I'm all a-wiggle

Top Design starts tonight!  Wheee!  Honestly, a big part of the appeal for me is that the Project Rungay guys are blogging it.  They're hilarious.  Set aside an afternoon and read their archives, you'll pee. Here's the Project Runway blog, they've been going back in their fabulous way-back machine to visit previous seasons.  And here's the Top Design site.  They link to a interview with Jonathon Adler and Tim Gunn (crossing myself as I type that).  "Good Lord, Jonathan, sit like a lady! It's an interview, not a bris!"  I love them.

The one time I'll let you watch local news

Look!  My kids are on TV and it's not on Nanny 911 or Wifeswap!  A local news guy came over to interview the heads of Small Angels about a grant we got for neutering guinea pigs.  blah blah blah.  But look!  It's my kids!  And my piggers!

Watch the video

The "watch" button is up under the title.  You need to hear this guy's Stephen Colbert delivery. "...the cute tiny pets their kids....just have to have."  He also implies that Gypsy and Rosie are foster pigs.  They are not. You can't have them.  So shut up.  The best part about having the TV camera here?  I cleaned a little.  One less day in squalor, one less week of therapy I'll have to pay for later.

Report from the WV Book Club

There were more teeth and fewer chickens than I expected, but they still picked a crappy book.  One for the Money by Janet Evanovich.  I tried to read one of these once, I'd heard from several otherwise reputable sources that I'd love the main character.  I never got a chance to find out b/c the writing was so horrid.  It was really self-conscious and stagey.  I was never able to forget I was reading a book, you know?  I'll try again, though, since I want to give the group a go.

It's quite a different crowd than I'm accustomed to.  Several older women, several people who spoke of Tuesdays with Morrie in approving, rather than scornful, tones.  The host, though, is just batshit crazy.  Probably harmless, but utterly bonkers.  She gave this kind of talk to open the meeting.  Told us about how she'd had a book club in Texas and how much she'd loved it, but coming to WV she couldn't find one.  So she had started keeping journals.  At this point, she produced said journals.  She'd write a couple of pages about each book, research the author, print and clip reviews...and paste it all into the book along with cutesy little scrapbooking stickers.  Seriously?  My jaw dropped.  I didn't realize that people like this roamed, unmedicated.  My first clue should have been when I walked into the house and there was a Playmobil castle set up.  Intact.  Wholly un-sacked.  No evidence of it being strewn around the room, ever.  That's just...unfathomable with a 4 year old in the house.  So she told us that she decided she didn't want to be like this anymore.  That she wanted to talk to real people about books.  So she gathered us together.  She staged her own intervention.  Now THAT's a control freak.

On the way home, Lara and I gossiped and she told me that Ginger (the host, who kept joking that she had OTC, the hell?) had strict rules about the toys.  Each sort of toy is kept in a bin and only one bin can be open at a time.  There will be no mixing of trains and blocks, my friends.  That way lies madness!  I started fantasizing about locking her in Ben's room: (and this photo is B.L. [before the coming of our Holy Legos]):
She'd be beating on the door within minutes, "I can't breathe!! Let me out!!  Chaos. Closing. In!"  Or she'd clean it.  Either way, I win.

In other news:  yesterday, Caroline gave Lily some of Rhiannon's hand-me-downs.  One of them was a much-coveted two piece bathing suit. Lily pulled it out and exclaimed, "Look!  A zukini!"

 

For this, he will pay.

From Andi, who is--as I noted in the side bar--too cool for my brother:

I said, "Brent, what the hell?"
Brent, "What?  I looked good!"
Me, "The stache?  Those sunglasses?  White shirt on white pants?"
Brent, "How good do you look in your pictures from back then?"
Me, "What year did Deana graduate?"
Brent, "I don't know, '72?"

Uh huh.  First of all, the shirt is a delicate shade of pink, not white.  We'll let you draw your own conclusions based on a pink shirt and a mustache.  And a deep and abiding love of musical theater.  And small dogs that fit into purses.  And a huge poster of Tim Gunn in the bathroom.  Just sayin.

'89 for the record.  A fine year for anti-apartheid Tshirts and giant sweaters from third world countries.  Oh, and lacey dresses worn with an above the wrist bone watch. 

In other news, I'm off to the first meeting of my West Virgina book club.  My friend Lara's mom is co-hosting it and I'm totally joining it just so that I can say I'm in a WV book club.  We gon' git alll the way through One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish this time.  I only made it to Two Fish before.  Other than the humor value, I'm apprehensive.  I'm a really picky reader.  My time is precious and I'm not wasting it reading something with a martini on the cover or the word "shop" in the title.  My hard-and-fast rules are simple and number only three:
1. No chick lit
2. No dead children
3. Must have a sense of humor.  It doesn't have to roll about in hilarity, but it cannot take itself too seriously.

But I've been in  a reading slump. I haven't read a fiction book in months, other than the ones I read aloud to STeve or the kids.  I'm hoping to pull out of it.  But what are book clubs FOR?  I mean,  we read the book.  Fine.  "I liked it."  "me too." "It sucked." "You're wrong."  That's the best case scenario, isn't it?  They seldom come to fisticuffs, as far as I can tell.  And if it's just to get out of the house and talk to other people, I'd rather do something I can WIN, like Trivial Pursuit. (oh, so '89)

Sisterly birthday wishes

My li'l baby sister turned 30 today!  She's now closer to 40 than 20.  Just like me!

Here she is at my college graduation.  Sporting one HECK of a cool dress.



While we're mocking.  Oh, didn't I mention this was for mocking?  It is.  While we're mocking, check out ol' brother Brent.  Rockin' that mustache.



I, however, am adorable.  Just like now.

Happy birthday, LaTasha Jo!

From the Squidink mailroom

Auntie Andi writes:

1.  Bean.  You don't even have to OWN her.  You can just foster her, like you do with the guinea pigs.  She's totally trained not to run out the door anymore.

2.  Take a look at the people who have dreamcatchers hanging from their rearview mirrors.  Really look at them.  Not to stereotype (hint: I'm totally about to stereotype), but these are people who rely on daydreaming to get them through the day.  They really don't want to lose those daydreams.

3.  www.henspa.com.  The Hen Chalet on Stilts is effing adorable.

Imaginary Christine writes:

Awww... crap.... I didn't know about Fredo.  That sucks.   I assume from what's here that he got hit by a car(?)   That's what happened to our family's first dog.   Breaks my heart.

I hate to say it, but my kids only REALLY got past it when we got another dog and installed an electric fence.   Just sayin' 

Okay.  You maybe didn't notice in your rush to read my next post.  I know how it is.  But the title of said post was "But we're still not getting a dog."  We're not.  Fredo was a sweet boy (yes, hit by a car, last August)  but my life is measurably easier without a dog.  the kids will just have to console themselves with the umpteen other critters in our house.  And maybe a new kitten.

I've noticed that dreamcatchers in the front of the car often mean stuffed animals (usually sun-faded) in the back window.

Yeah, I've seen the henspa.  You know I want it.  I also want 2 thousand dollars.  And probably wouldn't spend it on a chicken house if I had it.  Send Brent down here to make me one.  I'm sure he owes me for something.

And while I'm here...Why is it so frickin' hard to buy snow boots and snow pants in January?  HMMM?  I got a pair for Julianna at Target, and granted they were super cheap, but damn they're ugly.  So ugly I had to get a pair for me as well to give her solidarity.  Heinous.  I also got her the ugliest snow pants in the world.  Poor thing.  I keep telling how cool this willmake her when she's a grown-up (hello knock-off Topsiders from KMart!), but she ain't buyin' it.  There was not a single pair of boots to fit either Ben or Lily.  I got them the last remaining Land's End boots in their sizes at Sears.  And they were more expensive, on sale, than the heinous granny boots were full price at Target.  Bathing suits?  Oh yes, lots of those.  And flip flops.  Grr.

But we're still not getting a dog

Last night in bed, Lily just started crying.  "What's wrong?"  "I miss Fredo so MUCH!"  (she's sobbing all of this out) "I know he's always beside me [something her friend Brooke told her] but that's imaginary and I can't touch him!  I been wanting to touch him for free days!"  This from the girl who danced around as he was being buried and chirped to anyone who would listen that Fredo had "bwood on his tongue and it hung out like dis!"

Also:  why do people have dreamcatchers hanging from their rear view mirrors?  Shouldn't the driver be awake and thus immune to nightmares?  I'm worried.

Mildred has started laying eggs!  And yes, she's still away at boarding school.  It's finally cold enough that I can claim that the weather is keeping me from building a coop...

From our Readers...

Amy in Florida says:

That said Kim, Pat, Teri????  Are you kidding me? I mean we all know Eddie Cohee is gay, but at least we know his gender. Is this an SNL skit?  Are they women, men or a mix of the above?  And chorus?  You were/are a chorus person?  WOW, I know nothing about you.  And, you must have hit your head in the bus incident. EVERYONE I know remembers their bus breaking down on a high school trip.

I wouldn't dream of confusing my readers so.  Kim's a chick, Pat's a dude, and Teri...well, just click the links.  Kim and I DID, however, date all the gay boys in our class.  Because someone has to, really.  They're grateful, and not very demanding and they like musical theater!  Perfect, really.

Oh yes, I was in chorus my senior year.  Because I heard they were going to Disney.  And, as Kim reminded me, practice was before school, so your folks had to let you drive if you were in chorus.  I was in chorus, band, theater, the "gifted program", yearbook (sporadically), and probably some other clubs that I don't recall, but I'm sure someone does.  I wasn't really exclusive to any group in high school, I just moved in and out of them as I pleased. It's entirely possible that I was being taunted and reviled.  I am notoriously clueless about these things.  As a result, I have better high school memories than most.  Teach your children this lesson.

Recovered Memories

Last night, Kim and Pat came down to join us for dinner in Cherry Hill (Hi Kim!  Hi Pat!).  Kim went to my high school for her senior year.  We had overlapping groups of friends and were in chorus and theater together.  We were friendly, but didn't know one another's phone numbers.  At the 20 year reunion, we hung out together and had a blast.  So we've kept in touch via e-mail.  They live about a half an hour from Steve's folks, so we planned meeting for dinner.  Steve's sister her husband (Hi Ellen!  Hi Bob! [drink!]) were here, so we all went out.

Had a great time, drank margaritas (there's supposed to be an H in there somewhere, isn't there?) and ate good Mexican food.  Came back to the house and they stayed until midnight.  Everyone loved them. Steve suggested we move to NJ.  Not bloody likely.  Anyway.  So Kim and I fell to talking about the chorus trip to Disney, as you do.  I'm no longer certain we actually went at the same time.  Remember when the bus broke down and we sang "Where shall I hoe today?" by the side of the road with Eddie Cohee?  Um...no.  Eddie Cohee was there?  The bus broke down?  Seems like if I'd had to sing something called "Where shall I hoe today?" it would be burned into my brain, but no, nothing.  I bring up the production of Tom Jones we were in, "And Barbara and Mimi had made up this song to the tune of 'We're not Gonna Take It' about some kind of costuming problem"  They did?  "Yeah, we all sang it all the time."  nuthin'.  The snapshot nature of memory is just so funny.  Some of these things are just so CLEAR that surely everyone involved remembers it as well as you.  And then someone else's clear memory is totally a blank to you.   Luckily, we were united in our hatred of that bitch, Terri Polo.

Ask the Expert

So we're driving up the highway, headed for New Jersey, listening to The Story of the World (as read by Jim Weiss).  He's telling us about how the Nile flooded every year and what that meant for ancient peoples and Lily pipes up, "Mommy?  What's d'Nile?"

"It's just a river in Egypt honey.  And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, pretend you didn't hear them."

Bread for the lazy AND the OCD

Back in December, the NYT ran a recipe for "no-knead" bread.  Imaginary Barbara posted it on my Positive Discipline board and the imaginaries have been all aflutter making it and posting photos (you don't photograph YOUR bread?  Hmmm)  It's crazy easy.   You basically just slap the ingredients in a bowl, stir, and ignore it for 14 hours.  Then you slap it around once or twice and ignore it for 2 more hours (We could call that the "Ike Turner Method").  Then bake.  And oh MAN, the crust on this thing.  Now, if you go for softy crust, you will not enjoy this bread.  And you do not deserve it.  But if you like a thick, crisp crust, you're in luck.  And if you really love homemade bread but are so skeeved by getting dough under your fingernails and in the cracks of your hands and then having to wash them and have wet hands (ew) (and not naming any names.  Like mine) then you will be a happy baker as well.  I mean, just LOOK at this bread!  Here's half white, half whole wheat:
0

Here's all white (all white is all RIGHT!  does anything smell as good as white bread in the oven?):



And the 1/3 white, 2/3 7grain/cornmeal mix.  It tastes a lot like the rye bread I used to get in Germany:



The crumb on the first two tends to be a little...gummier than I'd like.  Not enough to be off-putting, but not quite 100% perfect, either.  the rye had a firm, cornbreadier texture.  The crust on the rye is a bit bitter, that may be burned cornmeal?  No idea.  But the bread is great.  The bean pot I cooked it in was a mistake, though.  It stuck terribly and the whole bottom pulled off.  The cast iron dutch oven was a dream, though.

And if you have parmesan butter on hand...well, let's just say I'll be shopping in the husky department pretty soon.

Safe to come out?

In sort of a reverse-groundhog move, I decided to hibernate until winter came back.  Frankly the balmy days and my roses blooming was beginning to wig me out a little.  Two days ago, I walked out of my house with Lily and said, "Hey, it smells like snow!"  Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, big, wet flakes started falling.  Lily was beside herself.  "SNOW! SNOW!"  No amount of my saying, "It isn't going to last" could dampen her happiness--or avert her despair when it stopped about 10 min. later.  But at least the temps are a bit more seasonal, so we have hope.

We had to have one of our foster hamsters euthanized this week.  Poor little Eclair had a rectal prolapse.  I went to check on her and she appeared to be crapping out her organs.  And she was!  Hooray!  So the head of the foster group took her to the emergency vet (because it was, of course, at night.  Hamsters got the memo about only getting really sick at night).  I was worried that we had done something or missed something that caused this, but Angela assured me that hamsters are so inbred that random crap happens and they're just really fragile.  "Yeah, a couple of years ago," she said, "Michelle had one get a prolapsed eyeball. It just popped right out."  I went home and had a talk with all the rodents.  "I hear tell that some of you like to just lose an eyeball on occasion.  I want to make it clear that that is not acceptable behavior in my home.  Got it?"

Oh, and this is for Tash: Pb&J; a Luna bar; apple and peanut butter; fried egg and cheese; nothing; cheese and crackers; pizza; leftover soup.

I'm in SO much trouble

Lily.  She will totally kick my butt one day.  At the Y, while Julianna was in dance class, I was helping Ben with his homework.  I looked up to check on Lily and saw that she was sitting on a couch, with 3 older girls at her feet, commanding them to do dog tricks and such.  Other moms were looking on in wonder, and cutting me "Good luck with that" looks.  Earlier today, I'd been working in the school library when Lily showed up, with a classroom volunteer trailing her.  She'd gotten annoyed at some other kid and then refused to clean up the playdoh.  Apparently just marched out.  oy.  Her teacher said, "Well THAT was a new side to Lily."  I said, "Welcome to my life."

She told me this the other day, "The very first dream I ever had, I had a leaf boyfriend.  He was very nice and kind and I loved him.  He also had a horse, and he let me ride it sometimes.  We were about to move to a new house, but then he told me he had to go back home.  I begged and pleaded (yes she said that) him to stay, but he just said 'sorry' and he left."  It all just came out so fully formed and lyrical.  It was surreal.  She said she had the dream when she was one.  I've never heard her even use the word boyfriend before.

A public health notice

I forgot to mention that my Target clearance spree also involved several bags of various kinds of Hershey's kisses.  I thought I should let you all in on some important facts regarding such things:

1--When you buy deeply discounted candy, the calories within said candy go down in correspondence to the savings.  Example: Candy purchased at 75% off has a 75% reduction in calories.  Eat up!

2--Any candy containing peanut butter is a healthy meal.

In other news...Lily got miffed at us last night at dinner because we wouldn't let her stuff all of the mozzarella balls into her hands so that no one else could have any (I know, I'm totally Joan Crawford, right?).  So she stormed off for a good scream and cry and then began spitefully rearranging the furniture.  How Virgos Express Anger.  Oh yeah?  Well, I'm going to totally screw up your Feng Shui!  So there!

Oh thank heaven.

The kids are back in school.  Phew.  I thought I would have to have Lily extracted from my rear with forceps.  She needs constant attention, good or bad.  If she wasn't following hot on my heels, she was needling Julianna or Ben in order to get a good reaction out of them.  And by "good" I mean shrieking, crying, and flailing.  Ben usually gets straight to the full-on freak out, but Lily enjoys the build up with Julianna.  "Lily, stop it."  "Cut it OUT, Lily."  "LILY CUT IT OUT!"  "AUUGGGHH! (slap)"  "Moooooom!  Julianna hit me!"  only once?  She showed restraint.

Yesterday, New Years day, I stayed in my jammies until 3.  At that point, I took a nap until 4:30.  Then I showered and put on clean jammies.  Never leaving the house becomes more appealing the longer I do it.  When I become a Super Villain, I'm going to be The White Recluse.

Another kick-ass dinner from me, I must say.  I sauteed wild mushrooms in butter with minced onions and garlic. I added thyme and fennel and salt.  Then I put in white wine, let it reduce, added broth and then a bit of cream.  Served it on capellini.  Even Steve, who was not a mushroom lover, declared it delicious.  I've been trying to duplicate a dish I had 15 years ago in a restaurant in our town in Germany and I think I've finally hit it.  Or it's been so long that I dont' remember anymore anyway.  Regardless, yum.

After I dropped the kids off (yay!) I went to Target to hit the post-Christmas clearance.  I'll just say that if you ever pay full price for those stick-on bows, you're a doofus b/c every year they have enormous quantities of them, even by the 90% off days.  Doofus.  I don't use them at all, so I'm spared my own scorn.  I did snag silver wrapping paper (great for Hanukkah gifts), festive stripey tape, some silver garlandy things for draping the mantle, and 4 enormous blue galvanized buckets.  They were only 3 dollars!  As I loaded them into my cart, I could hear Steve asking what on earth I was going to do with them.  I plan to point to them and say, "They were only 3 dollars!"  Isn't that enough, really?