing over whether a decent high school boys’ team would be able to kick the UConn women’s collective ass. What brought this on? From what I could pieve together from the discussions on the radio, it seemed the Huskies’ coach had made some kind of crazy remarks the other night—before the record had been broken—and people were just furious.

I like a good scandal as much as the next loser, so I couldn’t wait to hear what Auriemma, the coach, had said. Did he say that . . . what? That John Wooden’s mother wore combat boots? (The late Wooden was a beloved basketball coach whose UCLA men’s team formerly held the record.) I couldn’t even think of something scandalous enough to have merited so much ire.

Here’s what he said (copied and pasted from Sports Illustrated's website):

"I just know there wouldn't be this many people in the room if we were chasing a woman's record," he said. "The reason everybody is having a heart attack the last four or five days is a bunch of women are threatening to break a men's record, and everybody is all up in arms about it.
"All the women are happy as hell and they can't wait to come in here and ask questions. All the guys that loved women's basketball are all excited, and all the miserable bastards that follow men's basketball and don't want us to break the record are all here because they're pissed. That's just the way it is.
"Because we're breaking a men's record, we've got a lot of people paying attention. If we were breaking a women's record, everybody would go, 'Aren't those girls nice, let's give them two paragraphs in USA Today, give them one line on the bottom of ESPN and then let's send them back where they belong, in the kitchen.'"

Now, okay, maybe he could have left out the ‘miserable bastards’ comment, but beyond that, what’s the problem?

I don't see why everyone is so angry about this. Is it because people feel guilty for not caring about women's sports, and the guilt makes them defensive and inclined to lash out? Or is it because some people are petty enough that they're truly upset about women breaking a record set by men and they have to be disparaging?

This is from a local sports guy's blog:

The UCON women’s basketball team is about to break the UCLA men’s record of 88 straight wins.

You would have trouble filling a Prius with the men (other than those related to the players and/or coaches) who care.

He was on the radio this morning, and he said something like, "Even if I were in prison, and in solitary confinement, and the warden said I could come up to the prison lobby to watch a WNBA game on TV, I'd pass." Really? And the guys from the radio--both the hosts and the callers kept trying to just tear down the women, talking about how even though the team might have incredible fundamentals and shooting skills, any decent male team--even a middle school team--could beat them because men are bigger and stronger. This may or may not be true, but WHAT DOES IT MATTER? How is that valid in discussing their accomplishment and the coverage of it? How is that anything more than mean spirited?

Some of the guys this morning were talking about how nobody cares about women's basketball, and the only reason it gets televised as much as it does is because of Title IX, anyway. (He was like a little kid in detention, kicking the ground and mumbling about, "Stupid teachers, always making us have stupid homework. It's not fair.") And I may be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure Title IX doesn't have anything to do with what ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNU, etc. puts on their air.

Sigh. Just when you think something nice is happening in the world of women's sports, which is a nice thing for women everywhere, whether they like sports or not, guys have to find some way to tear it down.

Oh, the plight of the poor, disenfranchised, white middle class male. No wonder they're so insecure!

Secret Agent Super Random

2010-12-15T20:35:00.003-05:00

I've been on a Mystery Science Theater kick since Netflix came up with a slew of them to watch instantly, and I can't get the Secret Agent Super Dragon song out of my head.

The Boy turned 14 yesterday. He received his favorite dinner (chicken nuggets and fries from McDonald's) and red velvet cupcakes, as well as some cash, gift cards, a tremendous piece of luggage, and Cuponk, which he freaking LOVES. I have to admit it's pretty fun, and kind of addicting.

If you get a chance and can watch this year's Family Guy Christmas Special, please do. FOX has evidently lost all control over Seth MacFarlane, and just lets him work out his emotional issues during Animation Domination. Have you ever seen the creepy Invader Zim Christmas Special? Here's my favorite bit:

The Family Guy special makes this one look like an episode of Barney.

I can see Paradise by the dashboard light.

I should be knitting my mother's Christmas afghan, but I don't WANNA. I don't FEEL like knitting. Whine! I feel like going to bed at 9:00.

Speaking of being an old lady who wants to go to bed at 9:00, yesterday I sat in a seminar learning to be a notary, and when I pulled my knitting (the dreaded afghan) out of my bag, out fell some hard tack candy. BECAUSE I AM 90. In my defense, the hard tack is a tasty and wonderful gift a co-worker's mother makes every year, which I'd been carrying with me because the cinnamon and wintergreen flavors are especially kind when my stomach gives me trouble. But still: Notary training (which means I'll have my very own embosser soon), knitting, and hard tack. I might as well have been wearing Depends and a wig.

Steven Page, one of the former front men of the Barenaked Ladies and one of my secret boyfriends, has a new album out, and I like every single song from it. He writes great, catchy songs, but they aren't confusing and/or meaningless (Hi, Ke$ha), and he has an awesome voice. Plus, the album is called Page One. See what he did there? Steven Page? Page One? Oh, those Canadians and their crazy humor! But seriously, if you were a BNL fan, or like a fella who can sing, check it out.

That's all I have. Lucky you.

Confessional

2010-12-01T09:06:00.002-05:00

Hello. My name is Get Shirty, and I like Band Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas. There. I've said it. Before you throw something at me, click the link to watch the video. Look at how young and healthy everyone was in 1984! Boy George is glowing, Bono's eyes are readily available, Simon LeBon is luscious, George Michael is bursting with hair and good health, and Sting is right around the peak of my love for him. Plus, that guy from Spandau Ballet is SO PRETTY!

Anyway, I like the song. I was thirteen in 1984, and I was really starting to be annoyed with my family. I remember very clearly sitting in the backseat with my sister, being driven from my dad's parents' house to my mom's parents' house on Christmas Eve, and really listening to the lyrics when the song came on the radio. My parents were toasted and beyond embarrassing, my sister was a brat, and then all of a sudden, Bono sang, "Well tonight thank God it's them, instead of you," and I really heard him. It seemed somehow wrong to thank God that someone else's misfortune wasn't mine, like I was somehow saying that God preferred me. But I *was* grateful. I still am. Sigh. Can anyone feel as much guilt and angst as a thirteen-year-old middle class American Catholic girl on Christmas Eve when a bunch of earnest pop singers from the UK are being all earnest and emotive? I really don't think so.

And so, for making me cry in the car on Christmas Eve, I love Band Aid, and I love their song.

So sue me.

OH MY GOD I EFFING DID IT

2010-11-27T19:37:00.002-05:00

I am a winner!

And you probably can't see this very well, but there it is, for me to look at whenever I feel like crap:

In Sickness and in Fire

2010-11-24T13:35:00.003-05:00

The Boy may have scarlet fever. SCARLET FEVER! We'll hear more later today when the lab tests come back. If there's any good news to come of this, it means we get to skip the enormous mass of extended family that will be at my parents' for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Here's some further nice news.

That's Mr. Scarlet Fever over there on the right, playing Xbox. It's a terrible picture, because I'm entirely too lazy to get the real camera, but look at my toasty fire! The logs and a new gas line were installed today, and I am thrilled. The Boy is happy. The cats are bewildered.

And I only have about 6,000 words to go before I finish NaNoWriMo. Woo hoo!

Sharing the Love

2010-11-17T19:23:00.000-05:00

Public radio is street, yo.

NaNoWriMo: Now with Cramps, for Extra Misery!

2010-11-11T19:28:00.002-05:00

So I'm doing this. I waited a while to go public with it, because I was afraid I'd quit, but now that I'm 20,000 words in, I'm pretty sure I'll make it to the end. As The Boy used to say when he was little, "Phewf!" I signed up because my friend P wanted a writing buddy in the worst way, and because I am an idiot who always wanted to write a book. I'm one of those jerks who's read a lot of books and thought, "Pah! Why aren't I doing this? If this is as good as it has to be to get published, I should quit my day job!" Of course, I'm not a complete idiot, so I never quit my day job, and I limited myself to the occasional short story after I finished my writing degree in college. (English Writing: Fiction, with a minor in History and a certificate in Women's Studies. No wonder my mom frowned upon my choices--I graduated from school qualified for nearly nothing.)

Anyway, P is much more serious about being a writer than I am, and the idea of NaNoWriMo's crazy deadline and inexorable march toward a Daily Word Count appealed to her, because she knew she'd have to shut off her inner editor/critic/perfectionist and Just Write It (suck it, Nike). And I've always wanted to write a book. Honestly, my goals when I was in my 20s were to own a house, get a graduate degree, and write a book before I turned 40. Assuming I finish the (flaming pile of crap) book on November 30, I will have achieved each of those goals. Granted, these are technically the "lite" versions of these goals: Really I wanted a nicer house in a better neighborhood--with my husband still in it, I wanted a PhD in English, rather than the MLIS I have, and I wanted to actually PUBLISH a book, but hey. I'll take it.

If I finish this book (which is a completely stereotypical first novel, semi-autobiographical and all that. because, Write What You Know), I will feel like the poor sap at the end of the Invictus poem: Bloody, but unbowed.

If I don't finish, I'm pretty sure my future is doomed. DOOMED, I say. Because if I can't spend a month doing what is essentially little more than thirty 1,600-word homework assignments (THANK YOU, P), then I can't ever finish anything. Ever. And I'm doomed.

Cross your fingers for me. You'll never read my pile of dreck, but I promise you'll know when I've finished it.

Election Day, Plus: Has the Internet Killed Cool?

2010-11-02T09:45:00.003-04:00

My sister and I voted this morning, dutifully following the example set for us by our parents, and gleefully canceling out their votes. We do it every election, and it never ceases to feel good.

***

In other news, have you guys heard the ubiquitous-to-pop-radio song Like a G6? It's catchy, and it sounds cool, and though I grasped the basic gist of what the song meant, many of the words were foreign to me. This is probably as it should be, as I am a nearly-40-year-old mom who hasn't seen the inside of a dance club in decades. Thanks to Urban Dictionary, though, I was able to get my geek on and translate.

First, though, here's a picture of the band, Far East Movement, so you can see how their Coolness Quotient far exceeds mine:

These people are clearly Too Cool for School. I'm probably too cool for . . . forget it; I'm not too cool for anything at all.

And now, the lyrics with translation:

Poppin bottles in the ice, like a blizzard (Easy: We put our alcohol on ice, like sensible people.)
When we drink we do it right gettin slizzard (Still easy, but for the curious, "slizzard" is a "dirty south" term for drunk.)
Sippin sizzurp in my ride, in my ride, like Three 6 ("Sizzurp" is a very likely disgusting drink whose Urban Dictionary entry I'll paste here: The original formula: Promethazine w/Codeine syrup Any fruit flavored soda A jolly rancher Put it all in a styrofoam cup and enjoy. The codeine is mainly responsible for the euphoria felt after drinking sizzurp. Promethazine causes motor skill impairment, lethargy, and extreme drowsiness. If it doesn't have promethazine, it ain't real sizzurp. DXM is not a component of sizzurp, although it may produce vaguely similar effects to the above recipe in doses ranging from 150 - 250 mg. "Three 6" is a group comprising rappers from Tenessee.)
Now I'm feelin so fly like a G6 (It's a play on words! Even the lamest among us knows that "fly" is super-cool, and a G6 is A PLANE (a very expensive Gulfstream G650)! Oh, the hilarity!)
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now now now now now now I'm feelin so fly like a G6
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now now now now now now I'm feelin so fly like a G6

So there you have it. The song goes on in its catchy way, making me wonder about the fact that one of the singers repeats, "When sober girls around me, they be actin like they drunk (I can't decide whether it means that his charm radiates so strongly that it intoxicates even women who abstain from alcohol, or if it means that he realizes that certain women might feign intoxication in his presence in order to try to get something from him without being taken advantage of)," but that's pretty much it.

Anyway, I feel like Far East Movement would be really disappointed if they knew that I knew what all their slang meant. Isn't the point of slang, after all, to keep out undesirables? And isn't a middle-aged, lower-middle-class mom pretty much Undesirable No. 1 (me and Harry Potter, man--me and Harry Potter)? But the Internet allowed me to decipher their codes in mere keystrokes.

Nothing is sacred. Cool is dead. And now I'm off to find a red plastic cup to mix up a drink in.

Fancy Meeting You Here!

2010-10-25T12:55:00.002-04:00

I am digging out from under a pile of work that built up during this most recent pledge drive--our most successful October drive ever, by the way--and I thought I'd drop in to say Hello.

Hello! The pledge drive is still on my mind, of course, because its remnants are scattered all over my office. We took 119 pledges on nine phones during the last hour of the drive (Car Talk), and things were insane. I still have a minor case of PTSD from all the ringing phones, and the sound of the Car Talk banjos makes me want to cry, but it's all for the good, and I'll survive.

The Boy is surviving well, too. His casts are off, and he's back to soccer and hand-writing his school work and playing his precious Xbox, so he's a happy camper. He's also happy because his dad and I have agreed to let him go on a school trip to France and Spain in June. He's thrilled, of course, and I'm thrilled for him--it's going to be a great time, and a great experience--but I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to be in a medically-induced coma while he's flying. I know it's irrational, but he's never flown without me, and . . . I can either protect him with my Magic Mom Powers or go down with him if we're together, but this way FREAKS MY SHIT OUT. But I accept that it would be selfish to cheat him out of this experience because of my anxiety attacks, and deposits have been sent in. His passport is being renewed, and the trip is a go.

According to my mother and various other parents whose children are my age or thereabouts, this worrying (if you're the kind of person inclined to morbid worrying) never goes away, no matter how old your kid is. Great. Nobody told me that when I signed up for this parent business. Oh, Waiter! Could you bring me a Xanax sandwich and some Bourbon soup for lunch, please? There's a big tip in it for you!

Okay. Nice seeing you all, but I have to get back to work.

Still Life for the Common Cold

2010-10-10T16:55:00.002-04:00

So this is how I spent my weekend (the squirt bottle is for keeping the cats away--I love them, but they shed and the fur sticks to the Vick's VapoRub I'm liberally coated with, and that's just miserable). Not pictured: Boiling my Diva Cup, because it's *that* time. So, I have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cold, it's that time of the month, and the fall fund drive starts at work on Tuesday, just to add waking up at 4:15am into the mix. Yes, I really do still love October, but this isn't going to be an especially good week. Sigh.

The Boy has his casts off, which is a delight for both of us, and he's taking his opposable thumbs to see a friend's band play at the Hard Rock Cafe tonight. Now, I know it's an all-ages show at a lame chain restaurant that hasn't been cool since I was a wee lassie, and I know that the show is more like a piano recital for kids whose parents let them play rock music, but still. I can say with confidence that I didn't do anything that sounded so cosmopolitan until I was at least . . . I don't know . . . 25 and living in London?

I'll just stay home with my Vicks and watch The Simpsons.

Random Rocktober

2010-10-01T09:37:00.002-04:00

October may be my favorite month of the year, despite the reality of my public radio job and October Pledge Drives.

I miss high school football Fridays. The Boy's school doesn't have a football team (it was in fact an all-girls school until the 1980s), and I just don't feel a part of any of the other schools' teams, so we don't go to games on Friday nights. I admit that if I still lived in my home town, I'd probably go.

The Boy is coming home from a four-day school trip to DC, where they braved the weather and walked all over the place, enjoyed the Air & Space Museum and the Smithsonian, and went to the Holocaust Museum. The Boy had done everything on the trip already, since we have relatives very nearby in Maryland, but I hadn't taken him to the Holocaust Museum before because I thought he was too young to have to go through that up to this point. The 8th graders at his school spend a lot of Social Studies time on WWII and the Holocaust, though, so this was a great way for them to start off. I'm interested to hear what he thought about it--especially since he's close friends with lots of Jewish kids.

I had a Holocaust . . . thing . . . that started before I was in 8th grade, and before I'd seen anything like the Holocaust Museum (it all pretty much started with Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself), and I didn't know a single Jewish person until I went to college!

Anyway, I've missed The Boy this week, and I can't wait to see him this evening. We're having pizza with his dad so we can hear all about the trip, and I can't think of a better way to spend my evening.

The Sparrow

2010-09-25T11:57:00.003-04:00

I just finished Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, and I can't believe it took me this long to read it. I read A Thread of Grace a few years ago and liked it so much I bought my own copy, but somehow I just didn't want to read The Sparrow. Fool. Now I'm going to return the library's copy and just go ahead and buy the sequel when I order my own. Russell's brilliant, isn't she?

In non-book news, The Boy did indeed break himself. Specifically, he chipped the scaphiod bones in both arms. Here's a helpful illustration:

A true Pittsburgh boy, he's got a black cast on one arm and a gold one on the other. I bought two enormous blue rubber oven mitt-type things that form a water-tight seal and allow the kid to bathe and shower (and even to swim, if he were so inclined), and while they do a great job of keeping the casts dry, he's not able to do much in the way of manipulating wet things. And so . . . I've been washing the kid's hair, to his mingled dismay and delight (he sort of feels like he's being waited on, which I know he likes). I abandon him to a soapy washcloth, though, to make him get the rest of his body as clean as he can. I do clean and trim his nails, though, and I finally (FINALLY!) get to comb out the kid's wet hair. His hair is long and wavy, and he never combs it out as thoroughly as I'd like. He ducks away from me, though, when I threaten to come at him with a comb. Now, though, he's powerless against me, because he can't grip a comb. I've been using a wide-toothed comb and then a finer-toothed one, and even he admits that his hair looks better than usual when it dries. Time and attention: Long hair requires it; The Boy is too rushed to want to bother. Yet he shies away from scissors like Samson. Dork.

He goes back to the orthopedic specialist (who says he hasn't seen bilateral breaks on a kid in twenty years) on October 8, and the casts will come off and more x-rays will be taken. If things look good, The Boy is free. If not, new casts will go on, and I think The Boy and I will both cry a little. As cheerful as he's been through the whole process, and as oddly nice as it's been to be able to baby him a little, we're both ready to get back to normal.

My Poor, Poor Kid

2010-09-16T20:38:00.004-04:00

Thanks to a rousing gym class dodge ball victory, there appear to be very small fractures in both of The Boy's wrists. The doctor in the ER didn't quite trust the x-rays, though, so we have to see an orthopedic specialist to make sure. He's got fiberglass half-casts for now, and the specialist will x-ray the wrists again next week. It's a pain, but I appreciate that the ER doctor didn't want to put the boy in casts for twelve weeks without being certain it was necessary.

I'm giving The Boy a pity day off from school tomorrow, and staying home to spoil him--and possibly try washing his hair in the kitchen sink.

"If Bobby doesn't love football, he won't lead a fulfilling life, and then he'll die." --Hank Hill

2010-08-24T19:04:00.002-04:00

Yes, I have to worry about a woman-hating QB1 who's suspended for at least the first four games, but . . . I don't care! I've thought a lot about it, and I'm not dumping the team for the one bad apple (who I admit is trying to clean up his act), and I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this season. The Boy retired from his travel-league soccer team and will only ref on Saturdays, which means that months of beautiful Sundays are stretching out before us. Here we go!

School starts Thursday, although The Boy has been going every day this week for soccer practice, so he's already kind of getting back into the swing of things. He's been taking a city bus and getting himself there; I don't have to spend my lunch hour driving around, which makes me grateful for the kid's growing independence. He's due for a little more independence, as he's about to start eighth grade! It's his last year in Middle School, and his tenth year at his school--he's been there since Kindergarten Readiness--and . . . this line of thought leads to high school and college and my baby being a man, and I'm not ready to think about that kind of independence.

So: I am ready for some football, but not ready to accept that my kid will be in high school next year.

That is all.

Crucio!

2010-08-04T12:40:00.002-04:00

Well, we’re back. The trip was a strange one, because I found out while sitting at the airport Thursday morning, waiting to board the plane to Florida, that my parents’ neighbor of 35 years, my mother’s best friend, my “surrogate mother” through high school and college, had died of cancer.

It was the first time I’ve been the person to tell my mom a loved one had died—usually it’s been the other way around—and it was terrible. My mom saw my face and said, “What,” and all I could get out was, “Kathy.” And then we stood in the airport, hugging and crying. I asked whether we should still make the trip, and my mom said we absolutely should, so we did. We were home in time for the funeral on Monday, which: Ugh. At one point the new widower, who is a kind and patient man who never left his ailing wife’s side, said in passing at the funeral home, “I just keep looking around for my wife.”

So there was that to deal with. We did have a good trip despite the sadness, and I was very, very glad to be there with my mom, so she could talk about things when she felt like it. She’s furious more than anything, because Kathy found a lump in her breast six years before she did anything about it. By that time, of course, it was too late, and the cancer was everywhere. It’s hard to see my mom so sad and angry and frustrated, and to know that my emotionally retarded father isn’t going to be much help to her. Again: Ugh.

Anyway, though, we truly did have a good time, even in the face of the heat. Sweet Jesus, the heat. Only damned fools would go to central Florida in July/August, and damned fools we were. Between the heat (“Feels like 104!” Thanks, Weather Channel), the humidity (enough to steam my glasses every time we left an air-conditioned space), the crowds, and the flies, it felt like I imagine the slums of New Delhi must feel. Slogging through that park was like a punishment. And the crowds in the Potter portion of the park were so thick that I swear people would have been trampled to death if someone had yelled, “Fire!” The lines were so long and winding that you couldn’t even tell what you were in line for.

You couldn’t tell if you were in line for a ride, to get into the Three Broomsticks for something to eat, or to get into one of the many, many stores. The first day, Teddy and I managed to get to ride the roller coaster that’s set up to mimic a Hungarian Horntail racing a Chinese Fireball, and it was a good coaster, but that and a trip to Honeydukes and Zonko’s was all we could accomplish. We didn’t buy anything from Honeydukes because we knew it would melt at our touch, so we got some butterbeer from a barrel in the street and beat it out of there. (Butterbeer is delicious, by the way. We had the frosty kind, which tasted like an ice-cream float made with vanilla ice-cream, cream soda, and butterscotch. That may sound gross and too sweet, but it was a really nice treat.)

We staggered out of Potter and into Jurassic Park, where we had the stamina to wait for one water ride, which was very well done, and then we beat it back to the hotel pool (the indoor pool, because the water in the outdoor pool was HOT).

I took charge the second day, and we left the hotel in a cab an hour before the shuttle was scheduled to take us to the park. We got in before the park opened, and waited in line for about an hour for Potter to open. Yes, we were in line, but it was super early and the heat was tolerable. Plus, our line wound past a shop in Jurassic Park that generously left its doors open so the a/c could flow out to us. That wait was fine. Potter opened, and we made a beeline for Hogwarts, where we only waited for a little more than an hour to get in.

All of the waiting and the trudging and the sweating and the money were worth it.

You enter Hogwarts through the greenhouses, where you get to see all the plants—including the mandrakes—and then you flow into the (blissfully cool) castle. You get to see the glass cases that hold the jewels representing the house points, various suits of armor, and then you’re in front of the big statue that marks the entrance to Dumbledore’s office. You wind around, and there you are, with Dumbledore’s gadgets and trinkets all around you, and Dumbledore himself sitting at his desk.

He’s a projected image, I guess, but it looks like a hologram almost. And it’s Michael Gambon sitting there, his fingers templed under his chin, telling you a bit about Hogwarts. My first thought was, “But Dumbeldore’s DEAD,” but I got over it and was just charmed. He asked us to step into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, where we came across the same kind of projected images, this time of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They were arguing amongst themselves when Hermione said, “Ron! You’re making it snow again!”

AND IT SNOWED ON US. REAL SNOW! I nearly swooned.

Then we wandered around, past the Mirror of Erised and the many, many moving and talking portraits on the walls, and past the Fat Lady, until we made it into the Great Hall where we were seated four across in a little car. Harry popped out on his broom and asked us to meet him at the Quidditch Pitch, and then took off. We started moving (the car did move, but there were projected images all around us, too), and then Hagrid showed up on that covered bridge from the films and asked if anyone had seen a dragon . . . and then we took off on a flight that kind of echoed the one Harry had when the Horntail was chasing him in Goblet of Fire. We were up and down and flinging around near the roof tops, and tiles fell and the dragon screeched, and then we were in the shelter of the Forbidden Forest. With the spiders. These were really there, not images, and they were creepier than in the movies because we were so near to them. They were shiny and moist looking, and Aragog was huge, and spit at us. I squealed at that point.

And then it got misty and colder, and the dementors showed up. They were real too, although there were projected ones as well. One flew right up to The Boy and startled him so much that The Boy kicked out at it and lost a shoe (he’s now proud that one of his shoes will live forever in Hogwarts). And then dementors swooped down at us to give us the kiss, and we could see silvery images of our (wide-eyed) faces shimmering and stretching out above us, but Harry came and cast his Patronus just in time.

We past the Whomping Willow and made it to the Quidditch Pitch when Draco showed up and chased us through the stands. This was fast and furious, and the images here (I think it was 3-D) were really good.

Then we landed, Harry asked what took us so long, and the Hogwarts staff and students were there to welcome us and tell us we’d done a good job. We disembarked and were spit out into a gift shop (the only amusement park gift shop I’ve ever seen that sold books), and we floated away to find a kiosk to buy The Boy some flip-flops.

As we were leaving Potter at about 10am, we heard the guards TURNING PEOPLE AWAY, because the place was at capacity. People were being told to come back at 3pm. It was unbelievable, but that’s how bad the crowds were.

The rest of Universal was fine. The Boy and I rode The Hulk, which is quite an excellent coaster, and we rode the Spiderman thing, which was totally crap after having been through Hogwarts (I think I may have actually yawned while on the ride), and we bopped around to a few more things, bought some swag, and beat it back to the pool.

I know this is a long post, but I wanted to express the greatness of that castle. I’ll never visit central Florida again unless it’s winter, but I will say that the castle is worth every bit of suffering it took to get there. Even if it felt like Bellatrix was after us with the Cruciatus Curse.

To Squee, or Not to Squee?

2010-07-28T15:21:00.002-04:00

A work friend recommended that I watch Warehouse 13 on Syfy, and I'm nearly caught up to the current Season 2 episodes. The premise is a little tired, what with the two government agents with Odd Couple personalities working as partners (yes, I'm looking at you, Bones and X-Files), but the fantasy aspect of the episodes and series' arcs more than makes up for it: In the world of the show, things like Alice's looking glass are real. How cool is that? And the people who work for the Warehouse (which is a super-secret government agency) are charged with tracking down such "artifacts" and containing them. The writing and acting all seem to be improving pretty much by the episode, and all in all, it's a fun thumbs up.

The most recent episode I watched, though, pretty much clinched me forever, because of its guest stars. Think of my Firefly love, and then imagine my fangirl dorkitude when I saw Kaylee and Simon show up! Together! Looking older, and so cute and sweet! It honestly made my day. Sure, their names were Loretta and Sheldon, and they were in a pie shop rather than a space ship, and no one said anyone was shiny, but there was kissing!

Aw!

Anyway, the second thing I'm dorking out over is that tomorrow my mom, The Boy, and I are headed to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Dum, DUM, da da DUM, da DUM, DUM! (That's my text version of the theme song that plays over the movies.) We're all pretty excited, but I swear my mother is bouncing off the walls. I'm pretty sure she'll cry when she sees the Hogwarts like she did when she saw Cinderella's castle the first time.

It's going to be hot and miserable, but there will be pumpkin juice and dragon races and Merlin only knows what else. We're coming back Sunday, so I'll report soon after.

Expecto patronum!

Paul Bunyan’s Mega Movie Marathon

2010-06-28T10:18:00.005-04:00

The Boy and I cut down a tree. I told my parents that I had a dead tree in my backyard, and they sort of rolled their eyes and told me I had a dead bush. My mom said she’d bring a saw and help me get rid of it, and my dad was happy to be left to his own devices on a Saturday afternoon while she did so.

Does this look like a weed?

And then she got to my house, and saw that her puny wee saw, a sort of electric carving knife on steroids, was no match for my TREE. Granted, it wasn’t a giant redwood or even a mighty oak, but it was clearly a tree. I told her I’d get a chainsaw and manage on my own, so she went through my yard and identified which of the things I’d been trimming were weeds that could and indeed should be obliterated—who knew I was filthy with wild grapes vines—left the handy hook-on-a-stick, and The Boy and I got to it, despite the fact that my mother actually said out loud in words that cutting down a tree was man’s work. Man’s work! I explained later to The Boy that my mother’s comments were clearly an illustration of the differences between her generation and mine, because it never once occurred to me (or to him) that I wouldn’t be able to wield a chainsaw successfully.

I was indeed successful: The tree is now a neat stack of wood, and neither our house nor our bodies were harmed in the process. (Finally, the hard hat I’ve kept since I worked on a road construction crew in college came in handy—I made The Boy wear it.)

Say hello to Stumpy, whom my dad will have to deal with.

We rewarded ourselves yesterday with a day off—the weather was too rainforest-like to think about leaving the comfort of the a/c, so I stuck to laundry and cooking, and we spent lots of time reading and watching movies.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is funny and fun, and more than a little puzzling when you consider that it’s based somewhat on fact. Really? Our military had (or has) programs that deal with psychic activity? Huh. The only weird thing about this movie (other than its premise) is the casting of Ewan McGregor, who is forced to use an American accent. No idea why this had to be, because it clearly wasn’t easy for him, but I guess it added an extra layer of fun.

We also watched Hot Fuzz, which I really cannot say enough good things about. It’s the story of a highly talented and successful London cop who’s transferred to a small village when his superiors start to worry that he’s overshadowing them. He’s frustrated with what he sees as a waste of his skills, until he realizes that the rate of accidental deaths in the village is suspiciously high. The action that follows is part homage, part good natured ribbing of American cop and buddy movies, action flicks, and British mysteries. It’s funny, it’s fun, and so, so very endearing. Two thumbs way up.

We closed out our marathon with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I like the X-Men a lot—I used to set my alarm when I was in college, so I’d be up to watch the X-Men cartoon at 11am. Wolverine’s hard-ass attitude used to annoy me, but the more I came to know him, the more I liked him. I own the comic the movie is loosely based on, and while I’m probably in the minority, I have to say I liked the movie better. Maybe it’s Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber, or maybe it’s the fact that the movie is less dark and hopeless. Or maybe it’s the fact that my beloved Tim Riggins was there—granted, he was Gambit, and I hated stupid Gambit in the cartoon, but TIM RIGGINS! Sigh and swoon. Anyway, if you like X-Men at all, this is one to see—the story is good, the effects are good, and you get to see Professor Xavier when he could still walk around. Good times.

Speaking of Tim Riggins, did you know that he and Eric Northman are going to be in a movie together?!?! Yes, it's a movie based on the board game Battleship, but who cares? Sure, Tim won't have his Texas accent, and Eric won't be immortal, but maybe there will be shirtless wrestling! A woman can dream.

Preach

2010-06-06T17:15:00.003-04:00

I'm here to preach to you today, but not like that guy. Do you know who he is? Why, he's L. Ron Hubbard, of Scientology fame. Why do I have a photo of him? Because he came into my house via the magic of television, care of my good friend P, who may just be my equal in weirdness. See, P was in Half Price Books and happened to notice this DVD on sale for 99-cents, and she just couldn't not buy it. Nor could she miss the chance to share it with me. We're the friends, after all, who have shared the DVD glories of Left Behind--The Movie and The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume 1. I suppose we can blame it on our Catholic backgrounds, but for whatever reason, we share a need to know about religions that vary so differently from our own.

L. Ron looks surprisingly like an aged Craig T. Nelson in bad makeup, and he talks as if he borrowed George Washington's false teeth. Very odd. Odder still is the things he says. Scientology is seriously weird. Like more weird than the religion I was raised with, where transubstantiation is accepted as a matter of course. The worst thing about Scientology, though, is a quote from L. Ron that we found on the official website, regarding Scientology and belief in God:

“No culture in the history of the world, save the thoroughly depraved and expiring ones, has failed to affirm the existence of a Supreme Being. It is an empirical observation that men without a strong and lasting faith in a Supreme Being are less capable, less ethical and less valuable to themselves and society....A man without an abiding faith is, by observation alone, more of a thing than a man.”

So atheists aren't people. You know who calls other people non-human? Hitler. And slave owners. And L. Ron Hubbard. Nice trio there.

So. P and I watched what we could stand of the riveting Scientology video. We continued feeding our odd fetish for watching weird things with a screening of Sherlock Holmes. Not the one with Robert Downy Jr., but the one with DINOSAURS. In London. Oh, and there's a Krakon that robs a ship. So the bad guy can use the gold the ship carried in order to be able to buy the dinosaur, so he could use it to steal a pipe from a fountain. And then a dinosaur killed a man in a rubber factory, apparently by metling his face. And that's not even the half of it. We laughed, we cried: It was better than Cats. Seriously. It's available on Netflix to watch instantly, and if you dig a good B movie, you won't be disappointed in this.

The evening wasn't pure junk, though (even though cheesecake was consumed in honor of the late Rue McClanahan), because we began our viewing with an innoculation: I made P watch the most recent episode of Friday Night Lights. I can't believe what a fantastic show this is, and why the entire country isn't in awe of it. I know I've mentioned it before, but this show is seriously great. You know I'm a big Joss Whedon freak, and I will state for you here that I think FNL is better than anything Whedon's ever done. There's no fantasy here, no metaphor, no need to suspend your disbelief; this show is about real people living real lives. They go to church. They pray. The stumble through pancake breakfasts given in fire halls. They get on the floor to play with their kids, one eye looking at a chewed up book that's been read a million times, the other eye on the TV. And they creak and groan and moan and sigh when they finally get up off the floor.

This show honestly raises television to the level of art: It makes you think about what it means to be a person. It makes you look at the humanity in others. It makes you want to make sure you're doing your best and living life and loving the people you love. It's not without its missteps, but I'm here to testify that it's the best thing I've ever seen on television, with the best actors, writers, show-runners . . . just the best of everything, showing how talented people who care about stories and life can make Art out of the idiot box.

Amen.

Sock it to Me

2010-05-31T18:46:00.002-04:00

Behold, the Sensational Socks training sock.

It's far from perfect, but I understand how socks work now, and am pretty sure I could knit people-sized socks from actual sock yarn, on those tiny #2 needles. I'm still not quite sure I have the patience, but I think there might be at least one sock in my future.

And it's all about the future for me, as I am thrilled to be seeing the last of the month of May. In addition to the passing of my great Aunt Mary, this month has seen trouble at work, an understaffed pledge drive, a four-day stomach virus for The Boy, which turned into a four-day stomach virus for me. This month saw me trip and fall at work, squashing my lunch and gouging me knee. It saw me accidentally pay a bill twice, screwing up my accounting. And finally, it saw my face morph into something like Sloth from The Goonies, thanks to an enormous sty that grew on the bottom of my left eyelid, effectively flipping it over and making impossible to blink or fully close my eye for days.

Goodbye, May. Kiss my ass.

The Screenplay That I'll Never Write

2010-05-23T18:27:00.002-04:00

My grandmother is turning 86 tomorrow, and I know she's feeling a little conflicted about her birthday this year, because her elder sister, my Great Aunt Mary, died two weeks ago. Aunt Mary lived in Sacramento with her son Steve (a notorious family fuck-up--that'll matter later), and my grandmother lives here in western PA, but the two were very close. This was always surprising to me, because my grandmother is a combination of Rose Nylund and Dorothy Zbornak (smart, industrious, and extremely capable but utterly, utterly sweet and more than a little co-dependent) and Aunt Mary enjoyed swilling cocktails, dressing to the nines, and smoking unfiltered Pall Malls while grumbling like Patty and Selma. The two should have clashed at every encounter, and often did, but loved each other fiercely. Aunt Mary moved west in the 50s, but the two always found time for visits, and as they got older and found the time, those visits could last six weeks or more. They talked on the phone often, and I just found out that as Aunt Mary's health started failing, my grandmother would end each phone conversation by singing You Are My Sunshine.

Sweet, I know. It makes me want to hug my own sister, believe me.

Anyway, Gram got the call that Aunt Mary was on life support the day before my cousin--Gram's youngest grandchild--was set to graduate from nursing school. Gram's a nurse (still!), my mom's a nurse, and my cousin is now the third generation, so the ceremony meant a lot to my grandmother. Things were serious, though, and Gram didn't hesitate to get on plane with her baby sister, my great Aunt Frances, to be there with Aunt Mary.

Of course speculation started on our end right away: Would Steve (the fuck-up mentioned above) manage to be able to pick the two old ladies up, or would he leave them stranded at the airport? Would he send some old stoned dude with a long ponytail yet no hair on top to get them? If that were the case, would they go? We worried for nothing, though, because Steve picked them up and delivered them to the hospital, where Aunt Mary was indeed dying. According to Gram, she had time to hold Aunt Mary's hand and talk to her. She felt Aunt Mary could hear her, as her eyelids fluttered in reaction. She told Aunt Mary everything would be okay, and then asked if she wanted her to sing. Eyelids fluttered, my grandmother whispered You Are My Sunshine into her ear, and Aunt Mary died a few minutes later.

I cry every time I even think of it, and I doubt I'll ever be able to hear the song again without bursting into tears. I'm a wimp, though. My grandmother and Aunt Frances left the hospital with Steve, and they all went to a sort of restaurant/lounge place another relative owns. There were drinks, and singing, and Gram was befriended by a large black man named Hershey. Hershey pulled my grandmother to the little stage, and the pair lead the joint in a rousing version of, you guessed it, You Are My Sunshine.

So then they left the restaurant, and Steve took his two very sad old aunts to the house where he'd lived with Aunt Mary and his maid. Or the woman he referred to as a live-in maid, and whom Gram and Aunt Frances immediately decided had to be a prostitute because the house was a filthy mess. The prostitute had the run of the place, as did her large bird, whose cage was left open for his convenience. She kept a fish tank in the kitchen and a boa constrictor in one of the bedrooms.

The old ladies didn't eat much of anything while they were there, because they swear they saw the prostitute stir a bowl of fruit salad and then dip the serving spoon into the fish tank--as if to clean it--and then set it on the counter next to the bowl. They didn't want to hurt Steve's feelings by leaving for a hotel, so they pretended to eat and did a lot of cleaning.

And then the boa constrictor was discovered to have escaped.

Now our old ladies were not only not eating, but they weren't sleeping, either. They decided to kill some time by going through Aunt Mary's things, as they were staying in her former bedroom, ("I've never known a woman to have so many shoes and earrings! My GOD, the earrings! Such junk!") WHEN THEY DISCOVERED A SUITCASE FULL OF CASH UNDER THE BED. Knowing Steve's history of drugs, drinking, and petty crimes, they promptly WIPED OFF THEIR FINGERPRINTS and shoved the suitcase right where they found it. Gram says it was stacks of hundred dollar bills, likely tens of thousands of dollars.

According to Gram and Aunt Frances, the services for Aunt Mary were nice, the snake was never found but not a problem, and my uncle and his son came in from San Francisco and Las Vegas, so they covered the trip back to the airport and kept things uneventful. My sister wrote to the cousin to thank him for being there for Gram, and his reply included the following:

Two amusing notes from the excursion:

1 – I was sleeping in the room wherein the snake was at large, I did not realize this until the morning of my departure, which was probably for the best.

2 – The last of Aunt Mary's above-ground mortal remains (she was cremated) is being kept in what was described as "a beautiful hand-hammered pewter antique urn" by the donor, one of Steve's old girlfriends who remains a friend, but is really an old-fashioned cocktail shaker, it has a pour spout. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with this, as long it is generally perceived as valuable. Don't tell grandma.

Aunt Mary loved her gin and tonics, and would probably be thrilled with her final resting place, but my god did that crack me up. If ever I need a lift, all I have to do is think, "It has a pour spout." But I won't tell Gram.

2010-05-10T10:11:00.000-04:00

What could possibly improve on a Mother’s Day spent with The Very Best Boy in the Whole Wide World? How about throwing in Robert Downy Jr. on the big screen? Swoon! I honestly think I would be happy to watch that man eat a bowl of cereal and fold laundry, so seeing him reprise his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man was a lovely treat on a lovely day.

I had expected to be a little disappointed in IM2, so I was pleasantly surprised. It’s nowhere near as dark (literally and figuratively) as The Dark Knight, but it takes a similarly sober look at what it must be like for a human with no super powers to decide it’s his job to save the world. I’ve never read an Iron Man comic, so I don’t know anything about the story beyond what’s presented in the movies, but I think this movie goes a long way toward showing how much of an egomaniac you have to be to think protecting all of mankind is up to you—and that arrogance is something you rarely see in someone who’s supposed to be a hero. Combine that contradiction with struggles with depression and alcoholism, and a genuine desire to do good and to love and be loved, and you’ve got yourself one interesting fella.

RDJr’s talent is arguably wasted on playing a comic book hero, because I honestly believe he’s one of those actors whose talent raises entertainment to art: I believe he could play roles that could change peoples’ lives. He brings so much pain, humanity, and fragility to Tony Stark, though, that I almost sort of wonder if maybe someone might look into those big liquid eyes and find inspiration to face a fear and become a better person.

Boy, that’s a little serious for Iron Man and Monday morning, isn’t it? I blame RDJr’s eyes for turning me to mush. I’m already looking forward to IM3, and despite some skepticism, further interactions between RDJr’s Tony Stark and the very definition of badass that is Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury have me looking forward to seeing what happens with The Avengers.

I’m also looking forward to the NEXT Sookie Stackhouse novel, because I gobbled up the newest one, Dead in the Family, within a few hours of its appearance on my front porch (thank you, Amazon Prime). I don’t know how many more books Harris plans to write about Sookie & Pals, but I almost wish I hadn’t started on them until the whole series was completed; I hate having to wait to find out what comes next. Damn Carly Simon and her anticipation!

Aside from the Sookie, I’ve been ripping through all kinds of books lately. I bought Steve Almond’s newest, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, which is a great book for anyone who cares about music. Even though I didn’t know much or anything about some of the music and bands he writes about, the writing is good and funny and fun and the occasional exegesis (my favorite is of Toto’s Africa) makes the price of admission (especially if it’s a library book) well worth it.

I read Jen Lancaster’s Pretty in Plaid last week, and chuckled all though it. She’s a little older than me, and so was ahead of the curve on when she was able to buy her own clothes and choose her own music, but I was familiar with pretty much everything she wrote about, fashion-wise. And while I wasn’t a sorority girl—after going through rush and getting an idea of what the whole thing was about I sort of became vehemently anti-sorority—it was amusing to read about her experiences. Frustrating, too, as you could watch her develop the patterns that got her into such big trouble in Bitter is the New Black. It’s weird to have that kind of insight into a total stranger’s life, but there you go.

I’m just about finished with Susan J. Douglas’s new book, Enlightened Sexism. Douglas is my favorite feminist writer—her Where the Girls Are made me want to turn my undergraduate certificate in Women’s Studies into a PhD so I could launch into a career of sucking up pop culture and then writing and teaching about it from a feminist perspective. I never did that, obviously, but sometimes I think I still might. You know how someone said that if you could find work that’s like play, you’ll never work a day in your life? I think being Douglas’s protégé would do that for me.

My good pal BabelBabe stopped over last week for Knitting, and while I don’t think either one of us knitted a single stitch, we had a nice visit. She left me with The Forgotten Garden, which is a nice, rich, chewy family drama set in Australia. So far, so good, but it’s made me realize that aside from Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country, I can’t think of anything else I’ve read that’s set there. What am I not thinking of?

I’m talky today, huh? I should go listen to the president try to convince me that Elena Kagen is a better choice than Diana Wood. Time will tell, I guess.

Death by Green Bean

2010-04-19T10:23:00.003-04:00

Help! I’ve been trying to remember more about a novel or short story in which a young housewife accidentally poisons her mother-in-law with botulism found in her poorly home-canned green beans. I can’t remember anything else at all, but that image has stuck with me for a long time. I’d love to can my own veggies and tomato sauce—my mother and grandmother still do it—but I’m too afraid to end up killing someone.

Why am I thinking about this? Thunder storms knocked out my power Friday afternoon, and when it still wasn’t restored Saturday morning, The Boy and I went to my parents’ to enjoy some light, heat, and television. We came back home yesterday afternoon, and I opened the fridge to discover fuzzy strawberries and the scent of death, as well as an exploded tube of Pilsbury cinnamon rolls.

In short, the paranoid maniac in me trashed just about everything in the fridge and freezer. Sigh. I’d feel better about having done that if I could go back and reread the botulism story.

On a happier note, though, we went to see Kick-Ass on Friday, partly in hopes that the power would come back on while we were gone. I didn’t care too much about Kick-Ass one way or another, but The Boy really, really wanted to go. It’s rated R, so I talked it over with his dad, and decided to take him (and another kid, actually, with his parents’ permission) as long as he understood that there might be things we needed to talk about when it was over.

It turns out that there wasn’t anything to worry about, but much to laugh at cheer for. The movie is two kinds of violent: One is as close as you can get to cartoon violence without animation, if that makes sense, and the other is realistic to the point of being cautionary. The boy who turns himself into Kick-Ass does so because he wants to help people instead of standing and watching or running away, and he gets beat up and nearly killed for his troubles. He’s afraid. His body has realistic limitations. And he cries. He shows what courage has to be for normal people, and the cost that courage brings.

The other violence in Kick-Ass is what seems to have so many critics feeling violent themselves, and that has to do with Hit Girl. Yes, the premise of a father who starts training his daughter as an assassin from the time she’s about five years old, is a terrible thing . . . in real life. But in the comics, which this movie most definitely is, it’s . . . not okay, but understandable and allowable.

Hit Girl is really eleven-year-old Mindy, who likes bowling, hot fudge sundaes, cocoa with marshmallows, and her dad. They have a close bond, and like him she wants to avenge her mother’s death and his wrongful imprisonment by bringing down the crime boss who plagues their city and caused it all. That’s a proper evolution story, and one that rightly troubles people in the movie—people who care about Mindy don’t like the idea that she’s Hit Girl, but it’s who she is. She’s smart, capable and earnest (what pre-teen girl isn’t?), and she’s a marvel to watch.

The best thing about her, though, is that she’s never, ever sexualized in any way. She kicks ass and deals blows and death and fear like all good comic book heroes, and quips her way into the hearts of those she doesn’t kill, but unlike any other strong comic book females I can think of, there’s not an ounce of sexy to be seen. And rightly so, of course, because she’s just a kid.

[Slight spoiler:] She ends up enrolled in school at the end of the movie, leaving viewers to hope against hope that she won’t lose her poise and confidence once the hormones kick in and boys begin to look at her without her costume and weapons.

The crack of her knuckles is promising.

An Explanation of My Hero Worship

2010-04-12T15:27:00.002-04:00

I fell in love with Firefly's Captain Malcom Reynolds for many reasons, including his face, his build, and his grin, but mostly because of who he was. Mal wasn't Hero Guy in the large sense; he was a regular guy who was often called on to act heroically, and he did the best he could to rise to it, even if he didn't really know what the right thing was. He had to do things he didn't want to do, and hurt people he didn't want to hurt, and deny himself so many things . . . all because he essentially wanted to keep his home and family safe.

I will never be Hero Girl--I'll never be Buffy or Meg Murry or Hermione Granger or even Anne of Green Gables, but I am very much a woman on her own, struggling to figure out how to keep a home a family safe. I know the stakes aren't as high or precarious for me as they were for Mal, but his story is my story in a lot of ways. His struggles are my struggles--how to to lead when you're not sure of the right way? Which risks do you take? When can you relax when you always have to be looking forward to see what's coming next--what you have to protect your loved ones from, and what you have to be confident they can handle on their own?

Mal messes up and gets angry and frustrated and acts like a jerk sometimes. But he works hard to do his best, and THAT is heroic (and more than a little inspirational) to me.

I love Zoe and her strength and wisdom, I love Wash for his Wash-ness, and I love their marriage. I love that Kaylee is allowed to be a single woman who is capable and dirty and smart, but also girly . . . and totally sexual without the least bit of embarrassment or punishment. I love Jayne for his Janyne-ness and his arms and shoulders. I love Simon for his dedication to his sister above all else, and I love River because she's crazy and cool. I love Shepherd Book because he's wise and mysterious, and a great representation of a person of faith. I love them all because they can be so funny. But more than anyone, I love Mal.

And I don't care if there are spaceships. I don't care about aliens. I don't care about any of the setting at all, really. I love that hot guy, struggling the way I struggle, caring about the very same things I care about.

Most Excellent Kids' Book Alert

2010-04-08T20:43:00.003-04:00

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead.

Read it now.

What is Wrong with Me?

2010-04-08T08:32:00.002-04:00

I spent the long Easter weekend with my extended family, and I think it broke me. I've tried several times to write about it, but I can't seem to do it. This is the first time The Boy has been old enough to notice what a bunch of freaks and idiots (and I don't mean the *good* kind of freak and idiot that I am and that I generally choose to surround myself with--I mean the bad kind) he is descended from, so you would think I'd have tons to write about.

I can't, though; I can't seem to commit to writing the bad feelings I have toward those people. I've certainly given verbal accounts to all and sundry--to my sister, who skipped out on us using her new puppy as an excuse, to C, who hasn't been around those people in years, but remembers them well, and to my friend P and my boss, neither of whom knows the people in question. Everyone laughs. Everyone rolls their eyes. Everyone sympathizes with The Boy and me.

So why can't I write about it?

A summary: The Boy started bugging me to drive to the Easter Destination (a Maryland suburb of DC) on Tuesday. I refused to entertain the idea of going down there before Friday at the earliest, which caused much grumbling disappointment. However, once we settled into our assigned sleeping arrangements on a torturous old futon, The Boy whispered, "You are a very smart woman for not letting us come early." I said, "Well, I've known these people for a long time."

And that was that.

***

The neighbors on the north side of my house have a pit bull, which we finally caught using our backyard as his toilet. Of all the dogs to leave off a leash, why a pit bull? Don't these people watch the news? The Boy asked me whether I'll say something, but I honestly don't see it doing any good, as people who allow an unleashed pit bull to use my lawn (AND FRONT PORCH--once) as a bathroom are probably not the kind of people who respond well to criticism. I'm putting my plans to fence in the yard into fast-forward, and I'll leave it at that.

Once the yard is fenced (and free from doggie land mines and threatening barks), I am going to grant one of The Boy's fondest wishes and get a trampoline. (As long as my homeowner's policy will let me, that is.) It's not as much fun as a pool, but it's much more affordable--and no one can drown on it. The Boy has volunteered to buy a trampoline-friendly basketball hoop with his own money, and I'm all for that. He and his friends can bounce and dunk themselves silly and then cool off with the hose. Summer will be all taken care of.

Speaking of summer, The Boy and I listened to the audio book of the Wimpy Kid book that has to do with his summer vacation (don't know if this is the third or fourth in the series) while we drove to Maryland. We both laughed out loud a few times, and were pleased to discover that the books are just as fun without the benefit of the illustrations. Greg is a good character--the author does a good job of making him the right mix of spoiled, suburban white kid brat AND funny, put-upon, young adolescent.

I also just listened to Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot. I read it when it first came out, but beyond a few details, all I really remembered was that I enjoyed it. Like David Sedaris, Vowell is even more fun to listen to than to read. She's so smart and thoughtful, and while her sense of humor comes across well on the page, there's something about her voice (she's Violet Incredible, if you're unsure what I mean) that makes listening to her that much more funny and endearing. She should write text books and lecture. More people should know how awesome she is, because then more people would see how interesting and important and meaningful history and civics really are.

***

I guess that's it for me today. Time to return to my efforts to stay awake while doing tedious work in an office that is 9,000-degrees despite the fact that it's not at all hot outside and the cool air being sucked into the window by a little fan that's pointing directly at me. It's seriously like physics doesn't exist in here, because the temperature in this room will not alter. The life is sucked out of me in proportion to the sweat that soaks my undergarments as I sit at my desk. I went to college so I wouldn't have to sweat at work (an important lesson I learned as a flagger for a road crew in the summers), yet despite a BA and MLIS, here I sit and sweat. Thanks, Universe. You're the best.

Vacation: All I Ever Wanted

2010-03-23T21:27:00.002-04:00

The Boy is on Spring Break all this week and next, and I've managed to only have to work for a total of three days up until Easter, so life is pretty spectacular. I've done lots of good housework, finished The Children's Book* and read Palace Circle**, bought some storage things from The Container Store that I think are going to really help my kitchen issues, knitted one spring scarf and started another, watched New Moon (1,000 times better than the book, which I hate so very passionately)***, saw Alice in Wonderland**** (which I enjoyed enormously--this was going to make it or break it with me and Tim Burton, and he's safe for now) and . . . I guess that's it.

Oh wait--no it's not: I bought some books today! I bought three books which include six of the Betsy-Tacy novels (I hadn't heard of these books until some internet people raved about them, and when I saw them all together today I scooped them up. I'm about 100 pages into the first one, and it's wonderful. I have no idea why these weren't in my school library when I was a kid, but they're the kind of books I'd have slept with.) I also bought the new Christopher Moore and a remaindered copy of The Lace Reader. It's a good thing Barnes & Noble doesn't provide shopping carts, because I was in a buying mood.

Sorry for all the footnotes, but my brain refuses to get organized . . . I'm in too much of a hurry to get back to Betsy!

_____

*Brilliant, dark, serious, interesting, funny. Byatt just rocks. She's brilliant. She tells stories within stories, makes me love and worry about her characters--all of whom are real and vital and flawed--and in this novel she looks hard at priorities and responsibilities, and . . . it's a very disturbing. But in a good way.

**Set in the same time period as TCB, but so much lighter and fluffier in comparison it practically floated. But fun and enjoyable, and recommended for a quick read.

***The boy who plays Jacob freaks me out, because he has the manly body, but a kid's face and voice, and I feel dirty when I can't help but admire that torso. Also freaky: His teeth are so white they're blue. Ew.

****We went to the 3-D IMAX version, because that was the one about the start when we got to the theater. I'd never seen a movie in this format, because I was afraid it would make me puke or give me a headache or both. It *did* give me a headache, but not until I took off my glasses at the end. No nausea at all, which was a relief. That said, though, neither the 3-D nor the IMAX did anything at all to enhance the story. Totally, utterly POINTLESS.

Bucket of FAIL

2010-03-13T18:03:00.004-05:00

The Boy and some of his friends were on the loose this afternoon, and as all proper kids on their own do, they decided to get ice cream before going for lunch. They went to Ben & Jerry's, where The Boy and three other kids--one of whom is a girl--decided to try to eat this:

It's called The Vermonster, and it's free (and you get a free t-shirt) if you can eat it all inside of ten minutes.

From Wickipedia:

A Vermonster is a large ice cream sundae made by Ben and Jerry's. The name is a portmanteau of Vermont (the company's home state) and monster (indicating large size). It consists of standard sundae ingredients, but in such amounts as to (excessively) feed four people. It contains the following:

Twenty scoops of Ben and Jerry's ice cream
4 ladles of hot fudge
Whipped cream
3 cookies
A choice of 4 toppings
brownies
4 bananas
According to a Travel Channel show highlighting extreme foods (October, 2009), the Vermonster has 14,000 calories and 500 grams of fat.

Guess who came home without a t-shirt.

Hi There

2010-03-09T10:02:00.001-05:00

It’s been a while, I know, but I’ve been busy. Work has exploded, which is a very good thing, and I’ve been busting ass at home trying to finally finish the move. See, I had to pay rent at the old place through this month, so I was taking my time getting the nonessential things moved. I had been slowly, reluctantly bringing boxes over, but last week I gave up and hired movers. Awesome decision, by the way, and totally worth the cash. But I did ask them to unload everything into my dining room to save time (and my money), so I’m still schlepping boxes.

And I keep getting distracted, because . . . THE BOOKS. I can’t decide which books should live in which rooms . . . and while most people might let that slide while they do more important things, like locate the crock pot or, I don’t know, uncover the dining room table, I want to play with my books. Do I want my most beloved books in my bedroom, so I can sleep with them, or do I want them in the living room, where I can see them all the time? Or how about behind the glass doors of the dining room built-ins? Because then they won’t get dusty! And clearly, each room needs a dictionary, but the other reference books can go in the office. Although maybe the books about television and movies should be in the living room?

See what I mean? The Boy’s books go in his room, and the cook books go in the kitchen (or maybe they should go into the dining room built-ins, because the kitchen isn’t exactly crying out to have more things crammed into it), and then . . . sigh. I just keep moving stacks of books around, because it makes me happy. Lugging shoes or clothes or (effing) Legos or bundt pans doesn’t thrill me at all, so I avoid it. (Speaking of books, when I’m not moving them I am reading A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book. I’ve had it for a while, but had been putting it off until I was in the right mood, and I LOVE IT. It’s rich and thick and layered (yes, I’m hungry—so what?), there are tons of people in it that need caring about, or disliking, or worrying over, and even though I’m not entirely sure where it’s headed, even after two hundred pages, I am in love.)

Anyway, the apartment is empty but for some trash and recycling that I couldn’t fit in the alley Sunday night and a china cabinet that I have to post to Craigslist (unless anyone local wants it—it holds a ton of crap and it has lights). I feel like I am NEVER going to be fully out of there, but I guess that’s to be expected after six years, right?

**

Did you see that the awesome Betty White is going to be on SNL? While it's sad that there are only two Golden Girls left, I get the feeling that Betty (my eldest Birthday Buddy) and Rue are fairly sanguine about being old, and that makes me kind of happy in a weird way. I mean, the Golden Girls are excellent role models--they're positively counter-cultural revolutionaries in this era of Forbidding Women to Age--but it's nice to know that the actresses are also great role models. They own being old ladies, and all that entails, and I'm glad to see it. It gives me hope that I will be a sprightly, caftan-sporting old broad who can happily slam a door in someone’s face. (Yes, Betty is my Birthday Buddy and I love her, but my Golden Girl of choice is Dorothy.)

And speaking of celebrities, did you see Judd Nelson at the Oscars? He looks so unlike my precious, bad-ass Bender that I may not have recognized him if he weren’t in the context of the other Hughes-ians. Duckie and Ferris haven’t aged enough for a change to have registered, and Anthony Michael Hall filled out a bit but looks much the same. Judd Nelson, though, looks like he spent a lot of years living pretty hard. Maybe not Mickey Rourke hard, but something along those lines. (Ha! Lines! See what a cool drug reference I just made there? I’m so hip.) Here’s hoping some casting director noticed him and offers him a similar come-back role.

**

Okay, moving, reading . . . oh: Knitting. I haven’t knit more than six or seven rows of anything since I moved. I tried the Class Sock in the Sensational Socks book, and it was moving along fairly well, but my carpal tunnel struck and I dropped it. Then I picked up some lovely silk yarn from my stash, in beiges and creams, and pale pinks that I thought might make a pretty spring scarf, but I created a disaster when I tried to roll the hank into a ball while sitting in the car waiting to pick up The Boy from reffing. So I’ve been trying to untangle that while I watch TV, but I’m not getting very far. Because all I want to do is read The Children’s Book!

I’ll get back to it one of these days. You know, once I’ve finished the book, finished unpacking, painted the living room and dining room, put some stuff on the walls, started the outside work on the house, and figured out which rooms my books should live in.

And They Call it . . . Puppy Love

2010-02-22T12:27:00.003-05:00

No, I didn't get a puppy, however much The Boy might want one. My sister, however, added to her family this weekend. In addition to Sophie, the four-year-old French Mastiff, my sister now has Stella, the fifteen-week-old Bulldog.

I've never seen a sweeter, more patient and mild-tempered dog than the gigantic Sophie. She's fiercely protective of my nephew and The Boy (whom everyone refers to as her boyfriend), but otherwise, she lolls around like a kindly stuffed animal, allowing my nephew to sleep on her, play with her ears, and even give her an elaborate haircut with safety scissors. (My sister: "I knew things were too quiet!") Sophie is no less patient with her new little sister, regarding the rambunctious ball of love that is Stella with a look that says, "What is this little weirdo doing," even as Stella attempts to gnaw on her ears, paws, or tail. Aw!

***

I am in a compete and utter fiction slump. In the last weeks I've read Lizzie Skurnik's Shelf Discoviery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, which is excellent, Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking, which is sad and funny and fun, a collection of essay's about Firefly (thanks, P!) called Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds, and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly, which is awesome (I ordered the sequel and can't wait for it to get here), Nina Planck's Real Food: What to Eat and Why (who knew I could be persuaded to drink raw milk?), and Susannah Gora's fun and interesting You Couldn't Ignore Me if You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Huges, and Their Impact on a Generation.

I have about a chapter to go in that last one, and aside from some things about the writer's style that kind of annoy me, such as referring to Sixteen Candles as Candles and The Breakfast Club as Breakfast--like she's best pals with these movies or something--it drives me MAD . . . anyway, aside from that, it's an interesting look at some movies I loved back in the day but hadn't thought of in a long time.

I graduated from high school in 1989, so I was pretty much the prime target for these movies, and I love some of them deeply. I could recite from Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club line for line, and still use many of the lines as short hand to communicate with my sister. I don't know that I loved the things about those movies that I should have--I did not have a crush on Jake Ryan, for instance (I preferred the nerdy Farmer Ted character, who seemed a lot more fun), but I did love Sam's family and the other parts of the story.

I loved pretty much everything about The Breakfast Club, and wanted to be Ally Sheedy's character. I wasn't anything like her (or Molly Ringwald's character for that matter, though I did love her boots), but I wanted to be just like her--until the make-over scene. It bummed me out that she had to get "pretty" for Emilio. Sigh.

Anyway, I wasn't a big fan of most of the other movies of that style/genre/ilk. Pretty in Pink bummed me out. I despised everyone in Less than Zero and St. Elmo's Fire. I liked Some Kind of Wonderful well enough, but I didn't love it. The only one I really, really loved was Say Anything. Chuck Klosterman once said that Lloyd Dobbler ruined a generation of women, and I admit that's true for me. I loved his character with all my heart. Sigh. I always wonder if Lloyd and I would like each other now that we're grown-ups.

So yes, these movies were a part of my life, and shaped me in ways I couldn't have known. I didn't know any adults who'd gone to college when I was growing up, for example, so what did I think like should have been like in college and just after? Why, like St. Elmo's Fire, of course, only with people who weren't a bunch of hateful, whiny douche bags. Turns out that I most certainly could NOT afford an apartment like Judd Nelson shared with Ally Sheedy, or like Demi Moore's. Nor did I have a glamorous and/or important job. Therefore: Fail. Sigh.

I'm getting off track here, though. Sorry. The book is good, and if you're around my age it will make you think about a lot of things that may never have occurred to you. Give it a go.

So that's my big list of non-fiction. I bought the new Nick Hornby last week, Juliet, Naked, which I know I will like once I get to it, and also picked up Frank Portman's new book, Andromeda Klein. Portman wrote King Dork, which I really enjoyed, so I'm excited for this, and yet . . . I can't wait for the new Firefly book to show up so I can continue to immerse myself in the geekdom.

What's up with me?

Spoke Too Soon

2010-02-14T20:23:00.003-05:00

Remember how I was just all proud of The Boy? Well . . . he and his best friend are here, and we've been watching America's Funniest Home Videos (we have 9,000) channels, and this is what they want to see). They decided they should make their own video, so now they're recording one another while artfully botching slam dunks into a nerf hoop, smashing into the front door and collapsing to the floor, writhing in fake pain.

Weirdos.

Teach Your Children Well

2010-02-12T09:07:00.002-05:00

As a proud feminist since I learned such a thing existed, even going so far as to have earned an undergraduate certificate in Women's Studies, I am extremely gratified to announce that The Boy passes all gender awareness/sexism exams with flying colors. He recently observed while watching idiots on TV attempt all manner of Hilarious Schemes in hopes of wooing a pretty girl, "They must not know girls aren't people," and while watching the latest deluge of Barbie's "I Can Be Anything" campaign ads, "Yes, as long as it's a teacher, nurse, or secretary--or something else that involves little kids." I know it should be a no-brainer, but I can't tell you how proud it makes me to see that he's noticed my bitter feminist sarcasm all this time, and that he seems to have absorbed it!

Thus concludes my patting myself on the back.

Hermit the Hog

2010-02-09T18:17:00.003-05:00

See what I did up there? I'm not fair to myself, because while it's true that I'm overweight, the last few days have presented me with major workouts, so I'm probably lighter despite all the eating I've done over the last few days. Lasagna. Real pudding with real whipped cream. Apple cake. Pizza. And breakfasts of the lumberjack variety.

Why so much food? We're a little but snowed in. Record-setting snows and all that. My driveway was filled with more than two feet of snow, and it took hours and hours and hours of digging. My arms and shoulders ought to be buff any minute now. Like Venus Williams buff. My hands ache from gripping the shovel and the hammer, which I had to employ to chip away at the ton of snow and ice left banked up in front of the driveway. Thanks for that, Mr. Plow. There is snow EVERYWHERE, and not a place to put it.

Those aren't bushes covered in snow--that's ivy ground cover hanging over a retaining wall; the snow is that deep on the ground. And it's still snowing!

The city is a total mess, and people are apoplectic because they can't get out of their homes. I'm lucky, in that I can leave if I need to--and I can walk to the grocery store --but I haven't had to leave because the city requested that the university where I work REMAIN CLOSED. I haven't been to work since I left early Friday afternoon, and I am enjoying the hell out of this unexpected vacation. Books, DVDs, baking, playing Nerf basketball in the living room . . . I seriously don't care if I never leave the house again. The Boy's school has already canceled for tomorrow, but I haven't heard anything yet. It's snowing again, so my fingers are crossed.

I was born to be a hermit. Truly.

Middle Age: Come Over Here So I Can Embrace You

2010-02-02T11:15:00.001-05:00

I was born a little old lady, and now that I’m a scant year away from 40, I am really starting to embrace it.

While I’m not ready to stop coloring my hair, which has been graying since I was nineteen or so, nor am I ready to put a cut-glass bowl of hard candy on a doily any time soon, I am getting more comfortable with being angry and annoyed; I won’t say I’m turning crochety, but I’m willing to back off when the Muppets in my head do battle, and maybe let Kermit and Ernie take it easy when Oscar and Bert want to be heard. (As a lifelong Doormat and People Pleaser, this is a huge step toward maturation, even considering the Muppet metaphor.)

I am also feeling my age when it comes to music. Not in the, “Kids these days, with their hippity-hoppity pants on the ground,” kind of way—though I still can’t help but focus on lyrics and want to kick ass when I hear Kanye say he’d “do anything for a blonde dyke,” (too bad, Kanye, because LESBIANS AREN’T INTERESTED IN YOU), or that guy who’s, “trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful,” (I don’t think he knows what that actually means). No, I’m still plenty troubled by stupid lyrics and sexist sentiments. Here’s one more: “Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack.” WHAT? You got 1500 on your SATs, Ke$ha—I heard you tell Scott Simon on NPR. Why in the WORLD would you say something so stupid and gross?

Sigh. Here’s what I mean about being an old lady when it comes to music: You know that song Low, where someone (maybe Flo-rida?) sings, “She got them baggy sweatpants, and the Reeboks with the straps . . . She hit the floor, next thing you know, shorty get low, low, low, low, low, low , low, low.” I love this song. I love it. And I am now old enough that if I were to hear this song at a wedding (because god knows I won’t be going to a club to hear it), I would dance to it with abandon, not caring at all how stupid I would look. There are a bunch of middle-aged people cutting rugs on my wedding video, and now, fifteen years later, I would join their frumpy ranks with pleasure. (And I think I'd also enjoy the fact that it would mortify The Boy.)

Youth? Suck it. Middle-age may come with a degree of invisibility, which can be disconcerting, but OH the freedom!

Presents!

2010-01-25T20:22:00.004-05:00

I have to share these wonderful, SUPER linen dish towels my friend K sent for a housewarming gift!

And look at the cute little pouch they came in!!!!

Awesome, awesome, awesome! And you know what? I'm going to USE them. My mom wouldn't--she'd save them because they're too pretty--but linen wears like IRON, and I am going to use them ALL THE TIME. In fact, I sort of wish I could wear them. Oh, to be thin enough to be able to use one as an apron!

My Cookie: It Crumbles. Here's How.

2010-01-25T08:17:00.003-05:00

My brain is weird today, and thoughts are flitting around like bunnies, not making much sense and multiplying at an alarming rate. In an effort to clear some space up there and take a mental Time Out, I give you . . . random blathering:

I had a very nice weekend. My nephew's ninth birthday is today, and since it's so close to mine my sister had a party for the two of us on Saturday. It was just her family, The Boy and me, my parents, one aunt, one cousin, and one grandmother. Easy, peaceful, nice. The best part was the card my nephew gave me--it was a standard card for an aunt, but he signed it, "I love you very much, Uncle Francis." See, his middle name is Francis, which I love. He calls me Aunt Shirty, and so I call him Uncle Francis. Anyway, I was very touched with the card.

Friday evening The Boy passed out on the couch at 8:00, so I watched the last episode of Season 1 of Castle from Netflix. I only started watching this because I wanted to see what Nathan Fillion was up to, and why he isn't busy playing a character written for him by Joss Whedon, but . . . I really like the show. Granted, I have never before watched a police procedural kind of show, so it may be terrible compared to others out there, but it seems fine to me. I love the idea of the mystery writer getting to work with a detective, and the characters are all pretty appealing. Richard Castle is no Mal Reynolds--in fact, there aren't many men (fictional of otherwise) who can hold a candle to Mal Reynolds--but he's charming. And cute, with those crinkled eyes. And the smile. And he is *so cute* with his daughter! Anyway . . . it's a fine show, and I'm anxious for the second season to come out on DVD.

Mal Reynolds: My favorite fictional man. Seriously! Dreamy, tough, flawed . . . but always trying his best to do what's right and to take care of the people he loves. Even if it makes him act like a jerk. He's fiction's best example of a Grown Man, and we can thank Whedon for him.

Richard Castle: I'm fond of him. Same actor, much different man.

The only thing that really bugs me about Castle is the fact that you can purchase books--real, live, actual books--"written" by "Richard Castle." THIS DRIVES ME BANANAS. The books are referenced on the show, even! LOOK, ABC (and DISNEY), Richard Caslte is a fairly well-realized fictional character and all, but he does not exist in my world: I CANNOT PURCHASE HIS FICTIONAL GOODS.

The only way I could possibly be made to feel better about this would be if the author of these books were Stephen King. It could happen, right? I mean, King did write as Richard Bachman. And think of Castle Rock! And Kings live in Castles! Maybe King wants to try his hand at a different kind of writing? I don't know. If I'm right, though, you heard it here first. And I will be happy to buy at least the first of the Castle books. But only then.

Well. Diatribes about things that really don't matter at all? This must be a blog!

And so I will continue to blather. Guess what happened to us last night? P came over for dinner and to visit with The Boy, who I think officially considers her to be his girlfriend. I made Shepherd's Pie, and it was lovely, and after we'd been eating for maybe five or ten minutes, the CO2 sensor in the upstairs hallway started bleating. I'm thankful P was here, because even with a stool to stand on, neither The Boy nor I could reach it to make it shut up. P pulled out the battery and then put it back to reset it, and the thing went off again . . . which means I called 911. We were told to get out of the house and wait for the fire truck. Sigh. The fire truck and ambulance came in short order, the guy in charge ascertained that we were all healthy and sent the ambulance away, and then two firemen came in the house with their own CO2 sensors and cased the joint. The culprit is the ancient stove, of course.

Old Stove: Character, a cool griddle in the center, and . . . certain, sleepy death.

I had been planning to replace it, because it's gargantuan, and my kitchen is not, but I was hoping to be able to wait a while, so The Boy and I could go skiing for his spring break. Alas, though, I'll be going to buy a new stove as soon as I leave here this morning. Which I can't do until after the dishwasher repairman comes.

That's, right--I said dishwasher repairman. DISHWASHER! My friend K pointed out that the dishwasher took a blood sacrifice from me last week . . . and yet I haven't been able to use it. At all. Because it doesn't work. AT ALL. Sigh.

So: By the end of the week I should have brand new, WORKING appliances. That's good. But I will not be skiing in Jackson Hole with The Boy and his best friend and the friend's family. That's bad. But! We're taking Best Friend to the beach with us in June, so that's good. Beach! June! How I long for thee!

Calgon, take me away!

Come On, MAN!

2010-01-19T09:11:00.003-05:00

Remember the stomach flu? For my birthday? Well, ha ha on those who thought things could only go up from there, because I had to go to the ER yesterday. I was off for MLK day, joyfully putzing in peace because The Boy went snow tubing with a friend while I waited at home for my new dishwasher to be delivered. I put away books, did a little cleaning, and vacuumed and steamed my old couches so my cat-allergic brother-in-law could take them to my sister's house to make room for my new sectional, which is coming today.

So, busy, happy, fiddling around while listening to my audio book . . . greeting the punctual delivery guys from Sears with great happiness, because: DISHWASHER. (It's nearly impossible to make the kitchen feel clean without a dishwasher, unless you do dishes constantly, which . . . No.) So the guys used their fancy straps and truss system to hike the big box into the house, and I told them they could leave it in the living room, since a portable dishwasher has wheels and I am more than capable of pushing the thing the fifteen or so feet into the kitchen.

They shook hands and left me to my giant box. I followed the opening instructions pictured right on the outside, using my kitchen scissors as a box cutter because I was too impatient for DISHWASHER to go to the tool box in search of the utility knife. It's pretty obvious where this is going, isn't it? I held the scissors open, using one blade to drag along the edges that needed cutting, being SUPER careful of the other blade, and not paying any attention at all to the weird little chomper things in the middle of the scissors. Do you know what I'm talking about? Here's a visual aid, because I have no idea what the actual name is, or what the chompers are for:

Yeah, those jagged little things ripped into my right middle finger, and BOY did I bleed. I ran into the kitchen to hold my finger in cold water, and watched a little horrified as the blood and water splashed everywhere. Then I wrapped the finger in an old linen napkin, because I didn't want to have to deal with picking pits of paper from the wound like you have to do when you use a paper towel. I held my finger up, applying direct pressure like a good girl, and I paced around, fretting and waiting for it to stop bleeding and stop hurting like a bitch. I wandered into the living room, wondering how I was going to get to the ER if I was going to need stitches (because my car was at the garage getting its annual state inspection), when I noticed this on the wall:

It wraps around the corner, even! Like something out of a murder movie! So! Blood spattered on the wall is good evidence that perhaps medical treatment is necessary. My b-i-l drove me the mile to pick up my car (I couldn't stomach the idea of walking with my stupid middle finger wrapped in a napkin, bleeding like a fool. Plus, I couldn't put on my coat over the mess, and didn't want to bleed on it, anyway.

So I paid for my car with one hand, and drove to the ER with my right hand held aloft. I would have been flipping everyone the bird, but you couldn't really tell because of the big napkin. In fact, it kind of looked like I was carrying an unlit torch. Nice.

Happily, the ER wasn't busy, and I was in and out in no time. There were two cuts rather than one. I was complimented on the way I managed the bleeding (you can't be the daughter and granddaughter of nurses without being up on your first-aid skills), had my wounds glued, with assurance that I had only nicked a superficial nerve and would soon have all the feeling back in the pad of the finger tip, and then sent on my way.

The blood on the walls cleaned up easily--I was kind of expecting to have to rely on the devil's magic in the Mr. Clean eraser thing, but a Clorox wipe handled the job with aplomb. The Boy came home, C came over bearing pizzas to make up for my aborted birthday dinner, P came with a posy and a charming story about being barked at by one half of a feuding couple at the movies, and all was well.

Happy New Year

2010-01-18T10:36:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was my birthday, and the start of my personal new year. The award for Worst Gift goes to the Universe, which decided to bestow a stomach bug on me. The less said about that, the better. I spent the day in quarantine until The Boy came home from his dad's, bearing flowers, cards, two adorable blank notebooks, and pretzel rods and ginger ale.

The day was fairly pleasant, ina Camille kind of way, especially considering that I found this tucked into a drawer inside a cabinet that came with the new house:

How old do you think that is? I'm guessing it's as old as I am (freshly 39), at least. And guess what: Still totally soft! See how it says over on the top right that it never dries out? They weren't kidding. Nor were they kidding with the bit on the bottom: "Everybody 'kneeds' PLASTI-TAK. It's fasten-ating." Indeed. Indeed.

Not Even One Way to Skin a Cat: A Play in One Act

2010-01-12T08:45:00.002-05:00

My cat Benny is going to be the death of me:

Scene: 4:40am. Shirty is sound asleep, snuggled deep into her covers. Benny creeps in, leaps onto the bed, drops his favorite finger puppet near her face, and then starts scratching/poking her to get her to wake up and throw the puppet for him to fetch.

Benny: Mom! Mom! Wake up! Hey! My puppet! I brought my puppet! Mom! Throw my puppet! Let's play! Hey Mom! Puppet! Throw my puppet!

Shirty: . . . ? . . .

Benny: MOM! I HAVE BROUGHT MY PUPPET FOR YOUR THROWING PLEASURE! PLEASE STOP WITH THE SLEEPING AT PLAY WITH ME. IT IS QUITE RUDE TO IGNORE MY PUPPET. WHICH I BROUGHT. FOR YOU TO THROW.

Shirty: (Flings puppet out her bedroom door, into the hallway.)

Benny: (Leaps to retrieve puppet. Returns seconds later.) MOM! MOM! . . .

Repeat until the alarm goes off at 6am, scaring Benny away temporarily.

I am SO TIRED! And I'm sure Benny is sound asleep. With his puppet. On my bed.

Rest assured that I will be hiding the puppet before I go to sleep tonight.

Attached Garage Haiku

2010-01-07T12:01:00.003-05:00

Sixteen degrees out
My car thinks it's thirty nine
Attached garage rocks

Honestly, people. Snow? Cold? Whatever--I don't have to step outside until I actually get where I'm going! I feel like an heiress!

Soliciting Opinions

2010-01-05T11:27:00.005-05:00

My new house was built in 1950, and had one owner for nearly all its life. The little old Italian lady and her late husband took excellent care of the place, and so much of the stuff is original. The woodwork is all intact and unpainted, the interior doors are all solid wood with glass knobs, and the kitchen cabinets are the original maple. I've been thinking of trying to stay true to the house's original look--at least as far as is practical and comfortable--and one way I can do that is with vintage 50s wallpaper.

I'm going to show you an admittedly lame photo of the kitchen--it's one I took with my phone the first time I was in looking at the place--so you can see the (tiny!) size, shape, and tile, and then ask which (if any) of the five wallpapers I like might work. (I found the wallpapers at Hannah's Treasures.)

Can you see the tile? (Also, check out that beast of a stove!)

Let me know what you think . . .

The paper will only go in the two places you can see in the photo and on the wall that's immediately to the right of where I was standing. (Does that even make sense?) If you think these are all ugly and I'm an idiot who should just paint, let me know that too . . .

It's Mine!

2009-12-28T21:44:00.003-05:00

Christmas was nice--most people were very pleased with their gifts, and most everyone got at least one hand-knit. The Boy received his knitted items before Christmas, but he was so over the moon about his new phone that nothing else really mattered to him. I've seem him hug it a little, and I wouldn't be surprised to see his engagement announcement in the paper.

The most important gift came today, though, after an hour of signing my name and putting my initials all over everything. I am a homeowner. I'm pretty sure we'll be living in the house for our annual New Year's Eve Goodness, if I can manage to pull it off.

Let the new set of worries commence!

Hooray! Boo!

2009-12-22T11:23:00.002-05:00

Hooray! I'm closing on the house on Monday!

Boo! My landlord just informed me that my lease runs through the end of March; I was positive it ended at the end of February, as I moved in at the beginning of February six years ago. So unless I can find someone to sublet, I am going to be paying rent AND a mortgage for longer than I'd expected! Isn't that effing SUPER?

Someday--SOMEDAY--I will not feel the need to utter the Charlie Brown-like phrase, "I can't win."

The Dude Abides

2009-12-16T09:44:00.003-05:00

I had no idea there was a new Jeff Bridges movie coming out until I saw a review of it on Salon this morning. I love him so much! And he looks sort of like Kris Kristofferson in this movie, which means I’m going to love him even more. Dreamy! Because this is my taste in men: Hairy Jeff Bridges, Kris Kristofferson, Sam Elliott. Sigh. Don’t get me wrong—Cary Grant is dashing and debonair and dreamy, as is his modern-day counterpart George Clooney—but the men I’ve been attracted to since I was a little girl are the ones who are scruffy and a little dirty. I like facial hair, long hair, hairy chests, soft jeans, worn boots, beat-up hands, and the smells of tobacco and whisky or beer.

The Grant/Clooney men are gorgeous and charming, but seem like they’d need women who regularly wear heels and make-up; they seem like being with them would be so much work. The scruffy men, though, are the ones who want women that don’t mind having messy hair or broken nails. The scruffy men are the ones you can relax with, and I’m all about being relaxed.

You know what I'd like for Christmas? I'd like one of these guys to pick me up in an enormous old pick-up with faded paint and the Allman Brothers on the stereo, and then drive me off to his cabin in the mountains to spend a weekend in front of the fire.

Lost Weekend

2009-12-07T12:28:00.002-05:00

No, I didn’t get tanked and wake up wearing snow shoes in Tahiti with no idea how or why. That’d make for a pretty good blog entry though, wouldn’t it? Instead, I found myself lost without the constant, comforting voice of Davina Porter reading to me on my iPod. I’ve grown so used to listening to her read the Outlander books that I found I honestly couldn’t settle into a task without her. I tried listening to music, and then to Mike Birbiglia’s first comedy album, but nothing worked. I ended up reading while I walked on my treadmill (Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone, which is interesting but not quite as engrossing as I’d like it to be), and then it got so bad that I nearly downloaded the book I’m waiting for—the 4th one in the series, which I’d ordered ahead of time from the library but had to REORDER because I’d accidentally requested the ABRIDGED version, and WHY DO THEY EVEM MAKE THOSE? Anyway, I didn’t buy the audio book because it’s like $70. Granted, it’s 900 CDs, but still.

So! I was lost this weekend. Knitting was all wrong. I couldn’t clean or bake properly. Trips in the car were silent, because I WANTED MY STORY, and nothing else would do. The library is telling me it’s in transit, and I’m so glad! I have WORK to do!

In a positive development, though, the library’s lag time gave me another opportunity to recognize that my son is awesome. He was playing Assassin's Creed 2 last night, and the main character had to take part in a series of contests to win a golden mask (the game takes place in Renaissance Italy, and is essentially just like the early games in the Harry Potter series—tasks, puzzles, quests, and achievements all serving the narrative arc of the game’s story—only this story involves a character who travels back in time to try and kill various bad guys in an attempt to end a war that’s going on in the present). The Boy was playing and I was trying to knit while getting sucked into his story, since I couldn’t have my own, when he realized that women weren't taking part in the competition for the mask. He said, "What? Women aren't allowed to play?" I said, "OF COURSE NOT! THE WIMMINZ CAN'T DO ANYTHING," and without missing a beat he said, "Except look pretty and have babies." I high-fived him. He understands sarcasm and sexism, and . . . I've obviously done my job. Motherhood Mission accomplished.

Remember Me?

2009-12-02T15:47:00.000-05:00

I have no excuse for not posting, other than not wanting to bore myself with my own musings. I do have a few updates, though:

You may have noticed that it’s December. December! The Boy will be turning 13 in two weeks, a fact which I find somewhat confusing: How can he be aging when I most certainly am not? I don’t quite get it. However this crazy Space/Time Continuum thing works, The Boy will be celebrating his birthday by joining seven other boys, his uncle, and his godfather for three rousing hours of shooting each other with small balls of paint. C and I will watch and take pictures, but we’re not playing. He doesn’t like to get dirty, and I don’t want to A.) be the only girl and B.) be the only MOM LADY involved.

We don’t usually have a real party for the kid’s birthday, usually opting for some kind of fun outing with a friend or two and then a sleep over, but we thought 13 was a big deal. It’s no bar mitzvah, but it’s a way to let him know that we appreciate that he’s growing up. Or something like that.

What else? Christmas is coming, and I am neither baking nor decorating because I don’t know where I’ll be living come December 25. Because I STILL don’t have a closing date for the stupid house. I am dealing with a large bank, one that has existed in this community for a very long time, and I cannot figure out for the LIFE of me why they are so inept. I mean, they seem to keep forgetting about things they need me to sign or fill out, and are sending things to me in dribs and drabs. The woman I’m working with JUST TODAY sent me the form asking me to list the addresses I’ve lived at for the past three years. Um, shouldn’t they have taken care of that one right off the bat? And don’t they already KNOW that, since they know every other freaking thing about me, including my shoe size, my mother’s maiden name, the name of my high school mascot, my favorite smells, and the name of the first album I purchased on CD?

I am so tired of this whole stupid process. I wish I could go to sleep and have the house elves wake me when they’ve finished packing and moving.

I’ve been having all of the Christmas gifts I’ve bought online mailed to my office, because who knows when I’ll move and when they’ll actually show up? At least I have that part of the situation under control. The shopping, that is. I think I pretty much have everyone taken care of, from The Boy down to the family grab bag—I’ve been shopping since August or so, and I’m very, very glad about it. Obnoxiously so, even. I just have to make sure I stay away from stores now, so I don’t end up buying anything else, thus spending more money than I had planned to and wrecking my whole carefully constructed Christmas budget. Thanks to C’s OCD, I keep a spreadsheet of Christmas expenditures, complete with pie charts—I’d be ashamed of myself if I wantonly spent too much and screwed up my precious charts!

Besides, I have to save the money I have left for things like movers. Not that I can arrange for movers without a closing date.

See why I haven’t written? I’m stuck in this loop . . .

Spinning My Wheels

2009-11-12T11:40:00.002-05:00

The people I’m trying to buy the house from are jerks, and I’m really starting to hate them. I still don’t have a closing date, and it’s their fault. Stupid out-out-state trustees, going on their stupid vacations, stalling around while I hang out in stupid suspended animation! I can’t pack, because what happens if the deal falls through and I’ve got a houseful of packed boxes? Ugh. So I’m collecting a store of empty boxes, and cleaning out closets and drawers and getting ready to be able to pack. Pre-packing. And, you know, waiting. I keep getting to the point where I want to tell the sellers to cram the house up their indolent asses, but then I remember that I’ve already paid for the appraisal, the home inspection, and the “hand money,” and I decide I’m in too deep to do anything but wait it out. Bah.

In the meantime, I’m knitting and listening to the third audio book in the Outlander series, Voyager. I think it has to speak well for Gabaldon’s characters that I still care about them after more than sixty CDs, right? Thank God for the library, though, because who could afford to put the money into the CDs for the entire series? Yikes.

What am I knitting? Gifts, mostly. I think that since I last posted I’ve done my nephew’s Pitt scarf (Potter-fashion, but blue and gold), a pair of Mary Jane-style slippers for my cousin’s 24th birthday, and a pair of bootie-like (bootie, heh) slippers for The Boy. I’m using the leftover yarn from his big school scarf for those, and he requested that one slipper be purple and one gold. Whatever, weirdo. I’ve knit a tube scarf that’s like a Mobius Strip, which looked nice in the picture, but which I think I hate. I got the pattern and yarn from the Lion Brand site, and I like the yarn, but the scarf makes me look like I’m trying to squeeze my head off. Sigh. At least it was a fast knit, right?

I’m waiting for a slew of books to come in from the library, and I’m also waiting for The Children’s Book to come in from Amazon. Thanks to one of BableBabe’s posts, I ended my budget-induced (see: Buying a House) moratorium on book buying and ordered that and Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone. Drabble is AS Byatt’s sister, so I want to see what she’s like. I hope they show up soon. I ordered a copy of my friend S’s favorite Sesame Street LP, Grover Sings the Blues, at the same time, and it’s already here. (She doesn’t have a turntable and the albums’s not available on CD, so I’m going to have it put on a CD and give it to her for Christmas. It’s the little things, right?) Here’s what she said about the album in an e-mail last week, “Grover Sings the Blues featured such classics as ".... around, around, around, around. Over! Under! Through!" and "... near ...FAR! (sung from across the room)". Truly, Grover shines on this album. I have no idea why he hasn't been inducted into the Rock Hall yet. Based on that album alone, he deserves it.” How could that NOT become a Christmas gift?

Speaking of Christmas, The Boy hardly wants anything. He admits to having just about everything he could ever want, so Christmas is going to be fairly small this year. He’s getting some video game upgrades, and we’re going to do our Heifer International family thing, and he’ll get some books, Legos, and this little Fiber Optics kit—and soldering iron!—he thought was cool while browsing a catalog, and that’s about it. Although one of the games he’s getting is Beatles Rock Band, so I suppose Christmas morning won’t be without its usual pajama-ed, messy haired, cookie munching fun.

One more thing about The Boy before I go: He went to another Bar Mitzvah last weekend, and the ubiquitous t-shirt maker was there. The Boy had a shirt made the first time he went to one, so didn’t feel that he needed another air-brushed representation of his name. He ended up coming home with two shirts last Saturday. One was for my friend P, for whom The Boy has a burning love I’ve not seen him have for another female since, well . . . me. He got hers printed with the Joker’s, “Why So Serious,” question, and I think her heart grew two sizes when he gave it to her. The shirt he got for himself, though, is truly remarkable. He said he couldn’t think of what he wanted printed on it, when he noticed that another kid had got one that said “Super Jew.” So my kid, the boy who went to pre-school at the JCC with many of the kids who were at the Bar Mitzvah, who taught those same kids the words to Up on the Housetop when they were three, decided once again to let his non-Jewish flag fly. He proudly requested that the fellow print "Secular Humanist" on his shirt.

WHAT A DORK. And OH, how much I love him!

Hi, Ho! Kermit the Frog, Here!

2009-11-04T09:41:00.006-05:00

Today is Sesame Street's 40th birthday! Sesame Street is older than I am: I have never existed in a world without Sesame Street. I think many people who were little kids in the 70s, before anyone had cable, have the same fierce loyalty to the Street and the Muppets that I do. We were the kids who were too young to "appreciate" the trippy offerings of Sid and Marty Krofft (I can't possibly be the only person who was terrified by Lidsville and Pufnstuf, right? And just the thought of poor maligned Sigmund, persecuted by those other wretched sea monsters, makes me want to cry even now), and there was only so much Scooby Doo and other Hanna Barbera crap one kid could take. So we became the Sesame Street Generation . . . long before Douglas Copeland foisted his stupid Generation X label on us.

We learned to count to ten in Spanish, and we learned that Tolerance and Diversity were cool long before they received their capital T and D. We learned that learning was fun and could be super-cool.

My mom sewed my sister and me matching white denim suits (jeans and jacket) that featured the Sesame Street characters scattered all over them, and I loved wearing that outfit more than just about any other outfit I can think of. My grandparents took us to Sesame Street on Ice and bought me a felt Bert and her a felt Ernie that hung on the walls of our shared bedroom for years.

And we had the music.

This one was my very own, and my sister wasn't allowed to touch it. I, however, was allowed to use the turntable all by myself to listen whenever I wanted. I think it drove my parents a little crazy, but I will never forget the time that my dad silently set up the speakers in the bedroom where my mom was sound asleep, and then blasted her out of bed with the Count's signature thunder and, "Mwah, ha, ha!"

This one came along a little later, and belonged to both of us. We had the proper Saturday Night Fever album too, and both were in heavy rotation.

I love Kermit with all my heart, and still, at the age of almost-39, can't hear him sing "It's Not Easy Being Green" without getting choked up. In fact, if I were an actor and needed to cry on cue, that could do it for me.

And I love Bert. Fussy, impatient, wonderful Bert.

Happy 40th Birthday, Sesame Street! I wish you many, many more!

Rube-y, Rube-y, Rube-y, Rube-y!

2009-10-30T09:19:00.003-04:00

Sing it like the Kaiser Chiefs, but know I mean it like I'm spelling it: I think I got taken yesterday (no--not over the pending house purchase--don't even think that!). The building I work in is on the edge of a university campus, right across the street from a hospital. Depending on where I need to go upon leaving work, sometimes I cut though the hospital's facilities to make my way home. I did that yesterday, and happened to catch the eye of a man who was rounding the corner as I was waiting at a red light.

He approached me, confessed to being terribly embarrassed, and said he'd run out of gas for the first time in his life. He'd walked to the nearest gas station to find that they didn't have gas cans for sale, and wouldn't loan him one without a $20 deposit, which he didn't have. It was probably a load of crap, but I gave him the $7 I had on me without much hesitation. Why? Because he was nice, polite, and really did appear to need help. I thought about it as I drove home, and decided I was okay about having been taken advantage of, if that were the case. Someone asked me for help and I gave it, because that's what people are supposed to do, right? I wouldn't have given him a ride if he'd asked for one (because I am kind but not willing to jeopardize my safety), but I would have given him the money anyway, and called him a cab.

So maybe I'm a fool, but I'm okay with it if I am.

I'm still in House Limbo, by the way. The inspection was Wednesday, and went as I'd expected. The house desperately needs a new roof, which I knew when I made an offer that was significantly lower than the asking price. There are some other things the sellers have to take care of if the sale is going to move forward, and I'm hoping that won't be too much of a problem. Please cross your fingers for me.

I'll leave you with this, which was a wonderfully pleasant surprise for me. The Boy wanted me to knit a hat for him, which I did despite the fact that he probably hasn't kept a hat on his head for more than a single hour--TOTAL--in his nearly thirteen years. But it turns out that he LOVES his new hat (I credit the super-softness of the Malabrigo wool), and only takes it off while he's at school. How gratifying is that, I ask you? The simple little hat is now my favorite knitting accomplishment!

Not That You Asked, But

2009-10-26T14:50:00.002-04:00

C once accused me of hating two things everyone else loves, the Olympics and Halloween. He was partially wrong about on both counts. I don't hate the Olympics, but I don't really enjoy them, either. And I don't hate Halloween, but I do hate one of its biggest components: I hate, hate, hate trick-or-treat, and I always have.

I grew up in the sticks--houses acres apart, with no sidewalks in sight--and had to be driven around to t-o-t. Ugh. Nothing ruins a costume like having to freaking drag its huge headpiece or hoop skirt or other enormous prop in and out of the car, where people would sit on you and step over you and bend/crush/stain/wrinkle everything. And then I hated that people would pretend not to know who we were, when we saw them every day and our parents were RIGHT behind us! And I hated the idea of going to the homes of people I didn't know and having them perfunctorily hand me a stupid snack that I probably wouldn't like anyway. Popcorn balls, Bit-o-Honey, Wacky Wafers, those stupid McDonald's gift certificate things . . . GAH! Plus, I always felt really super guilty when certain lonely old lady neighbors would give us little baggies of terrible candy that they had CLEARLY spent lots of time lovingly assembling. I remember feeling like crying at one particular old lady's door, when I could smell her farty dinner smells wafting out from behind her while her TV blared and her hands shook as she dropped bags of chalky candy into our stupid plastic pumpkin heads. I felt so bad for demanding anything from her. I felt bad that I thought she would probably love some company that I absolutely DID NOT want to give her. Shudder.

Now I resent having to spend money on candy for kids I neither know nor care about. I hate having to play nice with them and their stupid parents, who mostly stand carelessly on the street, talking on cell phones while their kids demand candy from me. I hate the high school kids who don't even go to the trouble of putting on a costume, but expect me to put candy in their damn pillowcases anyway.

I am not at all against dressing in costume, Halloween parties, jack-o-lanterns, or black cats. The Boy spent several happy Octobers working with C on some fantastic costumes, and loved it, and that thrilled me. I liked going to his school's Halloween parades and parties, and I'm so glad he's got those wonderful memories. I love seeing my nephew and my friends' kids enjoy their own costumes, and I love seeing what costumes C and his friends come up with year after year for their annual Halloween party.

In summary, then, I don't hate Halloween; I hate trick-or-treat. I hate things that are forced and contrived, meaningless, awkward, and uncomfortable, and that's what t-o-t has always been to me.

I'm a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

What?

2009-10-22T14:34:00.004-04:00

My potential leap into owning my own home continues apace. The Boy and I are meeting the realtor at the house this evening to make an offer, and we'll see what happens. I'm excited, but very nervous, too. I mean, I've never owned a house All By Myself. It's daunting to think about dealing with property and repairs and improvements without a partner to share the stress with. What if I can't do it? What if I'm not up to the challenge, and I end up with a yard with no grass, weeds growing through cracks in the driveway and sidewalks, holes in the roof, clogged pipes, termites, rats, cat hair all over everything, stacks of unpaid bills, empty cupboards, and overflowing litter boxes?

Oy. Breathe. Okay. It may not even happen. The last time I made an offer on a house, the guy who did my home inspection all but begged me not to buy the place, as it was going to fall down. Maybe there will be a similar hitch this time--there are lots of things that can go wrong between making an offer and actually closing on a house. But if it does happen to work out, and I can indeed handle all of the hazards of owning my own place All By Myself, the benefits will be great. I may close in time to get the tax credit. The mortgage payment will be significantly less than what I pay in rent. I will be able to retire--or at least potentially switch to part-time work once The Boy gets through college. And I will have something to leave The Boy when I die.

All good things. So please cross your fingers for me.

Some things seem to be going my way. I just spent an hour outside in this lovely weather

knitting this kick-ass hat for The Boy

Talk about peace and happiness!

And I'm reading a pretty cute book, At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life, a memoir by a guy who moved with his boyfriend to rural Michigan, in hopes of creating their own version of Walden and finding, well, peace and happiness, like I mentioned above. It gets a little twee at times, but I like the writer's voice, and he's achingly sincere, which goes a long way. He's funny too, and there are many things to laugh aloud over. The only thing that troubles me, though, is that the writer comes off as a little . . . "Just Jack," and it makes me worry that he's trying to be the kind of gay fella straight people like.

Remember him from Will & Grace? He was funny, of course, and I liked him well enough--at least from what I saw of the first season or two that I watched of the show, but . . . he seemed pretty contrived, in a way that would make exuberantly gay men seem like nonthreatening pets that straight people could show off to their friends.

And gay people--even my ultra-flaming friend who collects Barbies and paid me to sew him a Size 24 bridal gown "with velvet, and satin, and yards and yards of tulle" one Halloween aren't as Sanitized for Straights' Protection like Just Jack. You know?

Now maybe Wade Rouse, the author, really is just like he portrays himself in the book. And if he is, that's obviously fine--good for him. But if he's altering himself to make him seem more appealing to straight folks (in exactly the opposite way, mind you, that he tried to make himself appealing to straights in high school by hanging posters of Farrah Fawcett on his wall and trying out for the football team), then . . . it's kind of sad.

It's a fun and funny book, though, worthwhile and tender. I'm going to request Rouse's other books to see if I get a better sense of who he really is.

How in the Hell Did it Get to be the MIddle of October?

2009-10-14T10:57:00.003-04:00

October used to creak and groan along even though it was filled with homework and midterms and football games, but now that I'm old, it's like time is on fast-forward. I swear the days go by without my noticing them, and if that's not something an old lady would say, I don't know what is.

I have absolutely nothing exciting to report, which is why I haven't posted in nearly two weeks. What's to say? Okay, well, I could tell you that I might buy a house. It's a tiny little thing, but built in 1950 and so solid as a bomb shelter. I'm having trouble getting a mortgage, as I make pitifully little money as a public radio lackey and have a mountain of student loans (for that MLIS, which has so far turned out to be useless, but I'm not bitter AT ALL), so my debt-to-income ration is crap. I'm still working on it, though, and am cautiously optimistic. I'll certainly be posting a lot more about that if it works out.

I've been indulging my trashier self and listening to Outlander, the 28-CD audio book that's the first in Diana Gabaldon's series of the same name. The book is generally a lot of fun, but it's a bodice-ripper of the type I haven't paid much attention to since high school. I got the idea from Knitting Outside the Lines, wherein either Ann or Kay suggests that listening to the series could get one through quite a bit of knitting. That's an understatement! No one mentioned, though, that I might have a terrible problem with wanting to speak in a Scottish accent, though, after listening to Davina Porter's reading of all the Highlanders. Och!

I got some awesome yarns last weekend when one of my local stores was having a pre-inventory sale, and promptly made a hat for The Boy out of some beautiful (but still cool enough for him) Malabrigo, but I keep casting on too many stitches and making the damned thing too big. I've ripped it out twice, and am hoping the third time will be the charm. Otherwise I'm going to accept that fact that the yarn is some kind of magical, cursed, GROWING yarn, and use it to knit a skirt that will grow along with my ass. Sigh.

Oh, speaking of sighs (and curses and shouts, but that's just me and my anger), have a look at this Salon article about Courtney Cox's new show if you have a chance. I haven't watched the show, but reading the article filled me with a lovely Red Rage of Righteousness, which should pretty much carry me through the day. Why so angry? Well, because the show is just as patronizing and insulting as its stupid Cougar Town title indicates. Here's the beginning of the article, by regular Salon writer Heather Havrilesky:

"If aliens learned about our culture by watching our newest television shows, they might assume that planet Earth was terrorized by predatory middle-aged women with hairless, bony bodies and the same blank expression on their overly Botoxed faces, a look of creepy awe at the joys of 20-something tenderloin.

"They're addicted to those botulism injections, which make them jittery and sick," the aliens might hypothesize after watching shows like "Cougar Town" and "Eastwick" and "Accidentally on Purpose." "Their lives are so addled by substance abuse that they pace and second-guess themselves with their googly-eyed, like-minded friends, then giggle and high-five like schoolgirls at the sight of some well-defined abdominal muscles, which are apparently a sign of inner purity."

"Why don't the other humans just snuff them out?" some young alien would interject, but no one would answer him because in the galaxy of Zoron, young men are seen as hopelessly naive and confused and are generally ignored until they hit 35. Besides, all of the older aliens would already recognize that these "cougars" clearly serve as some sort of cautionary tale for female humans, a moralistic narrative that humans refer to, strangely enough, as a "guilty pleasure" -- "guilty" in this case meaning "it makes you want to stick your head in the oven" and "pleasure" referring to the feeling humans get from having their fingernails ripped off one by one."

Sweet Jesus! It makes me absolutely livid to think that this show's writers (two men) are taking the opportunity to further the idea of grown women having sex into a cartoonish joke. It's a cruel bait and switch: A show about a 40-something woman who is confident about her sexuality! She's into younger guys! It's about time the tables are turned, when older men have been praised for scoring young chicks for generations! No, though. That's not how it is. Really, women who want to sleep with hot guys are sad, desperate, frantic, and laughable. It makes me sad. And mad.

The weird thing, though, is that I don't think most men feel this way. I think most men want woman who's relaxed and happy about sex and her own skin . . . right? Real, actual, run of the mill men who live outside of NYC and LA don't want a woman who's Botoxed and Brazilian-ed and starved/exercised into a tense, tight version of herself in high school. Right? That's just a trope, isn't it? If that's the case, who keeps supporting it? Is it really commerce that's doing it? Are the corporations who sell make-up and hair-dye and diet pills and Spanx and gym memberships and Lean Cuisine and Weight Watchers and manicures and pedicures and waxing and anti-wrinkle cream so vested in our collective fear of aging and insecurities about our appearance that THEY are the ones with the power? Has The Patriarchy been replaced with . . . what? The Market? If so, that's going from bad to worse, because it means women are more complicit in their suppression that they ever were.

Okay. Enough. Sorry. It just . . . chafes a little it all.

I have to get back to work.

A Loop is a Loop is a Loop . . .

2009-10-01T10:24:00.002-04:00

I slept in this morning--I think I went to bed without setting my alarm. I wasn't following my normal pattern, because I was all wrapped up in giving myself a pedicure before going to bed. I soaked my feet in the tub, did the scraper/buffer thing, and then took the lotion into my room to slather on my feet before putting on socks. I was so enchanted by my lovely soft feet, and the fact that I could snuggle into the comforter with a game of Scrabble on my phone, that I guess I forgot all about the clock.

I woke up a full hour later than normal, and only then because I heard car horns blowing outside, ten minutes after the time I usually make the Thursday morning pick-up of The Boy, who sleeps at his dad’s on Wednesday nights. I gathered my wits about me and made The Boy walk the mile to my house--he'd have been late for school if he'd waited for me to shower and get ready, and then drive up there, because the traffic snarl is terrible near C’s house at that time of the morning. Driving the mile through our neighborhoods takes five minutes normally, but after about 7:10, forget it—it takes forever.

So The Boy walked, and the timing was perfect: He came into the alley as I was pulling out of the garage. Granted, we were both, as SpongeBob once said, “Late for bein’ early,” which means The Boy missed out on his time playing football in the gym before school, and I missed my morning leisure time (I usually pack or pick up breakfast, which I eat in my car or office before work while I read or knit and listen to an audio book in lovely peace), but we were both on time for what counted, and I guess that’s all that matters.

I have very little to report in the way of anything else. I did some much-needed clothes shopping last weekend, but as it was much-needed, the purchases themselves were unremarkable: I replaced some faded and/or worn out standards with some brand new standards, so I can go to work without look like the Poor Little Match Girl. I’m in the process of hemming the pants, though, which is kind of . . . not exciting at all, is it? See? I have nothing. I haven’t finished any knitting projects (Christmas shawl for my mom and Christmas scarf for C) lately, and . . . oh! Wait! Books!

I just read How I Became a Famous Novelist, and it was an odd and interesting reading experience. Reading about reading is always fun, but reading about reading and writing is the kind of meta that makes me want to write about reading, and then the whole thing becomes a Mobius Strip in my head and makes me feel like I should dedicate myself to doing some kind of important, culture-saving work. Yikes. Allow me to calm down and back up for a minute.

The book is about a smart young guy (I pictured the main character as Chuck Klosterman, whose books I enjoy both despite and because of his similarities to HIBAFN’s main character. I wonder how he would feel about that?) who breezes his way through school and college and finds himself an overeducated English major with little in the way of employable skills and no desire to go to law school like the so-called love of his life who abandoned him, and at whose upcoming wedding he is dying to extract revenge. He fumbles around for a while until he comes across an article about a best-selling writer who’s depicted in a sort of Robert James Waller, Bridges of Madison County vein. I think. The fictional author who gathers our protagonist’s interest is salt-of-the-earthier, but Waller popped into my head right away.

Anyway, this author’s incredible success in what the main character sees as posing and fooling readers sparks an, “If HE can do it, why can’t I,” moment. He wanders around a Barnes & Noble, noting titles and collecting ideas, persuades his med-school roommate to give him samples of a Ridalin-like drug to focus his attention, and then sits down and bangs out a novel—The Tornado Ashes Club—using every trope and affectation he can think of, often to hilarious effect. He really and truly nails it, and Steve Hely, who wrote HIBAFN, includes passages from the first novel and aborted attempts, the bulleted lists, excerpts from others’ novels in the Dan Brown, Robert Patterson, etc. ilk, an AWESOME fictional version of the NYT Best Sellers list, and other tidbits that make the whole thing even more fun to read.

Then again, the total package of the novel makes you wonder. It makes you wonder (not for the first time—admit it) if you could become a famous novelist. If you’re as cynical as the main character. If you know what’s good. If it matters what you read, or even that you read at all.

It’s a fast, easy read, and definitely worth checking out.

And . . . I guess I had more to say than I thought. Next time I’ll talk about the book I’m reading now, Lev Grossman’s cool and fun The Magicians.

Hi There

2009-09-17T08:56:00.005-04:00

How's it going? I'm finally back to my regularly scheduled programming, after The Boy's annual bout of Fall Plague. Actually, I should probably call it his Autumn Ague, as the whole thing is mostly a few days' worth of fever with a little coughing thrown in for fun. So, yes! Autumn Ague, it is. I do love me some alliteration.

Anyway, I spent the week up to this point working abbreviated days, spending mornings and late afternoons nursing The Boy, taking his temperature, plying him with juice, and creating tempting little snacks to get His Majesty to nibble his way back to good health. That, and making sure he kept up with all his homework. I'm quite spoiled from working essentially part-time over the last three days. How great would life be if I could have my same salary and benefits but only have to work 10-2 every day? Sigh. That would be the life.

I did take The Boy for a brief outing on Tuesday, so he could get some books from school, and I caved into his pleas to stop at the AT&T store. It was time to renew my contract, you see, which meant that I could upgrade to a new phone. He was dying for a chance to help shop for the new phone, and I figured it wouldn't kill him. I ended up getting a Motorola Karma, and I think I love it.

It slides open to reveal a full keyboard, which I really like, and when it's closed it's all chunky and sturdy and square, JUST LIKE ME. We were meant for each other!

I'm still learning how to work with it, but it's pretty intuitive. Its camera has many more features than my old phone, so I have high hopes for it. Here are two shots of the shawl I'm working on, which I think looks like a stingray.

Can those holes down the middle be considered lace? Lacy? Lace-ish? I like to tell myself they can. My sister wants me to give the shawl to her when it's finished. She has visions of wrapping up in at work to ward off the cold in her office. We'll see. I kind of maybe want to keep it.

I also think I want to keep the library book I'm reading, Rage Against the Meshugenah: Why it Takes Balls to Go Nuts, about a youngish Jewish father who finds himself in the throes of clinical depression. First of all, how can you not want to read a book with a title like that? And second, it's interesting to read about depression from a male's point of view, since it's not often revealed or talked about. I'm pretty sure C dealt with depression in the time leading up to his coming out, and then during the aftermath of our separation and divorce, but that's the only concrete example I know of. (Plus, I have to admit that the Hurt and Bitter Shirty Within reveled in his unhappiness at the time. I mean, he was making me get divorced! He was making our son a Child of Divorce! He deserved it! Ahem.)

Another reason that I like this book so much--aside from the fact that it's honest and funny and very nicely written, I mean--is that I have a Jew Fetish. I have wanted to be Jewish since around third grade, when I first started reading Judy Blume--especially Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. I wanted to speak Yiddish. I wanted neurotic family members. I wanted an ancestry that was linked to the Holocaust.

I grew up enough to be grateful that my ancestors weren't persecuted, but the appeals of Jewish families never left me. I didn't want to be Orthodox or keep kosher or anything, but I was always drawn to it. C and I went to Israel for his spring break during his law school term in London, and I sat with my toes in the Red Sea and was stunned to think that it was Moses' Red Sea. I fell further in love when a close friend converted and asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. I loved everything about that from the the Chupah and breaking the glass to the signing of the ketubah and the chair dance. Oh, that chair dance! And then C and I moved back to Pittsburgh to have The Boy, and eventually sent him to the pre-school we liked best, which just so happened to be at our local Jewish Community Center. Those people were like a family to us, and The Boy made some of his best friends there. Granted, he was the kid at the pre-school who taught all the other kids to sing Up on the Housetop, his favorite Christmas song, but no one minded, and everyone loved him.

We've been through Jewish summer camps, Purims, and sedars, and we've eaten in a suka at Sukot. I know what a shofar is. I'm pretty sure I can still count to ten in Hebrew. I love the traditions and the emphasis on family, I love latkes, bagels, and kugel, and . . . pretty much the whole deal (though I've never been in love with Woody Allen--Annie Hall, sure, but that had more to do with Diane Keaton).

I was buying The Boy new soccer socks at our local non-big-box soccer store last Friday, and when two boys came in and wished me, "Good Shabbos," I was thrilled.

I am a Judeophile. But I can't convert: I'm not religious enough to even know what I believe, and I know many Jews who feel the same way, but the thought of converting just feels wrong. I mean, what's a formerly Catholic girl to do about Jesus, for one thing?

Wow. How did I start writing about books and end up coming out of this particular closet? L'chaim!

Hoggy, Warty

2009-09-11T15:14:00.003-04:00

The Boy wanted me to knit something for him, and truly, I've been wanting to make him something for a long time. He's my favorite person--how could I not want to make him something more permanent than dinner and an endless stream of chocolate chip cookies? Anyway, it wasn't easy: He will not wear sweaters. He will not wear hats. I CANNOT make socks. What's left? A scarf, of course. He asked for a Harry Potter-style scarf in the design from the early movies, but he wanted it to be in his school's colors (because my kid LOVES his school more than any other kid I've ever known). It is perhaps unfortunate that his school's colors are purple and gold, but here is the finished Hogwarts scarf.

It's longer than he is tall, and it's soft and woolly as all get-out. He can't wait for it to be cold enough to wear it, and . . . I feel the same way.

I'm watching my nephew tonight, and he's clamoring for his own version of the scarf now, so I promised to take him to the yarn store tomorrow so he can choose his colors. But I'll be holding on to his until Christmas. I'm no dummy.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

2009-09-02T15:16:00.012-04:00

It has been the most beautiful week in the history of Western Pennsylvania. The days are sunny and in the high 70s, and the nights are chilly, in the high 40s or low 50s. I don't know what we did to deserve this, and I'm certain it won't last, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Especially since I've spent some good time out in it. Like last Saturday, when P and I went to a Steelers game.

Yes! P and I (two bookish, librarian, Monk-type women with panic and anxiety issues galore) dressed up in black and gold (I had to give her a shirt, because even though she's lived here for like five years now, she didn't have one) and made our way to Hienz Field to partake in that most religious of all Pittsburgh experiences: Steelers Football.

It was so much fun! We parked Downtown in the Cultural District (for only $5!) and walked across the Allegheny River on the Clemente Bridge. Once across, we were able to walk to the stadium along the river, feeling like poor white trash relatives gaping at all the fancy boats parked (moored? docked?) in neat lines. The boat owners were picnicking and posing and playing, all decked out in Steelers regalia, all waiting to wander over to their most excellent seats in the stadium. P and I weren't invited to join any of the richies, so we headed into the stadium an hour before we were allowed up to our seats.

We found a place in the shade to hang out with our soft pretzels and enormous Cokes, and we watched the fans mill around. There were kids and families everywhere, which was kind of nice to see despite the fact that there was no way you could have paid me to bring a kid in diapers to a football game. I shopped a little, and found a non-scary garden gnome, Steeler-fied in black and gold and holding a little thing showing all six Super Bowl titles. You may not want it. I do not want it. She, however, will LOVE IT.

There wasn't just shopping and eating and watching rich people, oh no. There was, um, stretching!
(This is in no way homoerotic, is it?)

There were large rich men milling about.

There were beautiful views of my pretty little city.

There was the ceremonial pouring of electronic ketchup whenever our offense entered the Heinz Ketchup Red Zone (I know this is a bad photo, but you get the idea).

And, oh . . . there was football!

Of course, P and I being who we are, there were books (we were afraid we wouldn't be allowed in the stadium with needles, so there was no knitting).

We ended up not having much time to read, but it's better to always be prepared. I got in a little reading at half-time, as I had no interest in watching the people from United Way "kick-off" their fund-raising season. P headed for the restrooms, but I stayed put with Lily Bard.

The Steelers won, but it would have been a fabulous outing even if they hadn't. I'm not crazy about crowds, but this was a great one. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun!

And in other news having nothing to do with football, I gave my sister her hot water bottle cover. She knew what it was immediately, even though I'd wrapped it in a tiny shirt box and made every effort to confuse her with what should have appeared to be a sweater for a tiny dog. She's already used it, and reported that it's comfy, cozy, and most excellent. Yay!

I still have to finish The Boy's Hogwarts scarf (I had to buy two more skeins of both of the colors, because the original two weren't enough to make it as long as it should be), and I'm nearly half-way through a scarf for C, The Boy's dad. This one is knitted long-ways--I used a crochet cast-on onto a 40" circular needle--so the stripes run lengthwise. I can't wait to see the final product--I think it's going to be really nice.

And . . . that's it. I should get back to work.

Things, Life, What-not.

2009-08-27T11:19:00.002-04:00

The Boy is in 7th grade. He’s growing tall and strong, and he’s practically electric with his shining good health and energy. Sometimes when I look at him I can’t believe he’s mine, and then I realize that . . . he isn’t mine. He’s his own person, one I can just watch, admire, guide for as long as he’ll let me, and love, love, love.

-----

I am nearly finished with my sister’s hot water bottle cover, and after a brief episode of panic surrounding a stitch dropped in the middle of the cable (I tried to fix it and felt like I was making things worse, so I wisely put it down until I could take it to Natural Stitches and have one of the fine people there straighten me out), it looks like it’s going to be very cute. I’m finishing the portion that will cover the neck of the water bottle, so right now the thing looks like a sweater for a little dog with no legs, but I swear that’s a good thing. I’ll post a picture once it’s finished and actually covering a water bottle.

-----

I have had a summer of series-reading, and it’s coming to and end. I read all of the Sookie Stackhouse books, including the most reason one, which I broke down and bought in hardcover because I really couldn’t wait. I’m pleased that after eight books Charlaine Harris still has things for these characters to do, but I sense that things are going to be wrapping up soon. Maybe another book or two, and then Sookie can be retired. In the meantime, though, I can’t wait to find out what happens next—especially with a certain little boy she’s become acquainted with.

I’m picking up the last of Harris’s Lily Bard series from the library today, and I’m looking forward to gobbling it up quickly. There are some similarities between Lily and Sookie that make me wonder about things Harris herself might have gone through—or at least things that are foremost on her mind. She’s an interesting person and a fun writer, and I have her first Aurora Teegarden book requested. I am a glutton.

I’ve also just finished the nine-book Little House series. I’d only read the first two when I was a girl, because that’s all my dinky school library had, but I sort of knew what happened even though I wasn’t a big devotee of the show. I mean, I saw enough of the show that all the characters in the book look like their TV counterparts in my head despite the illustrations, and every time Carrie was mentioned I pictured a little girl falling down in high grass. I knew Mary went blind, and I knew Laura married Almanzo, and I knew life on the prairie wasn’t easy. That’s pretty much all there was to it, right?

But somehow, there was more to it. They worked so hard, and were so resourceful. They loved each other so much, but their emotions were so repressed. They dealt with so many uncertainties so bravely. I used to think I’d have made it as a contemporary of Laura and Mary (I would’ve given Mary a run for her money at being the priggish little well-behaved rule-follower), but I don’t know if I’d have had the strength and grace necessary to make it as a contemporary of Ma and Pa Ingalls, what with the unceasing work, the continual threat of mortal danger to your kids’ lives, and the utter lack of book or time to read them.

Anyway, I really enjoyed reading these. I have to admit, though, that I skipped over the lyrics to most of the songs they sang (and they sang a lot of songs—Pa and his damned fiddle). I also skipped the detailed descriptions of their outfits, as buttons and hoops and corsets and hoops and layers upon layers of underwear just bore me. But I loved reading about the housework and the farming. Awesome.

Thinking of Little House naturally (ahem) leads me to Sci-Fi, namely Joss Whedon’s Firefly. I’d tried the pilot of this much-beloved show twice, and just couldn't settle into it. It opens with a battle scene featuring characters that you can't care about because you don't know, and . . . it just didn't work. I decided to give it another go last night, and it finally worked. GOD, it's good! It's so riveting! It's an odd combination of Little House and Star Wars and Gunsmoke and . . . I don’t know—was there ever a TV show about pirates?

Odd as it may seem, Firefly is like Little House--although it's set far in the future (and in space), the universe is crawling with PIONEERS. Mal, the captain of the ship, has a distinct whiff of Pa Ingalls about him (although Mal's a lot more menacing). The far-flung planets have been somehow given atmospheres, so humans can live on them, but from what I've seen so far they look like the Old West. They have horses and wear cowboy clothes and worry about supplies. They're settlers. Homesteaders, even. Their currency seems to be food, specifically nutritionally dense blocks of some kind of protein supplement. I don't have the back story yet, but I think Earth may be uninhabitable. And I don't think anyone I met in the pilot was an alien . . . this might be a show set in space but populated entirely by humans. That's rare, isn't it?

Anyway, I am totally thrilled to have this new television obsession, and I'm oddly pleased that there are only 14 episodes plus the movie. It feels so much more manageable than seven years of Buffy, and I’ll definitely be able to get through it before it’s time to go back to Dollhouse.

Oh, Joss Whedon, how do I love thee?

The Hilarious, the Crappy, and the Awesome

2009-08-19T09:26:00.003-04:00

Hilarious (to me, at least) excerpt from a text exchange between The Boy and me:

Me: We play the vikings on oct 13--favre has to come here!
The Boy: Right after they play the scary ravens.
Me: Maybe playing us and the scary ravens will make him retire for good.
TB: Or it will kill him . . .
Me: We have to admit he's pretty brave.
TB: No, he's pretty bavre.

Get it? Favre = bavre? Maybe you had to be there.

Crappy accidents after work yesterday:

That's not my car. I took this pic this morning, and my car was parked in that spot yesterday.

I have worked in the same building for seven years, exiting through the same door nearly every day. Yesterday, I walked straight into this fire escape and bashed my head. Hard. Hard enough to make one of those unintelligible grunting noises people make when they're hurt and surprised. My first thought (being a hypochondriac and all) was of Natasha Richardson. Of course.

Once I settled in the car and concluded that I wasn't seeing stars, bleeding, or bursting into tears, I headed to the library to pick up the Charlaine Harris book that was waiting there for me (the third book in the Lily Bard series). The Boy wasn't going to be home for dinner, so I decided to splurge on a sub from the sandwich shop across the street from the library. Thoughts of eating delicious take-out on the couch, reading my book, in my nicely air-conditioned house went a long way toward making me feel less pitiful for having bashed my head.

I ordered my sandwich and sat and the counter with my book while I waited for it. Then I left the shop with my sandwich, books, bag, drink, and keys in my hands . . . and tripped over something (my feet? my shoes? the doorstep?) and was only prevented from falling into the sidewalk by flinging my bent arm (remember, I was loaded down with stuff) into the corner of the doorjamb. I didn't fall, and I didn't even drop anything, but OH how my forearm aches.

I'm very hopeful that I've reached the end of my yearly injury quotient. And I won't go into detail about how I left a message on my friend P's answering machine, telling her I'd hit my head. I asked her to call me when she got the message, and told her that if I didn't answer, I was probably dead. I did this, because I AM A PARANOID HYPOCHONDRIAC, and so is she. She called, was relieved to find I wasn't dead, and totally felt my pain. She even called again, a few hours later, and was able to talk me down from my Natasha Richardson fears, thus allowing me to take a chance on going to sleep. (I had planned on staying awake all night, to assure that I wouldn't die in my sleep, thus depriving my son of his mother. Because, as I mentioned, I am a paranoid hypochondriac. With anxiety issues. Thank GOD for P.)

And now, have a look at my awesome knitting:

Cables! This is going to turn into a hot water bottle cover for my sister. It'll look like a very small turtleneck sweater--only without arms--and I'm really pleased with the progress. I got the yarn from a sale bin, and I couldn't be happier with its texture, color, and the way it knits up.

So, there. I started with a joke and ended with something pretty. So even though I am revealing what a clumsy, paranoid freak I am . . . maybe you won't be too afraid of me.

A Beautiful Weekend in Photos

2009-08-10T20:00:00.002-04:00

Finished dish cloths for my friend S. Ribbed, for her pleasure. (I've been dying to say that since I started knitting them.)

This pic is from my parents' local paper, which did an article about their church's annual parish festival and the ladies who make the pizzas. That adorable cutie is my grandma, who was mortified by what she thinks is a terrible picture. Come on, though--she's awesome!

This is my dad and The Boy, bonding over The Best Thing Ever -- the BB gun my dad gave The Boy. (With my permission and full blessing--I had one when I was 12, and I loved it.)

This is the target The Boy made to accompany the hanging cans my dad put up to shoot at. Note the evil cow, the Simpsons-like robot, and the clown--those were to be shot, but the butterfly and angelic bunny were to be avoided. Sport, you know. He also shot a pepper from my mom's garden and an apple from a tree in the yard. Good times.

And this is the pie I made for my mom and dad's anniversary. Look at those hearts! Because they LOVE each other. :-) I made them the pie and gave them a blown up and framed copy of the photo from my last post. People got choked up, which means it was a hit.

It was truly a beautiful weekend.

They Look Like They're Playing Dress Up

2009-08-05T10:05:00.001-04:00

My parents’ 40th wedding anniversary is this coming Sunday. She was nineteen and he was twenty, and while so many kids were off to Woodstock or college or Vietnam (the army wouldn’t take my dad because he has stupid feet like mine—thank God), my parents were getting married and going to work. He was a Journeyman in a machine shop, perfecting his skills as a tool and dye maker, and she was working in a sewing factory. She sewed the bridesmaid’s hideous yellow dresses herself, the reception was in my dad’s parents’ yard and garage, and they spent their honeymoon night in a motel about twenty minutes out of town.

They started dating when she was sixteen, and she’s never been with another guy. She doesn’t romanticize it—she’s told me more than once that she was desperate to escape her (mean, drunk, controlling) father’s house, and that she knew my dad was a nice, solid, steady man. She was certainly right about that. Her father didn’t attend the wedding (in fact, she didn’t see him after that until I was born about a year and a half later, on his birthday), but her brother came home from Vietnam to give her away.

So they pretty much got married as kids, lived with my dad’s parents for a while (tiny house, my Slovak immigrant grandparents and my dad’s three younger siblings, terrible cooking, non-stop polkas on the kitchen radio, and lots and lots of church), and then bought their own little two bedroom house—the house we all lived in until my little sister was two—for $8,000. Judging from some old photos and their sheepish reminiscences, there were lots of parties in that tiny house. Lots of motorcycles, lots of pot smoke and beer, lots of music, and a lot of happiness. My mom’s sisters and cousins and their boyfriends and eventual husbands all hung out there all the time, as did my dad’s friends and brothers. I had no end of attention from all of these young hippie types, and I loved being the star of the show until my wretched pest of a sister came along when I was about three and a half. (She had the nerve to be born on a night we were supposed to be going to the drive-in—I can clearly remember my mom’s water breaking as she came down the front porch stairs, which caused me to dance around singing, “Mommy peed her pa-ants! Mommy peed her pa-ants!”)

So my parents had two kids, a dog, a house, and an ever-changing stream of cars, trucks and motorcycles by the time they were 24 and 25. Money was tight and my mom was lonely and bored, so she fought my dad tooth and nail to convince him that it would be a good thing for her to go to school to get her nursing degree. He hated the idea. Hated it! Mothers were supposed to stay home, as his did—my paternal grandmother never even had a driver’s license! But she did it. She worked as a nurse’s aid while taking classes at the community college to become an RN, and then took classes at a branch campus of the state university to eventually earn her BSN while I was in college myself.

Their marriage had some tough times. He hated that she worked and went to school, and that her schedule actually kept her from church on Sundays AND saw her doing laundry and housework on Sundays—a double whammy, and very serious affronts to his Super Catholicism. He did little to help her, because he didn’t know or care how to do much in the way of housework—he had been raised with certain expectations, and was reluctant to change.

She met lots of new and interesting people, and I am almost positive there was a doctor who cared for her a great deal and wanted her to be more than friends. I was pretty sure when I was eleven or twelve that they were going to get divorced, and I found that I was okay with the idea for the most part, because I really wanted my mom to be happy, but I was sad for my dad, who I knew would never eat anything other than hot dogs and scrambled eggs, and who wouldn’t think to decorate for Christmas.

They got through it, though. And through a few more rough patches. Forty years, two kids, many pets and friends, two grandsons, one daughter’s divorce (hi!), the deaths of all of their parents but my mom’s mom, and they’re still going strong. They’re too used to each other to not be together forever. And if you prodded them, they’d probably even admit that they love each other a whole lot.

So . . . Happy Anniversary to them! Let’s hope we can throw them a huge-ass fancy party for their 50th!

Can Fun be Ruined by Something That Happens After?

2009-08-03T11:42:00.001-04:00

The Boy and I took his one of his friends to join my mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew for a weekend of water park fun at Kalahari Resort in northern Ohio. We had a wonderful time in the water and on the slides, and the kids loved the huge Dave-and-Buster’s-style game room. The whole place was very clean and well-kept, there were life guards positioned all over the place—like every twenty feet or so—and all of the staff members were very friendly and helpful. Everyone had a very good time, and I planned to come home (after a stop at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton) and write a rave review of the resort as a great family destination for people within a three or four hour drive of the place.

And then I heard this morning that a three-year-old drowned there after we left yesterday. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that we were gone when it happened—I know I’m cowardly, but I hope I never have to have contact with that kind of grief. The poor, poor family!

The mom said she lost sight of the little boy, who was playing with an older brother, and I can see how that could happen, because the pool areas got really, really crowded as the days heated up, because you don’t have to be staying at the resort to use the pools and slides. At one point the wave pool looked like a can of sardines. So I’m wondering if this kind of tragedy could be prevented if Kalahari would change its admissions policies to only allow a certain number of people to use the place at any given time.

Sigh. I had been planning on taking The Boy and another kid for a weekend over the winter, as they are well beyond the age where they need to be followed around, so I could just park myself in a hotel room, order up some room service, and read and knit to my heart’s content, but now I may rethink it. Not because I think they’d be in too much danger, but because . . . it seems weird to me to think of heading for a weekend of fun to a place where a child died. Is that stupid? I don’t know.

Hi, Apple Pie

2009-07-27T10:40:00.001-04:00

I was in the mood for apple pie Saturday, and nothing else was going to satisfy me, so I baked one using the Old World Dutch Apple Pie recipe I found in the cookbook that came with my food processor. I only used Granny Smith apples (they called for mixing up apple types), because that’s all I had, but I pretty much followed the rest of the recipe exactly, and . . . WOW. My usual pie is pretty decent, if I do say so myself, but this one is out of this world. It’s got the crumbly top, made with butter, flour, brown sugar, rolled oats, and walnuts, and the filling is unbelievable: I mixed eggs, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla and poured that over the apples and then topped it with the crumblies and baked it.

I seriously think this pie may be the most delicious thing I’ve ever baked. It’s amazing. The crust is buttery and flaky, the filling is firm and sweet/tart, and the topping is slightly crunchy and caramelized. It is just unbelievable, and I had to make sure to invite people over to help get rid of it so I wouldn’t spend the rest of the weekend doing nothing but reading and eating pie. SO GOOD.

Speaking of reading, I’m working my way through Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, and I can’t say enough good things about it. It’s pleasantly readable and oh-so-interesting, and I’m learning a lot, I think. It’s much like Barbara Ehrenreich’s books (of which I am a fan), but less judgey. It’s facts and flow and things to think about, and I highly recommend it. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to DO with the information and ideas I’m gathering, but at this point I want to put a complete hold on purchasing anything but food. I want to save up money to buy things of the highest quality—things made locally or regionally by craftsmen and artists and artisans—that will last forever.

For now, though, I will content myself with my knitting and making fewer trips to Target. Baby steps, man. Baby steps.

I’m taking sluggish, drowsy steps right now. The Boy got food poisoning at his camp and couldn’t get a hold of his dad in the middle of the night (WHY DO PEOPLE NOT KEEP THEIR PHONES BY THEIR BEDS?), so I had to fetch the poor puking kid at the crack of dawn Saturday after listening to him puke via cell phone in the wee hours of the morning. Talk about heartbreaking. The culprit was some chicken he had with his dad before leaving Friday night—I’m sure of it, because he brought me the leftovers, and when I opened the fridge Saturday morning, it REEKED. Gross. But The Boy was fine after some water, toast, and apple slices. He took a nice nap on the couch (I joined him), and I win the prize for Best Parent. C feels like the Worst Dad in the World because The Boy couldn’t reach him and left so many pathetic messages, and . . . frankly, he should. When he’s the parent on duty, he has to be reachable 24/7, whether the kid’s with him or not. Lesson learned. But thank God the situation wasn’t serious.

And then I spent Saturday night visiting with a friend I usually only see about once a year, so I didn’t get to bed until almost 5am. I am so not a night owl, and am so very out of synch. I can’t wait to go to bed tonight (after I’ve had some pie, of course). I bet I won’t even make it till dark.

Off to College

2009-07-24T18:04:00.003-04:00

I just sent my boy off to college. He's got an enormous duffle bag filled with clothes, sports equipment, toiletries, a pillow, sheets, and blanket, a book and book light, his iPod, and an over-the-door mini-basketball and hoop set. For his dorm room.

He's going to a referee camp over the weekend, where he will play games, brush up on skills, and then test to get re-certified to ref for 2010.

He'll be home Sunday, for which I'm grateful. I know he's only going into 7th grade, but this whole "stuff for the dorms" business has me on high alert for flying time. Sunrise, sunset. :-)

A Very MLE Kind of Day

2009-07-23T10:02:00.004-04:00

So the Jupiter thing is pretty cool. Imagine being that amateur astronomer who found something so major--how exciting! But as I listened to the story about this dark spot, I couldn't help think about this, from MLE's A Swiftly Tilting Planet:

"At Tara in this fateful hour,
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the Earth with its starkness —
All these I place
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness."

Remember that? To ward off the Ecthroi and their spreading darkness? Yikes. That's stuck with me for a long time. So I looked for a picture of Jupiter's newest feature, and found this:

The light spots are actually the dark thing, and I was relieved to see such a relatively small mass, rather than the ever-growing malignant cloak I saw in my mind's eye (I do have my drama queen moments).

And THEN my friend K sent me a link to an article about Sangeeta Bhatia. K saw Bhatia on NOVA the other evening and was terribly impressed with the biomedical engineer who's using "computer-chip technology to craft tiny livers." The woman is a scientist, teacher, mother, and mentor, and I love her.

I grew to love her even more when I read the interview and she said this, in answer to a question about what normally happens to liver cells when they're forced to live outside the body:

"Normally, when you take liver cells out of the body and you put them on a dish, they lose all their functions. They're not "happy" in that environment, because you've taken them out of the body, where they've gotten lots of signals that keep them happy. So the goal of my Ph.D. was to think about how to surround them with neighbors that would make them happier—to sort of give them a better community—and to figure out how that needed to be organized so that they would function best."

Does that remind you of MLE in any way? Think of A Wind in the Door, and those pesky litte farandolae--the one we got to know was called Sporos--who would "deepen" and so were screwing up Charles Wallace's mitochondria and cells and were killing him?

Sometimes MLE astounds me.

Perfect Weekend

2009-07-20T08:42:00.003-04:00

I am truly easy to please. My perfect weekend? Friday night P came over for pizza, MST3K's Zombie Nightmare (with Adam West!), and Phase 10 with The Boy and me. We listened to the radio cursed one another for playing Skip cards and winning hands, and acted generally goofy and had a great time. C and I used to play Phase 10 with our friends all the time before and just after we got married, and I think that if Bjork or Morrisey had come on the radio Friday night I would have been crushed under the weight of some great time warp, but thankfully I was spared.

Saturday I got groceries early, so I nearly had the whole store to myself, and a lovely bagger boy helped me load the groceries into my car. The Boy unloaded them. I felt like The Rich must feel on a regular basis, and thought briefly of my recurring rich and loving-but-not-clingy husband daydream.

I did a bit of housework, lazed, knitted, watched the eminently unsatisfying remake of Yours, Mine, and Ours with The Boy, got my hair cut and colored (so far overdue that I was starting to want to wear a ski hat in July), and then took The Boy and my nephew to my parents' for general porch sitting and playing in their huge yard.

Yesterday I took The Boy and another kid to a birthday party (they are starting to turn thirteen: The Year of the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs starts in a few weeks), and repaid myself for the drive to the wretched suburb with a trip to Half-Price Books, which just happened to be in the strip mall adjacent to the party's mini-golf course. I didn't find a SINGLE book I was looking for--I have Charlaine Harris Mania now, and would like to read her other series, and I was hoping against hope that someone would have read and discarded the newest Maisie Dobbs, which I've listened to but want to read/own because I have all the others. I was looking for a few other things too, but I couldn't find a single one. So I bought a copy of Cloud Atlas for a dollar, and then cleaned up in the DVDs. I got the first season of King of the Hill, the first season of Veronica Mars, the second season of Angel, and The Scorpion King (I love The Rock--sue me).

Add those scores to the fact that I picked up Gillian Flynn's new book, Dark Places, at the library, and it's great so far (Libby, the main character, is mean, nasty, bitter, and refreshingly unashamed to be so), AND the fact that I finished the back of the sweater I'm knitting, and it was just a really great weekend. The perfect mix of work, play, and lazy. Hooray!

I've never come this far on such an involved knitting project--I'm so proud!

Look! I've had that stitch holder for years, and never used it before last night!

I Have Problems

2009-07-17T09:30:00.002-04:00

Okay, there are many people who have more problems than I do, like the fella I'm about to tell you about, but as you will see, I do indeed have issues.

You may recall that a while ago I mentioned a co-worker who insists that moon and June do not rhyme. I may not have mentioned at that time that said co-worker also collects (and talks to) Beanie Babies, wears bow ties with sandals, socks, and shorts (all at the same time), has a baby face, sings like an angel, and is a grandfather in his 60s. He's a very nice man--the kind who would never hurt a fly--but he's also the kind of person whose whimsical nature seems a little put-on to me, and there are few things that drive me crazier than forced whimsy.

So he bugs me, which makes me feel bad because I know he's really a good person.

Anyway, he stopped to chit chat this morning, and happened to mention that the university's ILL Department was able to find a book for him that he hadn't been able to track down anywhere, no matter how hard he tried. He was so grateful when he went in to pick up the book that he hung around to give praise to the librarian, who then--to humor him and maybe get him to quit embarrassing her, I bet--asked about the subject of the book. He told her the book was about Denny Dennis, known in the 40s as "The English Bing Crosby." "Oh," sniffed the librarian, "Didn't he abuse his kids?"

At this point in the story, my co-worker stopped to take a deep breath. He had tears in his eyes. He leaned over mile file cabinet to hide his face in his hands. When he was strong enough, he said, with shaking voice, "That woman is an asshole. Bing Crosby did not abuse his children. I know the truth."

Well. Oh, dear. What to do with this crying man child? I said, "You know, I have a grudge against that library--they won't give me a job!" We sort of commiserated there a bit, and then MY PHONE RANG, so he wandered away. THANK GOD!

So then I quickly jumped online to see just how hard this book would be to find. BECAUSE I CARE, for some reason. I don't care about the British Bing, but I had to know what was giving the crazy co-worker so much trouble. Turns out it's out of print, but readily available if you have a bit of cash. Why do I care? I suppose because I have a Master's Degree, dammit, and must use it whenever the situation presents itself.

I have problems.

Potterific

2009-07-15T18:01:00.003-04:00

The Boy and I saw the Half Blood Prince movie today (I am dork enough to have scheduled a vacation day from work for it), and while there are a few problems/issues, I think it's the best one since Prisoner of Azkaban. We'll see it again at the drive-in with my mom this weekend, and I may see it once more on my own.

My GOD are those kids cute!

I seriously heart Luna.

The Hypocrisy of Disco

2009-07-12T18:03:00.003-04:00

I picked up The Hypocrisy of Disco thanks to Badger, and I have to agree with her overall assessment. I almost didn't bother, because I was afraid the book would be too much like The Glass Castle, which put me off memoirs for a long time, but Clane Hayward never offers up any sort Poor Me feelings the way Jeannette Walls did.

Hayward is completely matter of fact about her childhood, even though there was a lot of sadness involved. She often didn't have enough food. She was regularly filthy. She realized once later, when an uncle's girlfriend was washing her hair, that no one had touched her lovingly or tenderly in a very long time--that's the saddest thing for me right there. My parents were super-young when they got married, and spent a lot of time living as super-young people in the late 60s and early 70s did (there are plenty of snapshots to prove it), but my sister and I always knew we were loved. Yes, there was plenty of alcohol and more than a few illicit substances involved in their Harley driving, Big Brother & the Holding Co. lives, but my parents held our hands, held us while we slept, kissed our sweaty heads, and made us bathe. Sure there was macrame and wheat germ and whiskey in my tea when I was sick, but I had a home and parents who loved me and took care of me when I was sick.

Did I sometimes wish we were more normal? Sure. I wanted to be "straight" as much as Hayward did--but reading this book makes me realize how close to straight we actually were. It's a good book, and sometimes a fun book, and I feel enormous respect for Hayward.

And now I want to go hug my kid and call my parents.

Pin a Rose on My Nose

2009-07-10T21:57:00.003-04:00

Guess what I just did? I pre-ordered a book for my dad . . . FOR CHRISTMAS! Which means that I also just created the annual Christmas Spreadsheet, including a list of people to whom I'd like to give gifts, ideas for those gifts, purchase (or knit) date, and amount of money spent/pending so I can keep a sort of budget.

Line my eyes and call me pretty! (And then enjoy this picture of a lemony good Christmas tree from a few Phipps' exhibits ago.)

Does it Still Count?

2009-07-08T09:29:00.003-04:00

C and I just wished one another a happy 14th wedding anniversary. We figure that since neither one of us regrets the marriage (who can regret years of happiness, plus the extra special bonus gift of The Boy), we might as well acknowledge the day happily. True, we aren't married anymore, but sometimes I think we like each other more than many married couples do. Hmm . . . maybe he'll even buy me something shiny for our 20th? He *does* like shopping, and he has great taste.

I have been doing very little lately, which is okay by me. I'm working on a delightful summer cold, I think, and tearing through Sookie Stackhouse novels. I think I'm on the 5th, and I have the 6th ready in my bag in case I finish while I'm away from home. I'm also listening to the newest Maisie Dobbs book, Among the Mad. I'll buy the novel once it's out in paperback, because I like the series very much, but it's making for a good listen--an excellent knitting companion.

I am working on a sweater for my mom. I abandoned the socks I started for The Boy, because I am incapable of dealing with those tiny freaking sticks and the wretched string--it takes too long, and I guess I'm much too impatient. Maybe someday. The sweater is going well, though. Here's a pic of the back. I have about three more inches of stockinette to go before I move along to arms.

I had to figure out how to do a provisional cast-on for the hem, which I think looks great. I found the pattern on the Mason-Dixon Knitting site. I have their first book, and I love it, and this pattern seems pretty lovable so far--it's called The Perfect Sweater, and if it works out, it could be my new best friend. We'll see. I promised The Boy I'd make him a Harry Potter-style scarf in his school colors next.

Speaking of The Boy, he's at a soccer camp at his school every morning this week. The school is just about three miles from our house, in a very nice neighborhood. There is another very nice neighborhood between ours and the school's. I have been letting The Boy leave camp, walk into the middle neighborhood for lunch, library, browsing at the store that sells video games, etc. He calls to keep in touch, but he pretty much has free reign. I'm comfortable with it, and glad he feels comfortable doing it--he's going to be in 7th grade, after all, so he's not a little kid anymore.

Do you know, though, that there's only one other kid in his grade who's allowed to join him? One kid was allowed to go on a school trip to the rain forests in Costa Rica for two weeks, but he's not allowed to spend an unsupervised afternoon roaming his own neighborhood. I just don't get it.

Success!

2009-06-29T11:28:00.003-04:00

I used to watch Dexter, the good little mad scientist, on Cartoon Network all the time, and I've never felt more like him than I did as I surveyed my new floor on Saturday. Behold:

I still need to get the quarter-round stuff and paint the baseboards, but it's SO NICE! It's pretty and clean and makes the room so much better!

My parents came down Saturday, and my dad brought a portable table saw which helped enormously. Even giving the break for grilled sausages, potato salad, regular salad, iced tea and brownies, we were still finished in four hours. Awesome.

RIP

2009-06-25T18:34:00.003-04:00

This is how they'll look in my head, forever and always.

You Know What's Nice?

2009-06-24T21:16:00.003-04:00

Proper tools! See, I'm trying to deal with the sweet new floor, and it really is going to be wonderful--a vast improvement over the nasty, smelly old carpeting, I tell ya what--but it's hard to do a good job without the right tools. Look at what I had to do to cut out the section for the register:

I only have a small circular saw borrowed from my brother-in-law. It's fine for cutting the ends of the planks, but it wasn't quite what I needed for this particular job. I made a bunch of diagonal cuts so the pieces would fall out. Yes, it looks like a saber-tooth tiger took a bite out of it, but who cares, right? No one will see it once the cover is put back on the register.

Happily, my dad is sympathetic to my plight and is going to deliver some tools (and some helping hands) on Sunday. I can't WAIT to have it finished!!

Hi-diddely-ho, Neighborinos!

2009-06-23T09:00:00.003-04:00

I'm back to work this week, and oddly cheerful about it. Normally I come back from vacation feeling like a spoiled brat in the classic Give Her an Inch, She'll Take a Mile sense--time off only makes me want more time off. Not this time, though. Maybe because I was so completely lazy last week? Maybe I finally did get properly rested up? Whatever the cause of this extended happy mood, I'm going with it.

I'm also, like Badger, going with some sock knitting. I've tried it before, but chickened out when it came time to turn the heel, this time, though, I'm determined to soldier on. I'm planning to give the socks to The Boy, so I had him choose the yarn.

Hello, Steeler socks! I started knitting last Thursday, interested to try using two circular needles rather than four DPNs (it's not much different, as far as I can tell), and things were going well until I dropped the ball of yarn into a mud puddle on Father's Day. I shrieked an expletive into the rainy sky, and then quickly put the yarn in a drying rack in the kitchen sink to dry. I got started again last night, and will just have to make sure the socks get washed before The Boy wears them.

I've been listening to the sixth Harry Potter book while knitting (and working on installing my sweet new laminate floor in the dining room, which will be another post), because I want it to be fresh in my mind when I see the movie next month. I love this book, and I'm very afraid the movie is going to be a disaster like the last one. Regardless, though, I'm pretty sure I'll see it more than once.

I also just re-read the Twilight books (which I just *can't* like), and have requested the first Anita Blake novel from the library. Oh, and I ordered the Sookie Stackhouse box set from Amazon, because this Salon article kind of told me to. It seems it's going to be the Summer of the Vampire, which could be kind of fun. Maybe I'll watch Buffy and Angel again, too.

Speaking of watching things, I finally caved and got Netflix. I only have the $12/month basic cable, so I figured an extra $9 a month was justified. The very best thing about Netflix is their Watch Instantly option. It's just like having the On Demand thing cable and FIOS offers, but the library of available movies and TV shows is getting bigger every day. And I bought this thing called a Roku Box that allows my TV to access my wireless broadband connection and stream Netflix to my TV! So awesome! You seriously can't beat it for $9/month.

Lately I've watched His Girl Friday and Holiday, both featuring Cary Grant and both wonderful. (Cary Grant makes me want to dress in heels, false eyelashes, and lipstick and be a WOMAN instead of the grown-up girl/teen-aged boy hybrid that I mostly seem to be.) I've also watched I Capture the Castle, which isn't as good as the book, but isn't bad--and it features Riley from Buffy and a grown-up Elliot from E.T., which was fun to see.

And . . . that's it, I think. The weather has turned idyllic, there's a baby bunny living in my front yard (which The Boy is stalking with carrots and a camera), the dads I know all enjoyed their Fathers' Days, and I have left over taco salad for lunch. What more can one woman ask for?

Vacation: Porch View U

2009-06-16T19:54:00.005-04:00

I am on vacation this week, and so far I am living like I did in college, minus all the beer and smoking. The Boy's best friend J is here--my favorite kid in the world that I'm not related to--and J, The Boy, and I have been hanging out in the living room since Sunday night. We've watched some movies and many episodes of South Park, and I have been reading while they play video games.

We also played football in the front yard. I wouldn't bother telling you this, but it made my day today, because a guy walked by as we were playing (I was QB, J was the receiver, and The Boy was defending, flopping around in his best imitation of Troy Polamalu), and he asked the boys whether I was their mom. The Boy answered that I was, and the guy said, "Man, that was a good pass!" The boys were appropriately impressed. :-)

We watched Die Hard this afternoon. I haven't seen it since it came out, and I've never seen any of the sequels, but I have to say that it's an excellent example of what an action movie should be.

You've got your charismatic hero, lots of snappy lines, a smart and kindly sidekick, chases, fires, explosions, derring-do, general violence, and a spectacular villain.

Oh, Alan Rickman. I'll take your Hans Gruber any day.

The only thing that dates this movie (besides the horrible hair on the women) is the fact that the hero, John McClane, fights FOR the big corporation. I think now the hero would probably fight with the guys who are sick of the big corporation's greed.

It's been a great vacation so far, but I'm promising myself that I'll get some work done tomorrow. I want to go through some old clothes, hem some curtains, paint my bedroom, and continue my quest for flooring to replace my god-awful carpeting. It'll be nice to care care of business, but I'll miss living in the dorms.

City of Champions

2009-06-12T22:53:00.005-04:00

Check out the hardware that now lives in Pittsburgh!

Lord Stanley's Cup . . .

Meet Vince Lombardi's Trophey!

These two trophies have never met--they've never lived in the same city in the same season . . . until now!

Congratulations Pens!! Hockey, football, Most Livable City . . . I am very proud of my hometown.

Life of the Party

2009-06-10T13:25:00.004-04:00

I know this isn't a great picture, but I took it while I was stopped at a red light behind this van.

I don't know how well you'll be able to see the smaller type, but on the left (above the flag) it says, "Urine A-1 Hands With Us," and on the right it says, "We're #1 in the #2 Business!" And did you catch the bumper sticker on the bottom right? STOOL BUS.

I can't decide whether I love the guy who owns this business, or if he's a brighter, more ambitious version of the Randy Quaid uncle from Christmas Vacation.

Then again, who says I can't love him if he's Randy Quaid? At least he doesn't take himself too seriously.

June Rhymes with Moon

2009-06-08T08:46:00.002-04:00

One of the fellas I work with has an oddly misplaced Patrician accent--think Katherine Hepburn--and he insists that the vowel sounds in June and moon are not the same. He makes June have an "ew" sound, and it drives me bananas.

The Boy will officially be in 7th grade as of noon (which rhymes with moon AND June) today. He'll take Algebra I, and have Spanish everyday. The so far generic Science will morph into generic Biology. Social Studies will turn into American History. Language Arts will stay the same. He's growing up.

I didn't do much this weekend, beyond basic housework and driving The Boy from here to there (the Spring Ref season is over, and the last soccer game for his travel team is Sunday, so weekends will be a lot easier, which, thank God, because I'm tired of having soccer eat my weekends). I did a little experiment with a cheap vinyl roller shade, spray mount, and some fabric I had laying around, and was able to replace an old, ugly, dirtier than I'd like to admit set of vinyl blinds with a reasonably pretty, sturdy, CLEAN shade in my living room. I learned a few lessons from this first go, and will try it again on another window over the weekend.

That's pretty much it, though. Oh! I watched Role Models last night. C got it through Netflix, and told me I needed to watch it. I was skeptical, despite my fondness for most of the cast, but it's surprisingly funny, sweet, and well written. I recommend it.

And that's it. We're in a fund drive this week, so I feel like I'm looking through a long, long tunnel at next weekend, but I already can't wait for it. And I might take next week off . . . woo hoo!

Head Bumps

2009-06-02T09:55:00.002-04:00

If you haven't seen this commercial for Bumpits, please go watch it and then come back. I'll wait. And don't be lazy--it's worth it, I promise.

Did you watch?!?! I don't even know what to say about this. I mean, I guess it's not really that different from stuffing your bra, but it seems like you'd be so much more likely to get busted--because there's a big plastic lump hiding under your hair.

I don't mind some of the styles they show, I guess, but I find the product pretty hilarious. (And how did they make big bee-hive hair in the 60s? Surely Bumpits aren't a recycled thing? And SURELY surely Amy Winehouse doesn't use Bumpits. I mean, she'd never be able to keep track of them, for one thing.) The poor women and girls in this low-budget commercial don't do anything to detract from the hilarity. Note the jaunty little . . . flourish (?) the Asian girl puts on. Her hair bump makes her perky!

12 1/2

2009-05-28T14:58:00.002-04:00

Okay, I give. Being the mother of a kid who’s almost not a kid any more is starting to . . . well, let’s just say it’s starting. First came the Great Oral Sex Talk (TM), and then came a sleep over with a friend the night before The Boy and said friend went to see a movie with another kid. And no parent. And GIRLS. (This was a totally harmless and upstanding visit to a multiplex to see the Wolverine movie. The mother who drove them all in her van stayed and watched Angels & Demons. Nothing to worry about, aside from, you know: girls.)

Most of The Boy’s friends have their own phones now, so you can probably imagine what the sleep over was like. Remember how, when we were kids, you went to a sleep over with your girl friends and one or two of the girls (never me, because I was too shy and puritanical [my, how that changed]) spent as much time as possible calling different boys and asking them who they liked? Think of how that scenario changes when each kid has his or her own phone. The Boy and his friend thought it was funny at first, but ended up shutting of their phones after a while, so they could end the deluge of “Who do you likes,” and get down to the serious business of playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii.

So, haha. Cute and all. But then it seems that The Boy and his friend got a little too big (stupid, mean, bitchy) for their britches. They wrote two stories about two boys in their class, and neither story was flattering. How do I know they wrote these stories? The idiots saved them to my laptop’s hard drive. Imagine my surprise when I opened up Word and saw a doc called “N Sucks.” I only hesitated a moment before reading it and the other file. And then I checked my browser history to see whether the two files had been e-mailed. Sigh. They had.

In truth, both stories were unkind, but pretty tame aside from one where a character called another a “stupid homo.” This more than anything is what compelled me to have a serious discussion with The Boy, because while I know my kid isn’t perfect, I like to think he’s got a bit of honor in him (I know it’s an antiquated word, but I refuse to believe it’s an antiquated notion). And kids who care about honor don’t make fun of other kids, and they CERTAINLY don’t let other kids use homo as an insult. Especially if their dads are gay. Mmm-kay? I knew The Boy himself didn’t write that little gem. In fact, I’m pretty familiar with The Boy’s writing style and vocabulary and know that he didn’t contribute much at all (I know, for example, that he had a character turn into a Muppet [he’s finishing up an art project that mirrors Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, using Jim Henson as his guest of honor] and then get defenestrated [we’ve been cracking defenestration jokes for weeks—it’s a funny word]).

What bothers me, though, is that The Boy went along. And I’ve seen him cave to this other kid’s whims since they were pretty small. Time for a talk.

I asked The Boy what he could tell me about some stories he and A (the other kid—in fact the very kid whose dad is an ass and who was trying to force the big stupid house on his wife) had written. Immediately, The Boy’s face fell. He said, “We wrote some stories that were stupid and mean, and we shouldn’t have done it.” I asked what he was thinking, and he said he didn’t really know, but that it was late and they were tired and being stupid. And then he said, “I feel especially bad about the story about R, because I don’t even know him!”

I was glad about two things: He seemed to honestly feel bad (he was near tears), and he didn’t try to sell out A, who I know was the driving force here. But I still had to get to the little matter of his allowing A to use the word homo as an insult—-in The Boy’s presence, and in our home. I told him he has to speak up about stuff like that. We talked about how to speak up, and how hard it is. And we talked about the fact that I had cool, funny friends who could be mean, and who were very hard to stand up to.

And then I told him that I’ll give him one more chance, but if I see him not being able to stand up to A, they won’t be allowed to hang out together outside of school.

It was a long, good talk. And I hope it made some kind of difference. I made The Boy e-mail the two girls he and A had sent the stories to. He told them both he’d had second thoughts, that he knew the stories were mean and stupid, and that he hoped they’d both delete them and forget about them.

And I called A’s mom and filled her in. She was really upset, but of course A’s dad said she was overreacting, that boy’s will be boys, and that e-mailing those stories was no big deal at all. Because A’s dad is an asshole. And despite his mother’s best efforts, A is heading right down the same path.

I just hope I don’t have to say the same for The Boy.

"Let's Have Some Fun, This Beat is Sick. I Wanna Take a Ride on Your Disco Stick."

2009-05-14T08:16:00.003-04:00

So. SO. I am a dork and a geek, and am one of those adults for whom much of popular culture--especially where music is concerned--disappeared once parenthood came along. The Boy was born at the tail end of 1996, and pretty much the last "new" band I remember really liking was Ben Folds Five.

A few things permeated my oblivion: Eminem and his Slim Shady would often stick in my head. I saw Outkast on SNL and fell in love with them. I have a bit of a thing for the Black Eyed Peas. For the most part, though, I've spent the last twelve-plus years bringing up The Boy on a steady diet of public radio and the music I loved from birth to about age 26, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash and Buffalo Springfield, Barenaked Ladies and Counting Crows, Nirvana and Hole. He had a brief foray into bands like AC/DC when he played guitar, but for the most part he just coasted along with whatever I offered, expressing dislike for anything too slow or lovey, but that's about it.

The time has come, though, for The Boy to want to listen to the songs the other kids are listening to, so we've been watching some videos on YouTube and listening to the pop music station in the car sometimes . . . which means that for the first time in my life . . . I am looking at pop music from The Other Side--The Grown-up Side. I've found the Peas, of course, whose Boom Boom Pow song pleases and amuses me ("I'm so 3008; your so 2000 and late,"), Britney's Circus, which is fine, and Lady Gaga. That's her lyric from the title up there, from her song Love Game. Here's the link to the video, if you care to have a look. (I really dig her silver nail polish, but am fully aware of the fact that I am much, much too old for it.)

Anyway . . . yeah. Things are pretty sexed up, aren't they? I laughed out loud the first time I heard Lady Gaga mention her interest in riding some fella's disco stick, and I asked The Boy whether he had any thoughts as to what said line might be referring to. He said, "I think she means penis," and I said, "I think you're right." We talked a little bit about how it seems that sex is pretty much inescapable in pop music and popular culture in general, and how that just seems insane to him, even if he likes the way the songs sound. And then, THEN . . . we heard Right Round, the Flo Rida song that I GUESS is a cover of the Dead or Alive song from the 80s. Do you know this song? Unabashedly about oral sex? Call me crazy, but I wanted to make sure The Boy would know what he was saying if he found himself walking along, singing, "You spin my head round, baby, right round, when you go down, when you go down down." Here's a transcript of that bit of the conversation:

Me: You know this song is about oral sex, right?
The Boy: "What?!?
M: Going down is a euphemism for oral sex.
TB: What's oral sex?
M: [Without even a pause, as if I'm totally cool with what I'm about to say to
MY PRECIOUS BABY BOY.] When you use your mouth to stimulate someone's
genitals during sex.
TB: [Long pause.] OH MY GOD, YUCK!!!
M: Yeah, I thought it was gross too, when I first heard about it, but it turns
out that it's actually a nice thing when you're ready for it.
TB: [Total disbelief; turns up volume on music, ending discussion.]

And so ends a tender parental interlude, wherein I try to play it cool while wildly following my gut and hoping I'm doing the right thing. I mean, sex is a good thing. Knowledge is power. Right? What's weird is that I had no problem at all discussing "the birds and the bees" with The Boy; why should oral sex be any different? What's my problem?

Where in the Hell Have I Been?

2009-04-30T12:35:00.004-04:00

I couldn't tell you. I've been around. I've had things to say. I've been reading my normal blogs. I just haven't posted. I didn't feel like it, and, you know, producing great art such as this is all about being in the mood.

Anyway. I'm knitting.

This thing is going to need a ton of blocking, but if it actually works out it will be the top of a cover for my old ottoman. The poor thing doesn't go with my new(-ish, now) living room furniture. First, it was too short. I solved that problem by putting casters on the bottom, and now it's the right height AND roly-poly. It's still to purple, though. This cover will help a lot. I hope.

I've also been reading Mrs. Miniver, which I hadn't even realized was a novel until I read The Gentle Art of Domesticity (which I will get back to in a minute). Mrs. Miniver was written in 1939, but I promise you that if the author, Jan Struther, were writing now, she'd totally have a blog. Each chapter of the book is a wonderful, wonderful blog entry--only written in the third person. In fact, if Suse of Pea Soup were British and wrote in the the third person, she would be the Modern Day Miniver. In style and outlook, that is. That might change when I've finished the book, but I can't help but think of her as I'm reading.

Okay, now for The Gentle Art of Domesticity: I liked some of this book, but I was put off by a lot more of it. The photos are wonderful, but awfully self-congratulatory. The author is So Very Pleased with Her Wonderful Life--not that she shouldn't be, but . . . I don't know. I didn't feel inspired as much as I did pitied, and that's not comfortable. But I did like the way she referred to books and movies that she felt inspired domesticity, and that's where I found Mrs. Miniver, for which I will be eternally grateful.

She also recommended the 1954 Frank Sinatra/Doris Day vehicle Young at Heart, which I didn't like all that much. Sinatra was SO handsome then, but Doris Day was a terrible match for him. Plus, she reminds me of the squinchy Renee Zellweger, whom I only ever liked in Bridget Jones.

Here are pics for comparison (I had a terrible time finding one of RZ smiling or looking at all happy, by the way):

Can you see it, or is it just me?

I also watched Houseboat, based on a recommendation from TGAoD, and I liked that one MUCH better. First of all, Cary Grant. Second, Sophia Loren! She's so hot that her acting and her stupid Bing, Bang, Bong song don't matter at all. Plus, unlike Day/Sinatra, Loren is a great match for Grant--and they're fun to watch despite the gap in their ages.

That's about it for me, though. We're in a pledge drive at work (support your public radio station), and The Boy is out of town for a school trip to Wallops Island, VA, to visit the NASA Flight Facility (where they get to participate in a mock launch) and a wildlife preserve where they'll wade waist-deep into marshes and go out of boats to do water studies. He's most excited about getting to stay in a hotel room with his friends, of course. He'll be back tomorrow night, and I can't wait to hear all about it. I sent him with a water-proof disposable camera, but god knows if it will ever leave his bag.

And now . . . I'm off for a nap.

My Dad

2009-04-07T09:33:00.003-04:00

Remember a while ago when I had the Cat Pee Problem? It's been cleared up since late summer, but there was a certain spot in a corner of what used to be the dining room that became a favorite. No matter what I cleaned that portion of carpet with, I could still smell traces of pee if I put my nose right up to it. It wasn't really a problem, though, since the cats left the spot alone and I never spent much time lying prostrate in the dining room, sniffing the floor.

Who knew, though, that months later I would turn the dining room into the living room? Who knew that once The Boy and I started spending most of our time in the new living room, the cats' interest in the corner would be renewed? Ugh. So I scrubbed the carpet again, to no avail. Then I made the bold, bold move of ripping out the carpet, scrubbing the floor with TSP (tri-sodium phosphate) which my dentist (who had a similar problem with his dogs) recommended. You know what? The cats are STILL interested in the freaking corner, and I busted one cat RED HANDED (pawed?), peeing like my living room is his own personal WC.

My solution? Make it so the stupid cats can't get into the corner at all. Right? If they can't get there, they can't pee there. Take that, Kitties! I don't possess any furniture that fits into that corner without allowing kitty access, so I decided to build one. I'm no master crafts(wo)man, but I know my way around a wood shop and was confident I could slap something together, once I had the right tools (I lost the power tools in the divorce).

So I called my dad to see if I could bring the wood, screws and hinges (because my table would have a hinged lid and serve as a box in which to store blankets) to his place and use his tools to make a table. He immediately started quizzing me about measurements and materials and finishing techniques. Gah! It took me a long time to convince him that I wasn't trying to build a masterpiece--literally the only portion of this box on legs that would be seen would be the table top--and once convinced, he told me to not buy anything before he had a chance to poke around and see what he could find for free. Fine. I like free.

So he called me Sunday to confirm the measurements I had given him, saying he found a piece of maple he thought might work for the top. There wasn't enough of the maple, though, so he again quizzed me about how I would finish the thing, and whether the top could be plywood, because he had enough of that. I assured him that plywood was fine, because I wanted to try to decoupage the top, anyway ("You want to WHAT? What the hell's that?"), and we dropped the subject in favor discussing The Boy's earlier soccer game, all wood working forgotten.

Or so I thought. My dad called me last night to tell me that he had the whole thing pretty much done. Done! I asked him to send me a picture, and then explained how he could send and receive pictures with his cell phone, something he was very skeptical about. He gave it a whirl, though, and here's the result:

How about that? It looks bigger than it is, because of the angle, but it should be perfect once I finish it. And the cats will be able to sit on it and look out the window but won't be able to get anywhere near the floor. Ha! We humans and our opposable thumbs will not be defeated by domesticated pets!

Hooray for my dad!

FNL

2009-04-03T22:06:00.004-04:00

Do you want to know how good a television show Friday Night Lights is? The Dillon Panthers played their state championship game tonight, and I was on my feet. Please consider that a fictional football game featuring fictional characters had me on my feet, cheering. I may have even called out a few names and threw my arms up in the Touchdown position--I care about those characters THAT MUCH.

And there's always Tim Riggins to consider:

The actor is 28, so I don't feel like too much of a dirty old woman. Thank God, because you should see him with his shirt off.

The season finale is next week, but the show just got picked up for two more seasons, so you have all summer to catch up. And get hooked.

Tansformers, Eyeballs & David Sedaris

2009-04-02T08:49:00.003-04:00

P, C, The Boy, and I went to see David Sedaris at the Benedum Center last night, and it was wonderful. P had never seen him before, and I'm pretty sure Sedaris is now one of her Secret Gay Boyfriends. She had to take off her glasses to wipe away tears of laughter, which pretty much guarantees that she's hooked. C cackled through the whole show like a maniac. The Boy . . . fell asleep, just like he did when we saw Sedaris two years ago. It seems that you can't let The Boy get warm and comfortable in the dark any time after 8pm, because he won't be able to keep his eyes open.

It was his loss, though, because DS was in rare form. He talked about being an American in France and traveling the world during the months running up to the election, and told a hilarious and beautiful story about a trip to Australia that made me laugh, got me choked up, and made me happy to be alive. Honestly! The man is a national treasure, and if you don't know him, Google "Sedaris Jesus Shaves" and have a read. It will make your day.

DS also read from his diaries last night, and an entry about how sometimes he doesn't know what to do with his face (as when a cousin told him she and her husband had participated in the World's Largest Tractor Pull, or a fan at a reading plugged his bar and its specialty, the Toe-tini--featuring a floating toe), which killed. And he continued his tradition of recommending a book, but this time served up a sample of the audio book he's been listening to again and again, Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. I acted like a dorky little fangirl because Bennett is one of my Secret Gay Boyfriends, and I love that Sedaris loves him, and I was just in Talented Writerly Secret Gay Boyfriend Heaven.

So that's the Sedaris portion of this entry. The remaining items mentioned in the title appear below:

This is one of many weird eyeball seats that live in Katz Plaza, right in the middle of the Cultural District. The Boy was sitting on the other side of this as I took the picture.

This guy's name is Arch, and he was created as part of the celebration of the city's 250th birthday. He's made of bridges and based on a Transformer, but I can't help but see him as a Steeler.

These two pics are an illustration of why Arch was made of bridges--both pics are taken from the same spot on the 7th Street Bridge over the Allegheny River. The top one looks NE and the bottom one looks SW, towards the Point. See? We really are a city of bridges.

And now I should probably get some work done.

Sunrise, Sunset

2009-03-30T11:05:00.004-04:00

The Boy began his career as a soccer referee on Saturday. He went through the training course, passed the test, registered with the state, and is now qualified to earn $10 an hour reffing games for kids under ten.

He was nervous enough to have dreamed about it the night before, waking up to tell me about his playing a harp while marching around during a huge ceremony held to open the soccer season. I took him to the field and waited around to make sure he was able to figure out where to sign in and which games he'd be running, and I stayed for a while to watch.

He was the smallest kid in the group of mostly teen-aged refs milling around on the field, and his gold uniform shirt was big enough to make his chest look especially skinny. I could tell by his body language that he was feeling very insecure about the whole thing, but he made it through some instructions and discussions with a coach, and then he took off with the players (seven-year-olds), inspected their shin guards, and ran them through some Simon Says-like drills to make sure they knew where they would be and that they should listen to him. Then he blew his whistle and dropped the ball, and they were off.

And I nearly collapsed in a puddle of tears. My baby boy was competent and comfortable as ALL BY HIMSELF he took the little kids through their game, helping with goal kicks and throw-ins, running breaks, talking to coaches, jogging up and down the field with his whistle in his mouth, and generally being capable and independent in a way that made me so very proud . . . and so very sad that he's not my baby anymore.

He loved it, though. He loved the kids, some of whom he knew from school, and he loved how they listened to him and saw him as someone in authority. And later that day, when I asked him to get the laundry out of the dryer for me, he said, "Aw! But I worked all day!" Nice try, kiddo, but welcome to the world.

In other news, I am slightly addicted to knitting the Ball Band Dishcloth from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book (the M-D ladies say in the book that they took the pattern from the yarn people, and it is indeed printed on the label of each ball of yarn). I made this sunshiny one first, and quickly lost it to my mom the moment she laid eyes on it.

I washed and dried it to make sure it holds together well, and it does. It's soft and absorbent and awesome. I'm making a bunch now for C for his birthday. It may seem like an odd gift for an ex-husband, but he's a Clean Freak and will appreciate them. I'm using colors from his kitchen, and will wrap them with some dish gloves and Mrs. Meyer's dishwashing liquid, and he will love them.

You Know What's Good?

2009-03-23T12:59:00.002-04:00

Laughing Cow Spreadable Cheese Wedges. I never would've thought twice about them, but my grocery store keeps them near the yogurt I like. I saw the little wheel of cheese and thought of Beth Littleford, who's too smart to be stuck doing cheese commercials, and so I bought a wheel of the Garlic & Herb stuff. (This is the first time in recent memory that a TV commercial influenced a purchase [at least consciously], which is something that kind of bothers yet interests me.)

I just had it for lunch, with some crackers, an apple, and a handful of walnuts, and it was very tasty indeed.

And now that I've eaten, I'm off to rip apart the knitting project I've been working on. It's a linen hand towel from the Mason Dixon Knitting book, I thought I would be smart and do it on a circular needle since it's kind of wide. HOWEVER, I forgot to take into account the fact that I AM AN IDIOT: I keep joining and knitting in the round instead of knitting back and forth. And I never really notice it until I've tuned back in from a blissed out knitting fugue state. GAH! So I'm going to stop for #5 straight needles on my way home . . . because I will scream if I end up doing this a third time.

Some TV Things

2009-03-22T14:13:00.005-04:00

1- I bought a TV stand off Craig's List, and it is perfect. It's tall enough that the TV is at a good height, and it holds al of the game consoles and their attendant crap behind closed doors, but it's not too big for my room. Hooray for me!

2- I was a huge fan of Veronica Mars*, so imagine my delight when a friend told me VM's creator, Rob Thomas, had a new show coming up. It premiered Friday on Starz (which I don't get), and I just watched it on-line here. It's called Party Down, and while the title made me cringe, the first episode was pretty good. The cast is wonderful--Jane Lynch! Martin Starr! And a BUNCH of people from VM. The first episode was funny, and left me anxious for more.

3- Speaking of being anxious, I must confess that P and I watched Left Behind (I'm not linking because, ew) last night, and I am anxious to see the next two movies. I didn't know much about the Rapture Christians before I watched, and I know I still don't know very much at all, but the whole movie experience was crazy and puzzling and more than a little amusing. And while I fully understand that it's not right to laugh at peoples' beliefs, I feel like the whole "neener, neener" attitude of the LB crew makes it okay. If that makes any sense at all.

4- We also watched a little Buffy, two episodes of South Park, and a bit of the David Copperfield with Daniel Radcliffe so I could show P how much the actress who plays David Copperfield's mother, Emilia Fox, looks like Anna Faris.

I mean, I can't tell you how disconcerting it is to hear the speeches of Clara Copperfield come out of the mouth of The House Bunny, but there you go.

5- I'm off to take a walk, but when I come back I'm going to knit and watch more Veronica Mars. Love!

*Seriously--I defy you to watch the first episode of VM and not be astounded and HOOKED. I just stumbled on the episode looking for the site to link to, and suddenly it's 40 minutes later because I had to watch. Bloody brilliant television.

FIVE Golden Rings

2009-03-19T19:54:00.003-04:00

Okay, no. More like six pastel eggs. Here's the link to the pattern if you'd like to obsess over your own. I'll shut up about them now.

Crap Vacation

2009-03-18T20:10:00.002-04:00

There, I've said it. The nasty truth is that I'm not having a very good week off. Too much menstruation, too many errands, too many things scheduled. Not only is there no fun, there's not even been much in the way of relaxation. The whole thing just blows.

But I continue to hope for improvement, and I continue to knit Easter eggs. In fact, I can't seem to STOP knitting Easter eggs. I honestly can't imagine another use for this pastel cotton yarn, so let's hope it runs out soon . . .

My Future Daughter-in-Law

2009-03-15T20:14:00.001-04:00

The Boy loves her. Every time this commercial comes on, he says, "She's so cute! I love her!" Twenty years from now . . .

Sunday Stuff

2009-03-15T17:47:00.004-04:00

I am off this week, because The Boy is on Spring Break. We have few plans that don't involve errands, various appointments, and some serious basement cleaning, but I'm pleased. The knowledge that tomorrow isn't a regular school/work day has made today a completely lazy day for me. The Boy had a referee workshop at a nearby school, but I had nothing. I dropped him off and took myself to the library and to lunch. I picked up a second Elizabeth Peters audio book for when I've finished Crocodile on the Sandbank (I heart Amelia Peabody), and I also picked up Mason-Dixon Knitting, thanks to Ravelry. I spent an wonderful lunch paging through the knitting book, and then came home to look up some yarns (I didn't even know linen yarn existed!) and order my own copy of the book--I want to make one of everything it it.

I walked through the park up to the school to pick up The Boy, and had a few moments to sit on the stairs with my book, the very fun and interesting Comedy at the Edge, when I saw this:

Not a torso or head in sight. Kids are weird.

I Freaking WISH

2009-03-14T14:56:00.005-04:00

Here is Super Hero Me. Badger posted a link to it, and I couldn't resist.

Spectacled Barbarian, AWAY!

Holy Easter Eggs, Batman!

2009-03-13T20:57:00.004-04:00

Look! I'm knitting Easter eggs! And it's not even that hard! It's like an egg cozy, really. It fits around one of those little plastic eggs, and I am in love.

And now I must go watch Friday Night Lights . . .

Simpsons Already Did It

2009-03-12T15:16:00.004-04:00

Do you know the episode of South Park where Butters wants to pull a nasty prank, only to discover that his every idea has already been brought to fruition on The Simpsons?

Well, this week I read Christopher Moore's new book, Fool, and I listened to Ron Rash's Serena, and I can tell you that . . . SHAKESPEARE ALREADY DID IT. Serena is a take on Macbeth and Fool is a King Lear mishmash. Moore is very upfront about using the Lear story, but it was still odd to be dealing with two pieces of non-Shakespeare Shakespearean fiction at the same time.

Both books are good reads. Serena is much darker, but the writing is very rich and descriptive, and does a great job of evoking the novel's landscape and moment in time. It's one of those wonderful books teachers can assign to reluctant students to prove that literature is serious, yes, but not boring. Fool, obviously, is funny, but there's still some darkness. And Moore's underlying sweetness lingers on every page.

***

Here's a question: Am I crazy, or should the word biopic be pronounced "bye-OP-ick," rather than the "BYE-oh-pick" that I keep hearing? I mean, if the latter pronunciation were correct, wouldn't there be a hyphen after the "bio," to prevent it from rhyming with topic? Or is it just me?

I Smell a Short Story

2009-03-11T10:35:00.002-04:00

Or maybe a summer blockbuster. Have you heard of the one-eyed filmmaker who's having a tiny camera inserted into his prosthetic eye so he can make a documentary about surveillance?

Okay, first: Yikes! That picture freaks me out. Second: Um . . . I think this is kind of terrifying. On the one hand, it really does mean that anyone at any time can be RECORDING WHATEVER YOU SAY OR DO. And on the other hand, how many people would want to have these for themselves? I can imagine a whole society of people who are so determined to document their every moment that they demand these eye cameras and spend their entire lives creating movies of their lives, instead of living them.

Or is that just me and my own paranoia?

The Boy

2009-03-10T14:31:00.005-04:00

I don't think it's any secret that The Boy is a doofy little spaz, but I wanted to share a few recent examples.

#1 - C got a Sonicare toothbrush for Christmas, which The Boy fell in love with. I'm all about encouraging the kid to love dental hygiene, so I promised him I'd get us a set when I got my tax return. I did as promised (because I'm that kind of girl), and as he was brushing his teeth yesterday morning, he called to me, "Hey Mom! Come here! Look!" I went to look, and was informed, "You bought me a Sonicare toothbrush, and look: It says, 'Son, I care.'"

#2 - He got out of the shower this morning and the entire front of his head and body were visibly DRY. He had clearly done nothing but stand with his back in the spray for ten minutes. So I made him lean over the side of the tub to wash his hair. And when he stood up . . . still covered in shampoo. He's a disaster. But at least his teeth are clean.

#3 - He's writing a story called Mathmatics Mishap for some of the younger kids at his school, and illustrating it in Power Point (no idea why he's using Power Point, but whatever). Here's one page--look how cute it is:

He has to turn in the form to register for his 7th Grade Electives by the end of week. I still can't quite believe he's that old. I mean, look at #2 above! He's barely past the stage of singing, "Standing in the shower, washing my bummy, now," which he spent plenty of time doing once he was big enough to be in the shower by himself. Come to think of it, at least then he was washing something. Besides those teeth, of course.