...which reminds me

I've been catching up on Andi's blog (bottom link on my blog list) and it's reminding me of too many eerie life similarities (except the pregnancy.  Thank god)...In addition to our apparent employability, we share having dudes on our roof .  When we moved in, our roof was a nice fire-engine red.  It is now the Nantucket red that goes well with expensive polos and Topsiders.  Which I'll find for you at Goodwill.  But this is not the color I want on my roof.  So we're having it painted.  Paint costs, it turns out, are determined by the square footage of the roof.  The square footage of the roof is something few people consider when purchasing a house.  This is a mistake.  Particularly if the roof is metal and painted.  Our dinky little under 2000 sq. feet house has a roof with the sq footage of a damned mall.  Six Gables, you see.  How quaint.  How architecturally interesting.  How costly to paint.  But anyway, I have a guy stomping around up there. It's like Santa is here, all day every day.  Only instead of bringing me presents, he's taking my money.  And he's telling me that the last person who patched our roof did a crappy job.  Which I could have guessed b/c the previous owners of this house were staunch devotees of the bubblegum-and-duct-tape school of home repair.  And before that, ancient people lived here (standard old people, not like Incas or something), and before that, it was a summer cottage.  And we all know how well the rental home gets treated.  "Rode hard and put up wet" is a colorful phrase that applies here.  We're forever discovering little tidbits, like the fire in the early 20s.  Like the creative wiring.  Like the sub-code plumbing.  Character!  We have to periodically have people over so they can tell us how great the house is.  Because we love it, we do....but damn it's like an abusive relationship.  Couldn't it just be haunted or something?  Oh wait, it is.  But at least soon, it will have a fire-engine red roof.  So we have that.

This cannot be good.

I was shopping the Goodwill yesterday.  I am the master of thrift shopping, for I have an eye for good fabric and design and I can pull that designer name out of a sea of Faded Glory and Norton McNaughton.  Back in the day, Leslie and I were the queens of plucking the Hanna Andersson and Oilily from the racks of McKids and Circo and reselling them at a tidy profit... (Leslie was better than me).  all this to say that I'm naturally classy.  Not klassy, like Rick James.  Classy, like Grace Kelly.  I am programmed for the finer things.  I have dragged my hillbilly heritage to my Cape Cod birthplace.  So I'm walking through the Goodwill,  with a tailored wool blazer and two piece Flax ensemble (retail at least $120!) over my arm.  A woman comes up to me and says, "Excuse me, where are the ladies handbags?"  I'm game, I'm a seasoned shopper AND a helpful citizen. "Hmm...they used to be here with the belts and shoes...They keep moving things around on me."  "Yes.  Well, do you at least know where you keep the dressy dresses?"  Where *I* keep?  I keep them in the closet in Julianna's room b/c I so seldom use them, but why would you care?  Oh no.  You think I WORK at Goodwill.  Holy crap.  So Andi, you can just stop your whining.

She's a handful

Lily turned FIVE on Saturday.  Me wee-est bairn!  Babe of my bosom!....is finally that much closer to the age of reason, thanks be to heaven.  I shall mourn Julianna's passage into adolescence.  But loss of preschooler?  Not so much.  Crazy little monkeys the lot of them.  Cute?  Oh yes.  But they don't make good housepets.

Saturday night we went to the fair, so that Lily could get her birthday funnel cake.  Rides were ridden, chickens ogled, games of "skill" avoided.  Earlier we'd gone to the Small Angels annual picnic and Lily won a bingo game, so it was like double presents.  What says birthday like bingo prizes?  I'd gotten her one of those accursed damnable Webkinz.  Julianna had been on a quest for a husky.  Had to have the husky  Which, of course, was hard to find.  So I ended up calling around looking for it.  I swear, it felt dirty.  I couldn't believe I was playing their stupid game.  Blech.  But it was her money.  In retrospect, I should have had HER call.  I'll drive her to meet the dealer, but I am not making the contact.  The upshot, of course, is that these stupid animals became very attractive to Lily.  "Nope, sorry.  You have to be able to read to use the website."  Julianna: "No you don't mom."  "Thanks."  Of course you don't.  For those who do not house a child between the ages of 4 and 14, Webkinz are these beanie baby sized animals that come with a code in their sealed-until-you-cough-up-12-bucks tag.  Then you can log onto the website and play with your stuffed animal in a virtual setting.  There, isn't that nicer than having to pick up the actual toy and manipulate it?  Speaking of manipulation, other products tied into the Webkinz offer "special codes" to be used for more schwag on the site.  It makes bitter.  Because if I'd thought of it, I'd be a gazillionaire.  Damn.

Birthday party was Sunday.  Old buddies Emma and Sarah were there, along with new child Rosie.  Also Taro and Maeve from up the street.  A perfect size by my reckoning.  I've mastered the child party now.  Two games (in this case, pass the parcel and find the goody bags), cake and presents.  Then turn them outside for running and screaming, to call them back in for pinata just before the folks arrive.  Two hours.  No problem.  I highly recommend it. 

Oh, by the way?  No pictures.  My digital camera keeled over.  I'm on the film again.  I took the ailing digital to Ritz Camera which could make me feel like I was getting ripped off if they were handing me money.  The woman there looked up the average cost of repair for my camera and told me she'd suggest just buying a new one.  Oh?  do you sell those here?  How convenient for me.  I trotted back out, with my camera.  Later, I looked on the Canon website...oh look, both problems my camera is having are known problems with camera and will be fixed for free by Canon.  Fancy that.

I'm cranky tonight, it seems.  Anyway, Lily had a good birthday, capped off by an eNORmous amount of cucumber sushi.  Some days she seems to live on a squeeze yogurt and a couple of boogers.  Other days there just isn't enough food to put in her.

Oh, today at school, she did her birthday walk.  After the walk around the sun five times, her teacher asked her friends to give her five wishes.  Natalie said, "I wish....you had a friend."  Uh?  Thanks?  Emma said, "I wish...your house...was surrounded by TALL grass, as tall as the Empire State Building and it was full of flowers!"  Sara then chimed in, "I wish you had a flying unicorn!"  Aiden wished she had a helicopter.  It all sounds lovely.  Then it was time for the special snack I brought--those little ice cream cups with the paper lid you pull off and then you eat the ice cream with a wooden stick.  Only I brought 12 and there are 15 kids in the class.  Niiiiice.  I'm sure the kindergardeners will understand.  Right?  I lit out of there and headed for the 7-11 to buy a pint of ice cream and was back before the last kid was done.  Oy.  Way to feel like a heel, I tells ya.

Bok?

So here at the Circle of Life Ranch and Rodent Hospice, we have a bit of bad news.  Mildred met her end at the hands (paws?  jaws?) of a fox.  Kind of a storybook ending, if you're a chicken.  A bit of a cliche, really, but she wasn't especially imaginative, if truth be told.  I am, of course, very sad to no longer hear her soft bokking.  I'm conflicted about bringing in replacement chickens.  I liked having her, but less responsibility is always welcome...esp. since we're going away for a week in January.  Finding someone to slog through the snow to check on chickens could be a challenge.  Plus, I'm just not sure I'm up to more grisly critter death.  Fredo died about a year ago and between him and Mildred have been a score of rodents and hermit crabs.  Frankly, I'm done.  I declare a moratorium on death.  Make it so.

Please, no ball lofting.

So, the day after my birthday, I wanted to go roller skating.  I haven't skated in years, and haven't been to a rink since I lived in Germany.  There, we had this great rink with both in-line and regular skates.  And steps.  And half-pipes.  And a trampoline.  It seems there are no liability laws in Germany.  It was awesome.  But I'd have settled for some good old-fashion skating around in a circle, listening to bad pop music....with my comb in my back pocket...feathered hair blowing back...  But I need to get back my skating chops, b/c I totally want in on this action.  I think a roller derby team made up entirely of moms who don't physically punish their kids would kick ASS.  Imagine the pent-up rage and hostility.  I'll be working on my roller name.  I will ROCK that satin jacket, my friends.

Annnyway....the roller rink was closed with no explanation.  But the duckpin bowling place next door was open.  So that's where we went.  For you people unlucky enough to live far from Baltimore, duckpins are squat little bowling pins that you knock down with a little cannonball-sized ball.  It's cooler than bowling.  I know, but really.  It is.  See?  Same cool shoes:


Same riveting scoreboard action:


Same incredibly awesome dedication to 1950s design:


But here?  Funny signs.



Seriously, how can you beat THAT?

ETA:  Lily, by the way, didn't so much bowl as release the balls into the lane.  She'd sort of set them down and nudge them toward freedom.  The balls, for their part, were ambivalent about the whole thing,  and kind of meandered up the lane, occasionally bonking into a pin, but just as often dropping into the gutter.  Which would be expected from an almost 5 year old, but we had the bumpers up to prevent gutter balls (we are AMAZING at bowling with the bumpers up!).  She managed to get gutter balls anyway.  Each time, she'd crouch down, set the ball down with a little nudge, and then turn and hide her face in my stomach, the suspense being too much to take.  "Tell me when it knocks one down!"  Okay honey, but we have a while.  Would you like me to sing Alice's Restaurant for you, in the meantime?

this one goes out to Austin

Hi, I'm back and I'm on the other side of 40 now.  I'll just pretend that there are no implications of mortality there.  So Friday, I took the kids to school and did my car line routine.  I had finally gotten one of those birthday cake hats and I wore that, affording me many, many opportunities for this exchange:

"OH, is it your birthday?"
"no, why?"

And then went straight to Greenbrier State Park because they don't take reservations and it's Labor Day weekend.  Only I get there and discover that now they DO take reservations and are booked up.  Um.  The nice lady said she'd check to see if there'd  been any cancellations for the night.  While she was looking, I thought to mention, "Well, it's my birthday and I was just going to camp out tonight with my friends..."  "Well," she said, "we DO keep a few sites in reserve for emergencies...like yours."  So I if some poor family stumbled off the road needing a place to stay, too bad. It's not THEIR birthday.

I secured the site and went home to get Ben his sneakers and lunch money (the ONE day he doesn't wear sneakers, it's PE.) and take them to the school.  Then home for a quick kitchen tidy and short nap.  Then back to the camp to pitch the tent.

The sites were a lot closer together than I expected, so it's just as well that I abandoned my plan to camp all by myself.  There would have been no introspection on that night anyway.  As soon as I started to unpack the tent, I began to hear the theme song of our stay:  "AuuuuSTIN!  Gitoverhere!"  Occasionally, sister Ashley (no, I'm serious) got a "WHERE do you think yer goin'?" but it was young Austin who was the real troublemaker.  But I got up the tent, hoped they were just stressed about pitching camp and would chill the hell out, and went to get my kids from school.

No, they didn't chill.  But you knew that already, didn't you?  When I got back to camp for the night, I had a couple of hours before Bev and Lara showed.  So I set up the chairs and unpacked the food and tried to start a fire. No outside firewood was allowed in b/c of some weevil infestation or something, so I had to buy wood at the camp store ("you can gather and chop any deadwood you find!"  Yeah,thanks).  I'd gathered loads of kindling, enoughfor the next morning's fire, too.  So I thought.  The wood from the store was greener than Ralph Nader.  It hissed and carried on in a  most discouraging way.  All the while, "AuuuuSTIN!  Whuddoyou think yer doin?" "DAMMIT AUSTIN!"  Good times.  This crew had two adjoining pad sites, many people of many ages.  Nothing like getting to join someone else's dysfunctional family reunion.  The site right next to mine had a mom and two kids.  Years of living downtown with a narrow back garden had taught me how to not see or hear people mere feet away, but they apparently had never lived downtown and insisted on saying hi.  And showing me bugs.  And telling me about snails.  Look kid.  I HAVE children.  If I'd wanted to camp with kids, I'd have brought my own.  Luckily mom called "Bree!  Did you move my cigarettes?"  I began to fear that this was not a state park, but a trailer park.  I realized that I should have just hopped on the AT and hiked to the next shelter to camp.  I also realized that I suck at building fires.  How hard can it BE?

Finally Bev and Lara showed up with cake and presents.  I put on my birthday hat.

Hello Kitty cupcakes!  yay!  They also brought wine and olives and dippy things.  It is very, very good to share your birthday with friends.  No sooner had I warned them about Austin than we heard "AuuuSTIN!Gitoverhere!" and cracked up.  And, about then, the fire really caught.  It never burned high, but it was warm and nice to look at.  So we ate and drank and felt bad for Austin and complained about the bright flippin' light our neigbors had.  When I went up for more wood, I managed to get dry stuff this time and all was well.  cozy, contented, nice.  Lara slept in her car on a memory foam mat.  Bev and I took the tent and the blow up mattress.  Bev, bless 'er, was out cold before she got horizontal.  I lay down and immediately had to pee.   Trudged up to the bath house.  Back.  Lay down.  Snooze.  Wake cold and needing to pee.  If I get up, I'll wake up completely.  but I can't sleep needing to pee.  but it's cold...and so on, pretty much all night until about 6 or so, when Lara got up to pee and set her car alarm off.  I later suggested that she should have just yelled "AuuuSTIN!  Turn that damned thing off!"  Of course, when MY alarm goes off, I panic and can't remember what to do and it just goes on and on while I curse like mad.  So I got up, went to the bath house, made fun of Lara, got another blanket out of the van and went back to sleep until 9.  got up, made the fire (so easy with dry wood!  I'm not a fire failure after all!), got the water on for coffee, and heated the danish.

Oh, did I not mention that I was dressed as a gnome?  I was. 

Then we just hung out. Lara didn't roll out of her bed until 11, by which point we'd broken camp and were musing about how funny it would be to just leave.  We were home by noon.  More later.  First, here are some other photos:


home, sweet, home



bedding folding action!



Crone in the woods.

Some one get me some eucalyptus

I am nearer my goal of becoming a koala bear.  Yes, I know they aren't really bears.  I like the way it sounds, "koala bear," okay?  You can just get your own blog and use only proper Latin names.  So back off.  See?  I'm already grumpy, just like our marsupial friend.  And I carried my young in a pouch and nursed them until they could digest gum leaves.  Or could chew gum.  I hardly remember anymore.  I enjoy eating, so I've got that part of koala life covered.  But only now that my children are in school, can I near that most wondrous characteristic of our little Aussie friend--16-20 hours of sleep a day.  That first day of school?  I napped for FOUR HOURS.  The next day, a bit under three.  Then two.  Then, today, only one (you get the bends if you go back to a human schedule too quickly).  It rocks, being a koala bear.  I think I'll skip the chlamydia, though.

So yeah.  Kids are in school, full day.  Even wee Lily, who has proclaimed it "long and tiring" even though she STILL seldom drops off to sleep before 10 pm.  Clearly no koala blood in THAT one.  I've volunteered to be a car line helper, opening doors and chirping "good morning" at the fresh-faced little mites.  I'm extra chipper with the sullen ones, of course.  But this means that even on the first day, I was racing around screaming, "Let's GO!  Shoes ON, people!" and only had time for one on-the-porch first day photo.  And it turns out it looks like a suspect line-up:



"The one in the skirt stole my bag, officer!"  (aren't you glad this isn't the sort of blog where I would have said "stole my heart"?  me too).

Steve told me to take the whole week off, to nap, do nothing.  I needed no further prodding.  I've done no more than is necessary to keep everyone fed and clothed.  I haven't even been sewing.  Nuthin.  Felt gooood, let me tell you.  It gave me a chance to play with my birthday present!  I'm coming at you from a schweet little Macbook!  Don't I look cooler now?  I know, hardly seemed possible, but there you go.

And yes, it IS my birthday tomorrow.  So I hope you have my presents ready.  I'll be 40.  So that makes my mom pretty damned old.  Just so you know.  Hi mom!  the fact that I very clearly remember her 40th birthday is...unsettling.  And even more, I remember being out for a walk with her down our road remarking that that year she was 44 and I was 22 and how cool.  It was YESTERDAY.  How did time speed up so?    You wait, whippersnappers.  You'll see.

What am I doing for said birthday?  Well, that fabulous trip to Europe is out, so I'm going to camp out with my friends and then go rollerskating.  Because apparently I'm 8.