Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.

I love Anne Fadiman. Her two equally engrossing and completely different books, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down are books I had to own and will not give away or lend out. So I am keeping an eye out for the forthcoming collection of essays she edited, Rereadings: Seventeen writers revisit books they love.

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I was browsing around the library catalog in the Zs (Books (general). Writing. Paleography. Book industries and trade. Libraries. Bibliography.) and came across some interesting titles. They made me think of Simon, who was recently reading a birthday card someone had sent me. He had no trouble with the joke, printed as it was in capital letters. But then he squinted and frowned and said, "Mom, I can't read the fancy stuff." The "fancy stuff" would be the signature, in cursive. Remember before you could read or write cursive handwriting? I do. I
remember feeling like I had cracked the grown-up code of the ages when I could finally read cursive handwriting. But it's been so long since I couldn't that his confusion took me by surprise.

***********
Also in that section I ran across a couple books that reminded me of Simon Singh's The Code Book which I read on vacation one year. I don't do a whole lot of non-fiction but I enjoyed this book very much. And I felt so much smarter when I finished it : )

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In the Acknowledgements of The Sparrow Mary Doria Russell says, "Dorothy Dunnett may consider The Sparrow one long thank-you note for her splendid Lymond series." So of course I had to check out the Lymond series. The Game of Kings is the first, and I will read it sometime, but it is way too similar in setting to Outlander for me to want to tackle it now.

Also, in the Reader's Notes section, which I never look at normally because I think book group guides are smarmy and bogus, I read Russell's bio. Before venturing into fiction, Russell wrote "technical manuals for medical equipment like ... magnetic resonance scanners". Hey, guess what? So did I! Before I too got "fed up with academia and quit" to become...a librarian? Well, you certainly didn't think I was going to write an award-winning novel, did you? And she lives in Cleveland! Do you think if I asked her to lunch, she'd go? I'd *love* to meet her. She seems like such a cosmopolitan person.

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This is wicked cool.

Sarah Louise, forgive me. But even if they are a bit over the top, number four nails it. Bergdorf Blondes was *beyond* unreadable.

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! - Friedrich Nietzche

From Salon’s poetry contest; I think I love this woman:

My hair is gray upon my head
(for that is where it grows)
and yet, the TV surgeon said,
I still could fix my nose,
Botox the wrinkles from my brow
and plump my thinning lips
(both on my face and down below)
and lipo tum and hips.
'Twould send my self-esteem sky high,
he said, to have this look.
I cut myself a piece of pie
and went back to my book.
- Katha Pollitt, New York, N.Y.

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10 years ago: August 1995. Dan and I had been married for 6 months. Still no bloodshed. We were looking for houses.

5 years ago: August 2000. 5 months pregnant with Simon. Just back from a vacation at the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.

1 year ago: August 2004. God knows. My short-term memory is shot to hell. Best as I can recall, just back from a long weekend in SH with Liane and her boy; preparing for another SH vacation in September.

Yesterday: Children’s museum with boys and friend and her daughter. Lunch there. Nap in afternoon. Clambake/birthday surprise party for Dan’s cousin in evening. (I ate three dozen clams. Disgraceful!)

Today: Grocery shopping at 7, hang out with the boys and be silly for a while, work 10 till 6. Go home, have leftovers for dinner. Maybe watch a movie. Go to bed early.

Tomorrow: Birthday party for Nadav in morning, David and Marisa’s in evening. Schlump around with the boys in between. Maybe plant some cheap, half-dead plants I bought at Home Depot a week ago.

5 snacks I enjoy: Tomatoes sliced up on crackers with salt and cheese; Goldenberg Peanut Chews; Jif pb on Ritz crackers; sharp cheddar and pretzels; cheese

5 bands/singers that I know the lyrics of MOST of their songs: Dar Williams, Chris Smither, Rusted Root, Bruce Springsteen, the Wiggles

Things I would do with $100,000,000: Invest for retirement, hire a contractor to fix/replace windows on our ancient falling-down house, put away cash for boys’ school. Buy Dan a Prius. Give away, to relatives, charity, etc. Especially to my new nephew, because my brother has been so generous with my boys, it’d be a joy to give him a wad o’ cash. .

5 locations I'd like to run away to: the shore (preferably SH); Antigua; Paris; Florence; Prague

5 bad habits I have: nail biting; short temper; not shaving my legs; obsessive email checking; yelling

5 things I like doing: blogging, reading, running, quilting, baking

5 things I would never wear: appliqué; sequins; ruffles; Disney characterized clothing; pleated pants

5 TV shows I like: ER; Family Guy; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Rock Star INXS; C-SPAN’s broadcasts of British parliament

5 movies I like: Moonstruck, Love Actually, The Wedding Singer, 101 Dalmatians, The Godfather

5 famous people I'd like to meet: John Cusack; Colin Firth; Jane Austen; Barbara Kingsolver; Laura Bush

5 biggest joys at the moment: Jude, Simon, my/Gina’s blog, anticipating my vacation, anticipating not being pregnant anymore!

5 favorite toys: my food processor, my new mitre box, the new ceiling fan remote, sewing machine, CD burner on my computer

5 bloggers tagged (if they made it this far & if you feel like it): Carolyn, Badger, Sara Louise, Katya, Gina

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The boys and I went to the Children’s Museum yesterday, mostly because I can set them loose in the third-floor water area and sit on one of those groovy surfboard benches and rest for an hour or so. And because I can set them loose in the Mr Rogers’ exhibit and I can sit on the comfy plaid couch for an hour and monitor them from there. And because it’s air-conditioned and the zoo decidedly is not. The last thing they wanted to do before we left for home was climb the Habitrail-like apparatus on the ground floor. It’s similar to all those climbing thingeys at McDonald’s Playlands across America, and it makes me intensely claustrophobic just thinking about getting into it. (Which I have had to do once or twice in the past when Si got stuck.) Judeman climbed up and down the entire two-story structure twice, only needing help with a butt-boost from an older kid once. Simon got two-thirds of the way up and panicked. His feet were dangling off the platform above, he was two inches from the bottom platform he needed to land on, and he would *not* drop. I sent his little friend Sarah up to help him but he wouldn’t release his death clutch on the wire surrounding the climbing things. Repeated injunctions for Sarah to “just give his legs a good yank” did not endear me to the parenting gods, I am sure. God help me, I sent his little brother up to help him but Jude wasn’t interested – maybe he hoped if he left Si in there we’d get to just leave him there for good? After twenty minutes of cajoling, explaining, offering other kids’ help, I finally just snapped, “Simon, I CANNOT fit in there so you have to figure out how to get out yourself,” and went to sit down on the bench at the end of the hall. Crying, whining, and lots of bleating “Mama….Mmmmaaammmmaaaaaa”s ensued. Eventually I yelled at him to let Sarah help him down, to let go of the cage, and over and over again, “I cannot go in there to help you, Si. I simply will not fit!” How did I go, in twenty short minutes, from being cool mama who takes her kids somewhere fun and lets them run around to shrieking shrew of a mama who is clearly humongous with child, having to yell for the entire population of the Children’s Museum that I am TOO FAT to fit in the Habitrail?! Life is so not fair. I was angry because I couldn’t go in to get him; I was angry because not one single employee offered to help me; I was angry because Si really was perfectly capable of getting out of the damn thing himself, it was at that point a power-struggle to get ME to come help him. I was really angry because I had to pee and instead had to stand there and argue with my stubborn four-year-old. Finally an older child physically lifted Si off the platform and dropped him onto the next one and chivvied him the rest of the way down. Darling gap-toothed eight-year-old boy who was there with your grandma, I will be forever grateful.

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I am almost done The Sparrow (and am gratified to learn that there is a sequel, which will most definitely be accompanying me on my trip to the shore later this month). In many ways the writing style and references to God and theology remind me of Madeleine L’Engle’s books. The same air of tentativeness and exploration of spirituality are there. The structure of The Sparrow is intricate, and can be confusing, told as it is in large chunks of flashbacks with intertwining plotlines. The plot doesn’t emerge in surprises, but as slowly- and naturally-unfolding revelations of events and knowledge. The main character, Father Emilio Sandoz, is enigmatic, romantic, and sympathetic. The tension and interaction among the other characters is meaningful and nicely drawn, and like most “scholarly” novels, background information (this novel utilizes everything from Biblical stories to Mel brooks films) is essential to grasping all the nuances of the plot and characterization. The Sparrow is a beautiful and haunting book essentially about one man’s quest for God.

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Gina is, poor soul, in Disney World for the next five days with her son and parents. My thoughts are with you, Gina : )

A Fat Girl Book I Can Sink My Teeth Into

I just this afternoon picked up I'm Not the New Me at the library. I can't remember where I got the recommendation for this, but if you look at the link and look closely at the cover, you will see those pics from those 70s Weight Watcher's recipe cards Val found! Imagine my surprise when I figured out why they looked so familiar!

I've only read a few pages, as I'm now back at work, but so far, so good.

Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of promotion, PR, & market research, society is suspicious of those who value silence.

OK here it is noon, and I feel like I am holding it together pretty well today, for me, considering the following (again taking into consideration the source…):

I woke up this morning with Jude in my bed (feet in my face) and Si sleeping on my floor. WTF? Would it be just wrong to lock my bedroom door?

The duplex next door to us is for sale. The owner had a good offer on it but during the inspection they found a rusted support beam. The buyer withdrew his offer. We were seriously bummed, as the ideal situation (for us the neighbors) would be to have the owner living in one side while renting the other, which was the buyer-to-be’s plan. So the owner, instead of funneling a ton of cash into fixing the real problem, the deal-breaking problem, is apparently fixing that by propping it up and instead spending thousands on landscaping. Yessirree, who cares if your house is falling down if you have green grass and pretty shrubs? The guys who are doing the work have been running the chainsaw and rototiller nonstop since eight this morning. I am going nuts. My Zoloft dose is just not high enough to cope with this constant assault on my ears.

We went to story time at the local library today. I find their children’s librarian a tad cloying and patronizing, but the kids seem to like her and I give her credit just for being a children’s librarian. (There’s good reason why I actively sought out collegiate surroundings for my library career…) At any rate we read a few stories, sang a few songs – well, “we” might be a misstatement. All the other children did this. My boys stubbornly sat on the floor while the others shook their sillies out, yawned their sleepies out, clapped their crazies out (I wonder if that would work for me?). Simon threw a fit during the Marching Around the Alphabet song and sulked in a chair while the rest of us pointed out letters and marched in circles. I don’t really know why I care – Si was actively participating in the story reading and question-and-answers; he just didn’t want to dance and sing. (And really, who does?) But I felt very self-conscious that my kids were the only ones not participating – and it made me feel like I had to haul my ass up off the floor where I was very comfortable, thank you very much, and participate, to try to convince them to do so. Otherwise I’d happily have sat and read my book. But noooooo…..

We picked up yet more library books – mostly Arthur Lobel, Mouse Soup in particular. At the visit to the ped yesterday, Si discovered this book and fell in love. He tried to convince me to go to the bookstore to buy it, “so I can have it forever,” but I held him off for a library copy. I have to have something to buy the kid for Christmas, for Pete’s sake. I also tried to find Kage Baker’s In the Garden of Iden but the library copy appears to have disappeared.

I am a third of the way through The Sparrow and I like it. It’s sci-fi without being so sci-fi as to be off-putting; the characters are intriguing, the plot is curious, and I like the set-up of the timeline of the book. (David, I think you would really enjoy it. If my opinion changes after I finish it, I’ll let you know. )

We had to go to the ped because Si’s, ahem, member hurts. I think it is due to all the pulling and tugging the thing’s undergoing lately, but Dan was worrying and once again second-guessing the circumcision decision, so I obligingly hauled him (Si, not Dan) off to the doc. (Although that second option appeals for many reasons as well.) Fret not, everything is fine. Trying to get a four-year-old to give a decent urine specimen might just have been the highlight of my day. The ped’s diagnosis, and I quote: it “could be sore due to all the yanking around.” I do the best I can but how many times a day do I really have to repeat, “Si, get your hands out of your pants.” It’s replaced boogey-mining as the favored hand activity. Last winter Dan worried himself sick about the chin-licking (don’t ask); this summer it’s penis-pulling and nose-picking. We would definitely have a gold medal contender in the Disgusting Bodily Habits Olympics, were such a thing to exist.

I feel as if I should comment on Rock Star INXS, but with the only singer left that I simply hate being Swiss Miss, what’s the point? Who wants to comment if you can’t be snarky? Although I will say this: she appears older every week. That saggy-boobed dress on Tuesday clinched the age thing for me: she’s got to be close to fifty by now.

“… in which barely clad models dry-hump near a commode while rolls of toilet paper look on, unmoved, as though they’ve seen it all.”

That may be the best sentence fragment I have ever read. Have a look at this luxury toilet paper, which hasn’t yet made a move to the US. I’m as much a sucker for little luxuries as the next girl, but I’m not at all tempted by this—and I care a great deal about bathroom comfort.

I saw monogrammed toilet paper in a catalogue of overpriced home accents once, and thought of how mob families might enjoy wiping their asses with paper featuring their enemies’ initials scrawled in gold, but who else would want that? And what company would want that? Why would Louis Vuitton create something that invites people to smear fecal matter on their logo?

I just don’t get it.

Yankee Pot Roast

I used to read YPR every day, and then I forgot all about it. Thanks to Bookslut for the link.

PS--Is this aimed specifically at Richard Russo's Empire Falls, do you think?

The sensible thing is to fight for your own boondoggle

I’m not a huge Garrison Keillor fan, but no one should miss this, which I’m excerpting from his article on Salon today:

I belong to an enormous special-interest group that, unlike Alaskans or hobby pilots, has never exercised much clout, and that is the English-major community. For us, the equivalent of the Gravina Island bridge is the public library equipped with leather sofas and an espresso bar and librarians who are trained in pressure-point massage. Greek columns would be nice, and a pair of stone lions, and a rare book collection and a three-story lobby with marble floors so your footsteps echo as if you were in an Edith Wharton novel. And a statue of Minerva.

I imagine that a super-library of that caliber might cost $223 million if you add in the books, the banks of computers with high-speed Internet connections, the movie theater, the Children's Room, the Steam Room, the Nap Room, the Hobnob Room where English majors can gather for a libation, the underground parking garage, and the kindly reference librarian with the bun, the faint mustache on the upper lip, the navy-blue knit dress, the sensible shoes, and the glasses on a chain around her neck. Those ladies have become rare and do not come cheap.

We English majors need a mouthpiece in Congress of the caliber of Rep. Don Young of Alaska. And we need to promote public libraries as a tool in the war against terror. How many readers of Edith Wharton have engaged in terroristic acts? I challenge you to name one. Therefore, the reading of Edith Wharton is a proven deterrent to terror. Do we need to wait until our cities lie in smoking ruins before we wake up to the fact that a first-class public library is a vital link in national defense?

Which side is your congressman on? If we English majors would make our voices heard and flood Congress with angry sonnets, we would get a major library bill passed. I hope that Minnesota will get the first $223 million library, but if Ketchikan wants one too, fine.

Hand-held infants are not permitted on most rides.

We took our out-of-town guests to Kennywood Park yesterday. Kennywood is an old-time amusement park, with several wooden roller coasters, famous Potato Patch fries, and enough new and high-tech rides to balance everything out. There are lots and lots of lovely old trees, comfy benches, tons of cheesy games, and an old train that runs around slowly the park’s perimeter. There’s something for everyone, even very pregnant people like me.

This was the first time I was there with my boys being old enough to ride things; Kiddieland was a huge hit. They rode just about everything there, except the mini-Pitfall. Jude was actually on it waiting for it to start before he panicked and demanded to be let off. Otherwise, Jude appears to be fearless. He did ride the Lil Phantom, which Si would not go near. In addition, every time the big-people Thunderbolt roller coaster rattled past us down its hills as we ate dinner, Jude looked at me and said solemnly, “Mama, me like THAT.” However, since he’s barely three feet tall, he was not allowed to ride it : ) I think they liked the Kiddie Whip the best – they both laughed and laughed through each ride. Jude even mastered the waving-your-hands-in-the-air move as you caroom around the ends. Simon rode two big-people rides – his second time on the Log Jammer (we have the photo magnet to prove it!) and the real Whip, which he wanted to ride over and over again.

There was a fairly mediocre magic show that freaked Si out; he was frightened, I think, that the man changed his assistant into a dog and then she disappeared. He anxiously asked me, “No one really got hurt, did they? I mean, it’s not REAL magic, like in Harry Potter?” And Jude and I caught an acrobatic show that my little guy just totally dug – he was jumping and dancing to the music and clapping. (If he and Si start trying to figure out how to build a human pyramid, we’re going to have real trouble. Especially if they involve the cats…)

We had not been in the park ten minutes when a woman approached me with her hands full of stuffed animals. Behind her were several teenaged boys also laden with various cheap stuffed animal prizes. She said, “Would your boys like these? As you can see, we have more than enough…” Simon claimed the orange Nemo-ey fish, and Jude picked the blue, glittery one, and they hauled those little fishies all over the park. Jude even made sure the fish was well-hydrated by sharing his water with it. I could not say thanks enough, because, man, did that take the pressure off us! None of the adults had to try to win prizes for them all day; it was already taken care of. What a sweet relief ; ) The boys slept with the critters last night, too.

Last night I asked the boys what their favorite part was. Simon liked the big Whip the best; Jude replied, “Scoop.” Scoop? Huh? The park is building a new ride and the construction site was full of bulldozers and backhoes. We spent about fifteen minutes after dinner just gazing at the machinery (no, it wasn’t moving, just sitting there). And the backhoe – Scoop – was Judeman’s favorite part.

At first I was worried about walking around the park all day due to the disgusting heat and humidity we have had here for the summer, but yesterday was blessedly cooler, and overcast. Perfect weather. Everyone else went out after lunch; I stayed home with Jude until he woke up from his nap at 430 and we drove out then and met the others. I certainly did feel it later that night, after hauling my ginormous belly all over the park, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. And then I realized that as a pregnant person, I was not expected – indeed was not allowed – to go on any rides, so could safely eat whatever I wanted without fear of it coming back up on some roller coaster. So I had my once-yearly corn dog with mustard and Potato Patch fries, and I still have half a bag of cotton candy in my car.

This was the first time I had been there with little kids. The employees, especially in Kiddieland, were terrific. They were all sweet and very patient, but several of them went out of their way to do little things that were unnecessary but made the experience more fun for my kids. There was the young woman manning the Kiddie whip who was holding out her hand for all the little ones to high-five as they went past her; there were the two young people running the helicopters who patiently helped my boys out of the “wrong-colored” helicopter and into the “right-colored” one without hurrying them or being short with them; there was the young man who ran the motorcycles just for my two boys, making the cycles bump gently up and down (over his FOOT!) and sending my boys into fits of giggles every time around the circle. I was so impressed by the great attitudes and demeanor of these (mostly) teenagers that I felt compelled to write a letter to the park this morning commending them on their wonderful employees. I figure if I am so quick to scribble off letters about things that piss me off – and God knows I am - I should be just as quick to scribble off notes of appreciation.

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So our guests left this morning, and I was sad to see them go. Some because they’re just great people, and some because, since I thought they were staying till Thursday, I have enough food in the house to feed a small army.

Our next-door neighbors are back from their camping vacation (four children ages 1-7, two adults, and one bat, in a cabin -- God bless them). They brought us tomatoes and peaches and I love them even more than I did before. My idea of the perfect summer breakfast: tomato sliced up on top of club crackers and American cheese, sprinkled liberally with salt, and accompanied by an ice cold Coke. Mmmm. I am also working towards my goal of eating my weight in cantaloupe this summer. Admirable, yes?

Speaking of food, I have gained, total, eight pounds. NOW my doctor wants me to gain more weight; before I was admonished to keep it to fifteen pounds. Humph. She recommended Ensure – yech. I think I’ll pass. The baby is growing just fine, apparently it’s just me that’s not fat enough! Coulda fooled me.

El bambino is still lying sideways. Flip, baby, flip!

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Snippets:

If this were true of you, would you admit it?

This auction amuses me.

You too can report a dead bird online!

Why is it so nice being awake in the middle of the night? Why do I like being up at 4am when everyone else is asleep? Am I truly that anti-social?

“…for those of us who lived through these events..."

the only marker we’ll ever need is the tick of a clock at the 46th minute of the eighth hour of the 11th day." - George W. Bush, President of the United States.

*********************

I have been looking at pictures and reading transcripts from September 11. The New York Times sued the city of New York to have records made public, and CNN has pretty in-depth coverage. What shakes me up all over again, what makes me remember the horror of that day, my own personal little bit of hell that day, is that in every single shot of the towers – before, during, and after the day – you can clearly see the building where my brother worked, 3 World Financial Center.

I was at work that morning, working on some manual for MRI software. I remember one of the company’s owners sending out a company-wide email saying that one of the towers had been hit with an airplane. At that point we all thought it was an accident – a pilot having a heart attack or something like that. Tragic but not terrifying. Within minutes we heard about the second plane and slowly it dawned on us that this was no accident. Someone ran home and brought back their TV and set it up in the reception area.

I knew my brother worked in Manhattan, and the name of his building, but until I Mapquested it I had no idea where exactly he was…less than a tenth of a mile from the World Trade Center – just across the West Side Highway, a road I had driven on, a multi-lane highway to be sure but just a road. I found out later that the WTC subway stop was where he got off every morning to go to his office. His fiancée worked in the same building, about ten floors up.

I remember clearly sending him an email: “Are you ok?” I never got a reply – he never got the email – his company’s backup servers were in one of the towers. I called his cell phone; I called his apartment; I called his fiancee’s apartment. I couldn’t get through. I called my husband at work – he knew exactly where Drew’s office was but hadn’t wanted to tell me during our first phone conversation, when every thing was just happening. I didn’t have Rebecca’s parents’ phone number; I couldn’t get through to my other brother in New Jersey.

I stood in the office and watched the entire thing – the networks showed, over and over again, the planes flying into the towers. I remember vividly when the first tower began to crumble, and the panic in the newscaster’s voice. I stood there, my knuckles pressed to my lips, tears streaming silently down my face. I was sick to my stomach, I couldn’t think straight, I had no idea what else was going to happen. I do remember people going on about their business – proposals had to go out, there were deadlines to be met. I was the only person in that small office who had any sort of personal connection to the tragedy, as far as relatives or friends on site. I remember being angry that people were not more upset, more horrified. I did no work; I stood in front of the TVs and cried and speed-dialed my brother’s cell over and over again.

At some point, I called my babysitter. Simon was about nine months old, and was watched by a friend in our neighborhood, across the city, through tunnels and across a bridge. Downtown was evacuated and shut down; to this day my brother-in-law swears they saw the plane that crashed in Somerset fly over downtown. At that point, flights had been grounded, it would have been one of few planes still in the air. I knew it would take hours to get home, and Mrs. B. told me Si was fine, I should stay put. Her husband was a city firefighter; arguably Si was safer with her at their house anyway. Dan decided to stay at his office as well, for much the same reasons – it would take hours to get home.

Finally, around noon or so, maybe a little earlier, my older brother called me from South Jersey. He had had a phone call from a friend of Rebecca’s who lived in Philly. Drew had managed to get a phone call through to her somehow, after trying us and Rebecca’s family with no luck, and told her to call everyone to let them know he and Rebecca were safe. He had been in his office when the first plane hit. They were told it was safe to stay. Rebecca actually saw the second plane hit, out of her office window. She and Drew met down in the lobby and headed out toward the river, and uptown to their apartment on 14th St. Drew said he just headed to the river and kept moving; many people stayed and watched, and he was sure that wasn’t safe. He thought the towers were going to come down, but sideways rather than pancaking, and he wanted to be long gone by then. The air was full of smoke and dust, he could see people falling, and there were helicopters everywhere. He had no idea if they were police helicopters, or more terrorists, or what; he just wanted to be away from there. They were safely home before the first tower collapsed but it was hours before he could get a phone call through to anyone.

I finally left work around 4, managed to get home – I don’t even remember the drive home. I picked up my boy. The sky was blue, blue, blue---the day was gorgeous. There were no visible airplanes overhead, just the drone of Army planes. I got home, turned on the TV, and clutched my boy. I cried and watched the television coverage long into the night, switching back and forth between CNN and Fox (which had surprisingly good, non-sensationalistic coverage). The lack of airplanes that night and the next day or so was eerie. We lived under a flight path for the airport and were used to having airplanes fly over a lot, sometimes every 45 seconds for an hour or so. I was used to hearing planes that sounded like they were going to land on my roof, and being able to look up from my front yard and identify the airline of the plane. I *never* thought I’d be happy to hear an airplane fly over my house again, but when finally they were back up in the air, I was.

My brother doesn’t talk much about that day. His now-wife will get up and leave the room if you even approach the subject. I never asked and never found out exactly what they saw and smelled and heard; I don’t think I want to know. Drew worked in Jersey for awhile and then his company moved to Midtown. Rebecca’s new job took her past Ground Zero every day for the next couple years. I know she was relieved when finally the company she worked for closed their Manhattan office and she could work from home.

It turns out that my husband’s college roommate (the one who is coming to visit us this week) was scheduled for a meeting in the WTC that morning, but he had to skip it for some reason. His two co-workers who attended the meeting died. It took him hours to get back home to Connecticut; he was one of those businessmen we saw all over the news, covered in grey dust, walking through Manhattan in their shirt sleeves, trying to get home to their families. He doesn’t talk about that day either. My best friend from college had to walk from her Manhattan office to New Jersey before she could finally get the rest of the way home on public transportation.

Several weeks later an office friend and I were out for lunch and I mentioned something about the WTC. She laughed and nonchalantly said, “Wow, I guess I don’t even really think about it anymore.” Maybe she was just young and stupid, or innocent beyond belief. No one she knew personally had been affected by the events of that day. But I could not wrap my brain around the fact that she could forget about it. I still thought of it every single day. I still think of it often, although the horror has been dulled by time, and by subsequent events like the war on Iraq and the financial tussles of the victims’ families, and the design competition for the new buildings. The events of that day have been sanitized and media-ized for the comfort of the American public. The bombings in London brought back some of that horror and fear and heart-lurching sickness. I can still see those posters of the “missing” plastered all over walls and telephone poles and every available surface. I can still remember waiting for my phone to ring. I am so glad, every single time I talk to my brother or his wife, that it did. Thank God he didn’t actually work in the towers, or I’d probably have had a heart attack waiting for news. Until I had my children, my little brother was the only person I could imagine dying for.

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Me, me, me -- and thousands dead. But that is what happened today. Now it is about us, and not just about them.
- Roger Ebert [whose wife and stepdaughter were in New York at the time at the attacks -- September 12, 2001]

They call me Heat Miser, whatever I touch starts to melt in my clutch...I'm too much!

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I am printing out Thomas coloring pages to keep Jude occupied while I blog. Thank God for the Internet. Simon is on his way over to his cousins’ house for his first-ever sleepover party. We carefully packed, into his Winnie the Pooh backpack which is almost as big as he is, extra socks and underwear and shirts, and his Winnie the Pooh bear, and his toothbrush and toothpaste, and his bunky (a flannel plaid blanket that I could not even stand to LOOK AT in this heat) and his potty seat in case he has to take a crap while he’s there and is worried about falling in….Good Lord, I hope I remembered everything for the following sixteen hours that he might need. So Jude is enjoying his sojourn as an only child, although he was pretty forlorn at first. But I fed him an ice cream sandwich and we played with the hose (he figured out how to turn it on and point it at me, little booger) and now he is getting to color without fighting over the crayons (although the constant monologue continues). I hope he doesn’t get too used to it. Although after the past week of hell, with the boys sniping and fighting and pushing and screaming nonstop, and temps in the high nineties, and my feeling nauseated and exhausted perpetually, I could get used to having only one child around. But I’ll never admit I said that : )

Oh, Dan just got home. Jude plastered his nose to the window.
Jude: Mama's tar here. Daddy home....my brudder here?
Me: Jude, honey, Si is at Aunt Diana's.
Jude: No! My brudder HERE! [begins to cry]
Poor little guy. He misses Dyman.

******************

In the past week, Simon fell off the top of his little ride-on car (please don’t ask…*I* think *he* thinks he is Evil Knievel)and skinned his chin; Jude fell off the door of the same car (again, better not to ask) and has a lovely snot-looking scab right under his left nostril. I am considering putting said car out in the garbage. Thank God I did not give into the entreaties by various in-laws to buy/give them battery-operated motor vehicles. We’d probably have ruptured spleen and broken ribs instead.

**********************

The past week has been indeed hellish, for any variety of reasons, most of which I am unable to articulate other than it’s hot, I am very pregnant, last night I couldn’t extricate my Zoloft from the medicine cabinet because Dan had masked and taped off the entire bathroom to paint it, and we have houseguests coming on Sunday for five days. (Did the nuclear waste test give you any idea of my mood? : )) I love these people, but as I’ve mentioned before, Dan apparently feels the need to live in House Beautiful and I have been extraordinarily stressed and pissy and evil. But I am feeling much better today – something to do with the following three things:
1) this morning I cranked up the boys’ ac and went back to sleep till noon
2) when I woke up, I got in my car and went to B&N and spent money
3) have I mentioned I have only one child to care for the next sixteen hours?

So I went to B&N to buy birthday presents since we zoned on the children-who-are-coming-to-visit’s birthdays. Emma is 11, and a sweet, intelligent, beautiful girl, who is pretty innocent for eleven these days, I think. She really likes theatre and art, and books. I got her one of those Klutz crafty books about making hemp and bead bracelets, and a copy of Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game.

Noah is 7, and one of the smartest little boys I know. When I see him, I have a feeling I know what Si will be like in several years. When I first met Noah, he was two, and we were houseguests at his parents’ while we attended Dan’s 15th college reunion. I was four months pregnant with Si, not particularly familiar with the ways of small children, and mostly preoccupied with vomiting my insides out 24-7. Two memories stand out (about Noah, that is; the reunion itself offers all sorts of memories, most of which just piss me off – can you say, “ex-girlfriend from hell”?):

1)It was bedtime after a very full day. Noah was scrubbed and PJed and ostensibly ready for bed. But then he came downstairs and asked his dad solemnly, “Dad, can I run around the couch?” Andrew said yes and Noah did about ten laps around the couch at full speed. Then he happily went back upstairs, got in bed, and went to sleep.
2)We were sitting at the dinner table and Noah was crying about something - choice of food, or whatever. His mom said, “What’s up?” and Noah said (articulate two year old that he was!), sniffling and blinking, “I am feeling *very* upset right now.”

So I got Noah a klutz book about these cool Lego contraptions, and a big book of word puzzles/searches/mazes. They seemed like things Gina’s son Ted would like and I thought Ted was a good guide since he too is smart and cool, and roughly the same age as Noah.

Me – I bought Green Darkness by Anya Seton (I can’t remember which of my blog buddies recommended it, but I loved the first line, so that’s pretty much a safe indicator for me : )), and a copy of Washington Square/Daisy Miller which it turns out I already have so that will be returned.

Anne Rivers Siddons has a new book out but I will wait till it comes out in paperback since her last two books were so histrionic and melodramatic as to be virtually unreadable. I really enjoy her early stuff – she reminds me of early Pat Conroy but not quite as violent and masculine - Peachtree Road, King’s Oak, and Fox’s Earth were all well-written, engrossing stories, and The House Next Door thoroughly creeped me out. But over the past few novels, she’s gotten predictable and a wee bit boring. Her characters are caricatures that simply annoy me now, and I generally feel the need to slap some sense into them. So I’ll wait, even though I am sure I will read the new one eventually.

Sophie Kinsella has a new one out as well, that I will get from the library. I was so disappointed in Shopaholic and Sister that I feel no need to throw good money after bad. I only have so much cash to squander on books.

Then on the way home I got a brain, stopped and bought some really nice cold cuts and fresh mozzarella at the little Italian deli, and a couple of cantaloupe and a whole watermelon at the little farm stand next door, and decided I am cooking nothing this weekend. Houseguests or no, is there anything better when it’s hot than a nice drippy tomatoey sandwich and some juicy cold melon? No. There’s not. I do not even know why I asked.

****************
I hate my cats at the moment. It's ninety-five degrees outside and the damn furry creatures want to brush up against me and sit in my lap. What are they thinking?!?! I have threatened Septimus with the pound several times this week; Emmy is smart enough to go outside and stay out my way. Poor pitiful cats and their evil evil person.

Arrested Development

Okay, so I am very late to this, but it's so funny! If you've never seen it, Fox is obligingly showing Arrested Development marathons on Friday nights. If, unlike me, you have a life, you should tape it. The new season starts September 19 at 8pm. I'm thrilled to once again have TV worth making an appointment for. :-)

fucking perfect

I taste like Nuclear Waste. Delicious. Tasting like nuclear waste is a good thing - nothing bites me, nothing eats me, few things even touch me. I appreciate the solitude my harsh exterior brings. What Flavour Are You?

courtesy of david

This is the most entertaining one of these quizzes I've taken in a long time. And it toally appeals to my morbid, death-fascinated, I-shoulda-been-Quincy side.

**********


Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.

Bone

Teddy's in love with these graphic novels, and I couldn't be happier. The only problem is that only two volumes have been published. If you click on the link and then click again on the center dot at the bottom of the screen, you'll see a character named Ted. :-)

*******

Also, I ate a plum this morning that *tasted* like plum-scented things *smell*. It was disturbing to the point that I didn't really enjoy the plum at all.

*******

Still stewing over Man Camp; I'll post about why tonight or tomorrow.

Blood . . . Boiling . . . Head Going to . . . Explode

Please tell me you find this ad from Real Simple as offensive as I do. In case you can't see it (I scanned it--it's not a very good image), the ad is for Kenneth Cole Reaction, and the copy asks, "How old is grown up?"

I am ready to scream.

"I love you, but sooner or later, you're gonna have to face the fact that you're a goddamned moron."

Here is the Man Booker Prize longlist, generally a good guide to some decent books. I have heard of most of them, have read none of them. Better get cracking before September 8, which is when the short list is announced, and October 10, which is when the winner is announced.

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I am liking Outlander, as I’ve said, but how many ingenious and impossible ways can Jamie possibly escape from the English/Black Watch/ whoever takes it into their head to capture him next? Right now he’s thrown himself, fully bound with leather thongs, off a horse in the middle of a river and escaped. It’s like Scottish Houdini.

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A review of Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, Shalimar the Clown, due out here on September 6. I could not even finish his last novel, it was so formulaic – and as I have oh-so-cleverly stated before, it was self-derivative -- which isn’t a bad thing considering you’re Salman Rushdie. But it was mediocre at best.
However, my hopes for the excellency of the newest were dashed with the last paragraph of this review:
At its best, Rushdie's fiction holds up a warped mirror to real life, in all its absurdity and awfulness. Shalimar the Clown does that to some extent, but feels not fully inflated. Even more than usual, the characters seem allegorical, passion-play placeholders for the grand ideas and currents buffeting the world. The result is an honorable failure, a garbled book for garbled times.

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Jude’s phrase of choice today, uttered approximately every thirty seconds:
"Ice dream dammich!"

Si wasn’t feeling well last night – probably something to do with the inordinate amount of Chinese steamed dumplings he ate at dinner. So he slept in his bed. Fine. Except that I had to sleep on the floor then (the boys’ room has the AC). I am too old to sleep on the floor anymore. I hurt this morning.

There are toys all over my bedroom, which is generally a toy-free zone. But last week they were playing tea party and set up in my room, and they were having such a good time I let it be. However, after stepping on Legos and TinkerToys in the middle of the night one too many times this past week, I demanded it be cleared up today. Si said Daddy said it didn’t have to be cleared up till Saturday (our house guests arrive Sunday). Since Dan is not the one who gets up in the middle of the night (and I have to give into my OCD impulses occasionally), I overruled this bit of nonsense and told them to start cleaning. Much yelling, screaming, dancing about, and crying ensued (despite what you may think, solely on their part). So I used my usual threat: “You can clear it up, or I’ll do it and the stuff will be taken away.” After thoughtful consideration Simon said, “OK, Mom. You do it. I’ll find something else to play with.” I really do NOT deserve these children – do I?

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A quote from today’s paper’s Morning File:
“A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when crossing a one-way street.”
Unless you live where I do, where pedestrians are merely prey for all those oh-so-skilled-at-driving neurosurgeons on their way to emergency surgery, coffee cups and cigarettes in hand, and cell phone to ear.

That said, I'd probably *still* look both ways.

Oh Heathcliff! You're a sniveling, moody bastard but I love you anyway!

You're Catherine Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights by
Emily Bronte!


Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


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I HATE Wuthering Heights and I am no fan of Catherine Earnshaw. Life is so not fair. Thanks a lot, David!

Gina, *I* want to be Elizabeth Bennett. But you are so her, that was pretty accurate. I'm just lucky I didn't get pegged as Mrs. Rochester, I suppose.

Of course, given these choices, I suppose Catherine is fairly accurate after all. Sigh.

You know you've made it when you've been moulded in miniature plastic. - Cate Blanchett

Monday evening, 6 pm.
Simon refuses to eat the ziti, even though I assure him that it tastes the exact same way the spaghetti does. I curse Dan under my breath for either not knowing or not caring about this preference and taking the leftover spaghetti rather than the ziti for lunch. (This is the difference between mothers and fathers – I would have known to take the stupid ziti. Dan’s a grown man and doesn’t much care what form of pasta he ingests. Simon, on the other hand…) Si instead eats an entire can of pears for dinner. (Jude eats the ziti – I have my own in-house version of Jack Sprat and his wife.)

Tuesday morning, 3 am.
“Mama! Mama! I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed yyooooooouuuu!!!!!”
I wake out of a sound-ish sleep to find Si dancing frantically in my doorway.
“I have to go to the bathroom and I need to hurry! Help me!”
My mothering instinct kicks in (or my don’t-wish-to-scrub-the-bathroom-floor-at-three-in-the-morning instinct, hard to tell) and I leap out of bed, grab the child, whip off his underwear, and plunk him on the toilet just in time.
Unusually he wishes me to remain in the bathroom while he does his thing. So I sit on the edge of the bathtub and discuss Thomas the Tank Engine with him, accompanied by various loud and rude bodily function noises. Finally, he feels much better, and I make a mental note to NEVER ever feed the child pears ever again.
He climbs back into bed– oh who am I kidding – he is sleeping on the floor these days, his preference, I just hate to admit that my child sleeps on the floor when he has a perfectly fine and comfy bed. So he climbs back under his comforter and quilts and asks me to stay a bit. All right. Because even though I am hugely pregnant, I sometimes feel guilty that I am too impatient and not affectionate enough with my older son, and so I feel compelled to crawl into his floor-nest and hug him to me. (He is so not a snuggler. Jude curls right into me and wraps his little arms around my neck; cuddling with Si is somewhat like trying to cuddle with a box of Legos or maybe his Wiggles radio.) Also, he wishes to discuss with me, in great detail and with enthusiasm, the Moomintroll book we started reading that evening before bedtime.

“Mom, what is Moomintroll?”
“Uh…a troll.”
“Why did he want to sleep with Snufkin instead of Sniff?”
“Because Sniff snores.”
“Ooooh! That’s the Sniff that snores!”
Silence. I pray he is asleep. Nope.
“Mom? Are Moominmamma and Moominpappa just Moomintroll’s parents? Or Sniff’s and Snufkin’s too? “
“Si, I haven’t the foggiest. I just started reading the book too. Now go to sleep.”
“Mom? Can I take Frog and Toad to school with me tomorrow?”
“Simontroll, it’s time to sleep.”
Finally he simply runs out of steam and goes to sleep, probably because I promise him an entire chapter of Moomintroll when he gets home from preschool tomorrow, but now I am wide awake. Which is my right and just punishment for allowing my boy to eat an entire can of pears.

******************


I just checked out of my library Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and DM Thomas’ The White Hotel both upon the recommendation of a coworker who I like very much (and who is way smarter than me). After I finish Outlander (soon, soon), I felt like I had a gazillion books lined up but I guess I didn’t really. And I am not that thrilled to go back to Son of the Circus so perhaps I’ll postpone that for a bit. I am scheduled for vacation in three weeks, so for a week away I need at least four books to take with me. (Because you have to account for moods, etc.) So I have to start thinking about vacation reading possibilities as well. Last year I read Cloud Atlas, The Perfect Storm, The Bitch in the House, and a new issue of Brain, Child. So you see, I really do run the gamut on vacation. (Although I learned my lesson year before last and refuse to read shark books at the beach. Close to Shore was a really good read but I was terrified to get in the water. ) Some of the other time travel suggestions will probably make it into my luggage - The Garden of Iden looked particularly intriguing and fun. Maybe the second book of the Outlander series. Possibly Slammerkin, Vanity Fair, or maybe some Rushdie. Or maybe I will just go wander B&N (or the library) and splurge.

*****************

Gina, Sarah Louise, and I watched “Washington Square” on Saturday evening. At first we thought Jennifer Jason Leigh was just laughable but as the movie progressed, her character developed and matured in subtle and beautiful ways. At the end of the movie, I can only say I admire her acting ability after all, even if the last movie I saw her in was “The Hitcher”. The toothsome Ben Chaplin plays the love interest, but alas, I knew going into it that it was based on the Henry James novel so I knew not to expect a happy ending. (Although I recently read Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers, which strangely did end happily – something I never in a million years expected from Wharton, James, or others of that period and ilk.)

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Snippets:

I want to go to this.

The Booker Prize longlist will be announced tomorrow. That should give me some vacation-reading fodder. And never fear, I will share my opinions.

I wanted to love Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell but I just could NOT get into it. Maybe it too will take a trip to the shore with me. I can't be the only person who doesn't get it...can I?

OK, I want to see a picture of Barbie the Librarian. Could she possibly be as cool as the action figure based on Nancy Pearl? And what would her accessories be – obviously the glasses, and maybe a book – like the ALA’s Guide to Reference Books; perhaps a subscription to ProQuest or Lexis Nexis? Maybe the companies could do some sort of product tie-in.

I’ve always kinda dug Struwwelpeter, so I need to check this book out. I agree with the Bookslut people, though – I like the UK cover much better than the US cover.

************************************

My husband’s very sweet and fairly rich college roommate and his family are coming to visit next Sunday. So we are in the throes of frantic house-fixing-up, in Dan’s desperate hope of fooling them into believing that we do not indeed live in a hundred-year-old house we got for a steal and which needs years of work. Andrew is the nicest guy in the world, and his wife is great, and I love their kids – they all will not care, but Dan…now. Having attended a very prestigious university, and regardless of the fact that I try to hide his alumni magazine from him, he suffers from an inferiority complex because he has not recently been named chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins or written a best-selling critically acclaimed novel, or invented the next greatest thing in microchips, or been appointed to the President’s cabinet. So I take a deep breath, having long ago reconciled myself to *my* personal mediocrity in the face of *my* alumni magazine, and try to fix up the house for the guy. Because I love him, and because I personally think he’s done some amazing stuff and is an amazing guy. But what the hell do I know? I’m just married to him.

"If there really is a pole at the North Pole, I bet there's some dead guy with his tongue stuck to it." - Bob Van Oris

It should be illegal (since in my opinion it’s already immoral) to have a PBS station’s pledge drive during childrens’ programming.

And my boys are whining that they are bored. It’s pouring rain outside, and Dan has the car today since his is virtually dead but we have not yet made the giant new-car leap. Si is whining about strings in his underwear (wtf???) and Jude is sitting on the couch with thumb in mouth, fingers jammed up nostrils, saying, “Mama. Mama. Mama.” Over and over and over again.

I have just capitulated without much nagging at all and told them they can watch the horrifying Barney. Where are my headphones? I LOATHE Barney. But I LOATHE pledge drive and these smarmy women even more. Oh, will you look at that? For only a pledge of $250, we can be the proud owners of a signed Mr. Rogers trolley. Which of course my boys want. Also, the stuffed animals of the entire DragonTales cast. Odious women, playing upon the sensitivities of toddlers watching pledge drive.

I am a bad parent.

*********************

I finally had found the perfect lip balm – plain un-Petroleum Lip Honey. It works wonders, and it doesn’t melt in my car during the summer. So what happens? You got it - they discontinued it. I might still be able to order it from England but no longer can I just pick some up at Whole Foods. It still comes in flavors like peppermint and orange, but…you guessed it…I loathe flavored lip balm. I guess it’s back to Burt’s Bees for me.

**********************

Someone recently said to me, “If you already have two boys, odds are good this third baby is a girl.” Right? No – very wrong. Babies don’t work like the socks-in-a-drawer probability word problems we tried to solve in grade school. Each baby has a fifty-fifty chance overall of being a particular gender, and with each baby the counter is reset, so to speak. So bring on the third boy. It’s ok. I do NOT loathe baby boys.

*******************

I am thoroughly enjoying Outlander. And am pretty much in love with Jamie Fraser.

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I read an article on forced marriages in Turkey somewhere recently. I know it’s a horrible situation and women are abused, but my first thought was this (God forgive me): At least they have someone else to blame when their spouse is a jerk. Who do I have to blame? Only myself. After all, I not only married him but did it *against* the advice of my mother. I am not really comparing Dan’s leaving food crumbs in the sink drainer and refusing to argue about the space program with me in a civilized manner to what these women endure – beatings, abuse, poverty. But it doesn’t help me feel any better to know that it is ALL MY FAULT.

*********************

OK, there’s *this* novel, History of Love , by Nicole Krauss, married to Jnoathan Safran Foer.

And then there’s *this* novel, The Nanny Diaires by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus.

And it only took me several months to figure out that the great JSF’s wife did NOT write the (readable) Nanny Diaries and the (execrable) Citizen Girl. No wonder the Krauss-Foers do not invite me to their cocktail parties anymore….

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Got the latest issue of “House and Garden” last week. Dominique Browning had a new Editor photo taken. She looks older but very pretty and dignified in a lovely pink blouse and shoulder-length hair. The hair’s a little Jackie O for me, but overall, very nice shot. Way to go, Dominique. As always, gracious and graceful. Forget Martha, I aspire to be Dominique.

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Your (actually, my) political thought for the day:

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.
He asked, "What are all those clocks?"
St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move."
"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?"
"That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."
"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?"
St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life."
"Where's Bush's clock?" asked the man.
"Bush's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

That's something I've noticed about food: whenever there's a crisis if you can get people to eating normally things get better. - Madeleine L'Engle

Because our neighbors with whom we share our veggie booty each week are on vacation, we get the entire portion this week (that cantaloupe would have been mine, all mine! Sob!). So I have a few zucchini and some pickling cukes. Anyone have any good zucchini recipes, other than zucchini bread and zucchini casserole? Because we are sick of both, and it’d be a shame to waste two perfectly good zucchini. I found a couple recipes for refrigerator pickles on the web, but if anyone has any foolproof suggestions, do tell. I always feel so darn domestic when I do things like make pickles or jam. A few summers ago I made a ton of peach jam and strawberry jam, inspired mostly by Laurie Colwin. It was so good that I wound up giving jars of it away as Christmas gifts. I’ve also done apple butter, which was tasty but not the hit that the peach jam was. All three were scarily simple; the most complicated part was boiling the jars to make sure they were sealed, and I solved much of that trauma by using my spaghetti pot – one of those stainless steel pots with the built-in strainers. I have since acquired a big canning kettle at a yard sale but have yet to use it. At the old house we had a lovely and high-yielding sour cherry tree. What we didn’t immediately bake into pies and almond tarts, I preserved in big jars of vodka. That was pretty yummy too, and really simple. In We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the cellar is full of preserves and canned/pickled veggies and fruit from generations back. That idea did creep me out – I mean, do you really want to even touch three-decades old preserves? If you can’t/won’t eat it eventually, the point of stockpiling it is nil. But it makes me feel so Martha-Stewart-y, which is a lovely feeling. Like I do have my domestic shit together, when it is patently clear to anyone who knows me that, really, I so do not.

**********

As far as Laurie Colwin goes – a few days ago I stumbled across this article by Bookslut’s Jessa Crispin, about the editing (or in this case, non-editing) that goes on in the world of the cookbook. Apparently the responsibility for the success of recipes falls squarely on the chef’s shoulders, not the editor, so if your author is busy filming a reality TV show or running six restaurants, you might not want to get your hopes up too high. I am guessing everyone has cookbooks that they have given up on. I have given away both James Peterson’s Splendid Soups and Crescent Dragonwagon’s Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread cookbook because 1) the recipes are all way too much work. Who the hell wants to roast a duck to make broth on a regular basis? Any cookbook recipe with ingredient lists that include references to other pages is fairly useless to me at this point in my life. If the ingredient is “Jellied Duck Consomme (see page 112)” and I turn to page 112 and discover a recipe for said consommé that takes three hours to concoct, I am very darn likely to bag on whatever recipe was asking for the consomme. And 2) I have yet to make a recipe from either of these books that was edible, let alone come close to blowing my socks off, even after making the three-hour jellied duck consommé. (One of the very few things my husband has flat-out refused to eat was a garlic soup recipe from the Peterson book.) The pics are pretty, the recipes sound delish, but they never ever turn out right. Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking and More Home Cooking have the same trouble. Although they are such a joy to read, with Colwin’s breezy style and humor permeating the text, that I keep them and reread them. But her recipes almost never turn out well. And when she insists, as she does all too often, that something is a “snap,” it turns out it is either inedible or it is not a snap at all unless you happen to be an invalid confined to the house for ten hours at a time since I could never leave my gas oven overnight without worrying to death. But I will say this – her recipes for black bean yam cakes and rosemary walnuts make every other mistake worthwhile. I could happily eat an entire batch of yam cakes by myself and sometimes do, and I have given countless jars of the walnuts as hostess gifts.

I adore John Thorne’s books but have never attempted his recipes. He has too much Colwin in his tone to be reassuring (when he quotes from a part of The Tin Drum in which a bedridden character is making spaghetti, sauced with ketchup, in a tin can, I knew I should probably steer clear of his recipes), but gosh, they’re comforting and entertaining to read.

I recently read some of Nigel Slater’s books, and he too has that Colwin tone: “Yes, you simply saute the duck for three hours and then chop it fine and pack it into a terrine with lots of fresh tarragon and dill, and voila, you have sandwich spread that you can just slap upon the loaf of organic cracked whole wheat bread that happens to be lying around, and maybe use some of that delicious homemade garlic-celery salt mayonnaise you whipped up yesterday. Simply delish! And so simple.” In whose world, Nigel? In my house it’s more likely you’ll get tuna from a can and mayo from the Hellman’s jar (hey at least I don’t use Miracle Whip!), slapped onto some week-old wheat bread. (In my mother’s infamous words, “You’ll eat it and you’ll like it!”)

My foolproof cookbooks – I swear by my Fannie Farmer (it has my finally-successful pie crust recipe in it, and even if that were the only useful recipe I would still keep that book forever). I also use the New Basics Cookbook a lot. It has never failed me, particularly when it comes to dealing with some oddball ingredient I have not used before. I have every single issue except for three of Fine Cooking; admittedly, after almost ten years of issues, they have begun to repeat themselves, but the recipes are almost always spectacular and many of them have made their way into my usual recipe rounds. To them I must credit my gumbo, my lemon curd, my shortbread, a delectable baked ziti, an easy and delicious lasagna, and the most amazing chocolate cupcakes I have ever tasted. Oh, and the aforementioned sour cherry-almond torte which I believe Dan would sell his soul for. And I have this little book my mom gave me years ago, called A Year of Cookies which has some of the best cookie recipes I have ever tried in it. But closest to my heart and best of all is the tattered, beat-up, food- and grease-stained, annotated notebook given to me by my mom when I moved out of the house, with all her recipes in it. The best Sloppy Joes ever, total comfort meatloaf, the cheesecake that my neighbor made for my mom’s birthday every year and that was rationed like gold (now whenever my brother comes to visit, I make one and we each eat half : )), her ambrosia fruit salad that I craved wildly with each pregnancy (yes, the kind with sour cream and those mini marshmallows), my grandmother’s apple cake and her halupchis (which take *forever* and are worth every single second). Now that my mom is gone, it’s even more precious to me, and I wish that I’d realized she wouldn’t be around for ever and had the notebook enshrined instead of actually using it and messing it up.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends...

I don’t know why I thought that the (I assume) educated, crunchy, environmentally conscious, probably upper-middle-class sort of people who might participate in the Community Agriculture co-op program would NOT stoop to stealing other people’s veggies and fruit – call me naïve, call me stupid. Today I went at 430 to pick up our loot and every single crate there, about a dozen, had the exact same things in it – except ours and one other family’s. We happened to both be missing a cantaloupe. Coincidentally, we were both on the bottom of the crate piles too. Hmmm. You can’t convince me that one single cantaloupe is the difference between the program that serves 2-4 people and the one that serves 4-6. And I could not bring myself to swipe some other poor soul’s cantaloupe, even though I ADORE cantaloupe and was hoping all week there’d be some this week. The one last week was amazing. I am sadly disappointed and more than a little pissed off.

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I had my monthly OB visit this morning. The baby’s head is on my left, his butt on my right, and – bad news – his back is down. He still isn’t flipped. Now my doc said that they don’t start being concerned until the 36th week (well, good, that’s one of us anyway), but if he doesn’t flip and the “measures” they take don’t work, they will not deliver a breech baby vaginally. So if he doesn’t flip, after two relatively simple and quickly-recovered-from vaginal births, I am facing possible major surgery in the form of a c-section. I know I will not have much help at all after the birth but I was thinking that since it’s my third, at least I won’t be so clueless and therefore I might be able to hold it together better. If I have to have a c-section, I can’t promise anything.

There have been solutions proposed (or as my OB said mysteriously, “There are things we can try.” Gina pointed out that this sounds like the medical version of “We haff vays uff mekking you TALK.”) Of course the most drastic and so last option is something called a version (aversion?), involving a possible epidural and one doctor with her hands INSIDE ME, and definitely two doctors on the outside, basically forcibly moving said child to where he needs to be. Ooch. The doctor today suggested putting a radio between my legs, because the baby will move towards the sound (is that like, “Move towards the light”?). Besides the obvious humiliation of such a thing, how long must the radio remain there? What station should I tune it to – NPR, classic rock, the baseball game? Does it matter? I mean, *I* love Terry Gross but she might scare my child into a fifty-week gestational period and I don’t think I could handle that. Gina suggested perhaps sitting upon a pizza or some freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, as maybe the delightful aroma might lure the child out. I am discounting nothing at the moment.
My friend Deb, mother of two and family doc, has recommended some sort of specialist chiropractic procedure, but I am nervous about seeing a chiropractor while pregnant. Other suggestions include yoga, massage, water exercise, acupuncture, back-arching exercises, meditation with candles, standing on my head, and sacrifice of a goat at the full of the moon.

"People say that life is the thing but I prefer reading." - Logan Pearsall Smith

Faced with declining literacy and the ever-growing distractions of the electronic media, faced with the fact that —Harry Potter fans aside — so few kids curl up with a book and read for pleasure anymore, what do we teachers do? We saddle students with textbooks that would turn off even the most passionate reader.
Patrick Welsh discusses how schools are “destroying the joy of reading". And yet when I left the house my four-year-old - who hasn’t been hit by the school trauma yet - was curled up in the big armchair happily plowing through several Little Bear books, a Frog and Toad, and an Amelia Bedelia we hadn’t yet seen. And he was negotiating with the babysitter for how many chapters of the Moomintroll book she would read. (I told her that with temps nearing a hundred, she should just hole up in the one room with an air conditioner and read to them for the next hour or so, if she could stand it.) I hope his love of books and reading stays with him in the oncoming years.

This morning I took the boys to story time at our local library. It’s something I have been meaning to do for ages, but today I finally got my act together. (Sarah L., one of these days we are trekking to your library for *your* story hour!) The librarian read three stories (one of which, King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub, we have at home), sang some songs, and did a craft project involving crowns made out of that foamy stuff with more foamy stickers stuck on. The boys enjoyed themselves, even if Si got a bit shy during the singing, and I sat on the floor in the story area and read *my* book for half an hour, monitoring them out of the corner of my eye. All in air-conditioned bliss. Then they picked out lots of books, and Si got to pretend to be the librarian and check them out with the scanner and the computer. (For those curious, they picked out several Frog & Toads, several Little Bears, Amelia Bedelia, Come Back!, Jamberry, a Richard Scarry of nursery rhymes, Blueberries for Sal, and a book about counting and the alphabet. Oh and two Dr Seuss’ - I Am Not Going to Get Up Today, and Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?) I also got the first in the Moomintroll series and Si and I are looking forward to starting it tomorrow. The librarian (not my favorite one) said he’d read it due to a Finnish friend’s recommendation and thought they were charming and amusing books. So that’s cool, it should be fun.

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I picked up Voices From Chernobyl which I requested a while ago (probably thanks to the Guardian, but maybe Bookslut). Incredible, heartrending stuff. I didn’t want to put it down but someone had to read Little Bear (or as Jude says, Yittle Air) to the boys. I can’t wait to get back to it. I am two chapters into it and I have already cried. I spent much of the time reading just those two chapters with my hand over my mouth and an ache in my heart.

And I love a book that prompts me to do research. My maternal grandparents were from the Ukraine - my grandmother from just outside Kiev, but no more specific idea about my grandfather as he ran away to join the Austrian army and to escape an abusive father at the age of sixteen. (My paternal grandparents were Lithuanian, so that part of the world holds special interest for me.)

The Chernobyl power plant is about 7 km [4 miles] from the border with Belarus, while about 100 km [62 miles] to the south lies Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, with a population of 3.1 million. The reactor complex, which has been inactive since 12 December 2000, stands by the river Pripyat, which joins the Dnieper at the town of Chernobyl, 12 km [7.5 miles] away…

In the night of 25 to 26 April 1986, the explosion of the reactor in Chernobyl, the greatest industrial disaster in the history of humankind, released one hundred times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

At the time of the accident, about 7 million people lived in the contaminated territories, including 3 million children. About 350 400 people were resettled or left these areas. However, about 5.5 million people, including more than a million children, continue to live in the contaminated zones. (from http://www.chernobyl.info/)

Svetlana Alexievich has compiled and edited her interviews with survivors, doctors, and other affected residents, and fashioned them into a complex and heartbreaking look at the reactor accident and its aftermath. Chernobyl is NOT remote, as you can tell from the distances above - it is somewhat comparable to a nuclear reactor explosion within fifty miles of downtown Los Angeles. The pictures on this Chernobyl website are upsetting and simply incredible in their desolation and sadness. Entire towns have been wiped out and forgotten. This website also has some incredible pictures. (There are some questions as to its authenticity but it seemed ok to me, judging from all the other pics I looked at, and the narrative on this site is very interesting.) It’s just amazing to me that this could happen in the modern-day world.

I had a friend at a place I used to work who was from Kiev. Both of her parents still live there; they are both doctors. Natalia was about 12 when the accident happened. Her parents sent her and her siblings away for two years, to keep them safe, but the parents stayed in Kiev to help as much as they could. She said her parents claim that even today they still see an unusual number of cancers (especially leukemia), birth defects, and other side effects of radiation poisoning.

The exploded/melted reactor has been encased in a concrete sarcophagus that was built to contain the still-unstable melted core for twenty years. Construction on a new enclosure which should last for a hundred years is due to begin in 2008. (I know, I KNOW…it’s insane.)

"...the Chernobyl disaster tells us about the deficiencies of the Soviet political and administrative system rather than about problems with nuclear power." - Hans Bethe, Nobel Prize-winning physicist

Meet the New Dad, Same as the Old Dad

Ted: I wonder if B’s old dad will be at his birthday party?
Me: What do you mean, “old dad”?
Ted: Well, R is his new dad now that his mom is married again.
Me: What? Wait. You know that R is B’s step-dad.
Ted: Yeah?
Me: B’s dad will always be his real dad—he’s not the old anything.
Ted: …
Me: If I got married again, say, to D, who would be your dad?
Ted: D?
Me: NO! Your dad will ALWAYS be your dad—even if I would marry ten guys!
Ted: Can I have noodles for dinner?

I guess sometimes I just forget the kid is only eight, and not exactly worldly.

because sometimes he's so cute I can't stand it

Although common sense may rule out the possibility of time travel, the laws of quantum physics certainly do not.

I am huge, ginormous, and wildly uncomfortable, and I still have ten looooonnnngggg weeks - all with temps in the high nineties, I am sure - to go. My pregnancy-induced acne is back, all over my pasty white shoulders and belly. I drip sweat like I am working in the salt mines (not that I’d FIT in the salt mines…). I have to pee approximately every fifteen minutes. When I sit down, my boobs rest on top of my stomach. I can’t stand to wear a bra but I have to wear something so I resort to those stretchy little tank tops that look so cute when you’re not pregnant and ride up your stomach when you are. Even wearing my waistbands tucked under my stomach is uncomfortable now. I can’t breathe right, in fact, I can’t remember the last time I was able to take a deep breath. I want to nap constantly. I waddle. I have heartburn: Tums are my friend. Why do they only make the orange cream ones in sugar-free? I can’t have sugar-free because they use aspartame and apparently that gives your baby a second head or three eyes or something. I can’t find a comfortable position to sleep in, and if and when I finally do, and I am cool enough to sleep, I HAVE TO PEE AGAIN. Why did I think I wanted another child? (Ok, ok, I really do, but …) What demon possessed me? If I wanted one that badly, heck, I could have just adopted some deserving child from a Third World nation and skipped all this pregnancy shit. I see the OB Friday morning, and if the little booger hasn’t flipped yet, he’s going to be one seriously sorry baby, let me tell you. Because if I have to have a c-section on my THIRD child, I am going to be so pissed. That child will never hear the end of it. Not that I will ever be able to wear a bikini again anyway, but that is SO NOT the point!

Deep breath. Ok, I realize I am being ungrateful, that there are people who can’t even get pregnant to have one child. But damn am I lousy at being pregnant.

***************

And in the next ungrateful and selfish breath:
Susan Torres died today, a day after giving birth to her daughter. Her doctors removed her life support and she died very shortly thereafter. Torres’ husband Jason is quoted as saying, "We especially thank God for giving us little Susan. My wife's courage will never be forgotten." While I was conflicted about keeping a mother on life support merely to act as an incubator for a fetus, I believe this was handled graciously by everyone concerned. My heart breaks for her children and her husband, and her family. And for her. Rest in peace, Susan.

******************

Last night’s eleven o’clock network news teaser went something like this: “All passengers aboard a jet survive a fiery crash. Hear how it could have been so much worse!” Am I alone in feeling that it seems as if the news people really *wanted* it to be so much worse because, damn, that would make such a better and more gripping news show? Ghouls.

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I don’t understand this director’s choices at all. The entire damn book (Alan Hollinghurst’s Line of Beauty) is one long, mostly gratuitous, homosexual sex scene. And not romantic, monogamous, softly-lit bedroom sex either. How can you sign onto a project like this if you are made “rather queasy” by gay sex? The book was godawful in my opinion, but that doesn’t mean it, or its movie adaptation, deserves to be, essentially, censored.

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I started Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander last night. So far, so good. I am hoping for a touch of Time Traveler’s Wife magic. Outlander has the feeling of a romantic novel about it but it’s pretty well written and I think the main character, Claire, is downright amusing at times. I like her a lot, and I also like her scholarly, nerdy, yet mysterious husband Frank. I’ve never been a sci-fi fan, or hugely interested in stories about time travel, but after TTW I was willing to give this one a shot.

Now, my mom was a huge fan of Jack Finney’s Time and Again, also the movie "Somewhere in Time” with Christopher Reeve (which is loosely based upon a book that is in turn based upon Finney’s book). I remember reading a book as a teenager called Portrait of Jenny that had something to do with time travel. I’ve also read a number of YA books about time travel – Time Cat, of course L’Engle (does a tesseract count as actual time travel?), and a book I think called Running Out of Time that had something to do with Spartacus. Any good books about time travel that I am neglecting in my prejudiced reading choices?

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Just to leave you on a lighter note than that on which I began:
This is my favorite blonde joke EVER. (And I love that the lawyer searches ‘even the Library of Congress.’ Some great research there, bub.)

A lawyer and a blonde woman are sitting next to each other on a long flight from L.A. to New York. The lawyer leans over to her and asks if she would like to play a fun game. The blonde is tired and just wants to take a nap, so she politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The lawyer persists, saying that the game is really easy and a lot of fun. He explains how the game works: "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me, and visa-versa."
Again, the blonde politely declines and tries to get some sleep.
The lawyer figures that since his opponent is a blonde he will easily win the match, so he makes another offer. "Okay, how about this, if you don't know the answer you pay me only $5, but if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500." This catches the blonde's attention and, figuring that there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, she agrees to play the game.
The lawyer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" The blonde doesn't say a word, reaches into her purse, pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer.
Now, it's the blonde's turn. She asks the lawyer, "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?"
The lawyer looks at her with a puzzled look. He takes out his laptop computer and searches all his references. He taps into the Air-phone with his modem and searches the Net and even the Library of Congress. Frustrated, he sends E-mails to all his coworkers and friends he knows. All to no avail. After over an hour of searching for the answer he finally gives up. He wakes the blonde and hands her $500. The blonde politely takes the $500 and turns away to get back to sleep. The lawyer, who is more than a little frustrated, wakes the blonde and asks, "Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?" Again without a word, the blonde reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5, and goes back to sleep.

I'm a Follower Too

From SBR: Selectively Biased Rants, via There are no bad ideas.

1. Reply with your name and I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me (maybe/maybe not).
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of. (David chose to pick us new jobs from ArtSearch instead, so ok...)
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal.

Here's what David had to say about me:

Babelbabe...

1. You were always fascinated by tweeds.

2. Say Anything "GET OUT OF THE BATHTUB MR. COURT!!!"[Cool!]

3. Oh but if the thought had come up in time. Hmm. Strawberry-Kiwi [I've always been a black cherry jello fan myself, for what it's worth.]

4. (although I wasn't actually part of this) Dance Break [I'd forgotten about that! Haha!]

5. This unfortunately must just be as one of the legion of people in Debi's class. My favorite of that period though is that one night, late, I was at your door in Donner and I heard you on the phone so I waited for you to be done and then I knocked and you screamed "WHAT" from inside. I almost ran away. I think you were tired.[Yeah, I haven't changed a bit...]

6. ARTISTIC ASSOCIATE/DRAMATURG - Atlanta, GA, US
Job posted on June 30, 2005

The Alliance Theatre is a LORT B, D and TYA theatre producing premieres, classics, contemporary works and productions for children. Associate would report directly to Artistic Director and work in partnership with theatre’s Literary Manager and resident directors. Responsibilities include managing and growing theatre’s Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, a national competition whose winner receives a full production in the theatre’s subscription season; managing all playwrights working with the theatre on current or future projects; overseeing production dramaturgy; representing the artistic voice of the theatre to staff, audience, and community; and participating in season planning. Requirements: Previous experience as member of artistic staff or demonstrated leadership in the field of literary management and/or dramaturgy; deep familiarity with the dramatic canon—both classic and contemporary--and demonstrated relationships with current field artists and leaders; superior critical analysis skills and corresponding written and verbal skills with which to convey them. Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. Send letter, resume, salary requirements and references to: Associate Search, THE ALLIANCE THEATRE, 1280 Peachtree Street, NE, Atlanta, GA 30309. Email: atcliterary@woodruffcenter.org. The Alliance Theatre is an Equal Opportunity Employer.[I'm flattered.]

7. Really, were all those phi cap parties all that and a bag of chips? [They were ok, but they gave me something to do other than pointless Cletus design projects and costume designs. And it was cool to have non-drama friends.]

(Sorry, I have to go with it...) Gone tomorrow.

I finished Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I don’t know what I expected from this book – perhaps to be scared, or even uneasy? I wasn’t. It was an interesting enough book, with cleanly drawn characters slowly revealing their idiosyncrasies, but I was never biting nails or turning on lights which somehow was what I expected from the reviews and description. So maybe I will read The Haunting of Hill House which I avoided previously because it also is supposed to be very scary. I really liked Castle, don’t get me wrong. It just wasn’t quite what I was led to expect.

And I have a hundred pages left in Misfortune. Every time I decide to ditch it, it gets interesting again. But all right, already, Wesley Stace, you obviously have a classics degree (from Cambridge) and are clearly very well-read and smart, more so than the average person. Can you let it go now and just wrap up the actual story for God’s sake? He’s the classics version of the stereotypical name-dropper. Wesley “Smarter-than-thou” Stace.

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Then those Things ran about
With big bumps, jumps, and kicks
And with hops and big thumps
And all kinds of bad tricks.
Should I be concerned about the loud thumps and crashes coming from upstairs, or just wait till the blood trickles down the steps? (What would you do, if a mother asked you?)

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Someone just came in and donated Edward P. Jones’ The Known World to the library’s paperback exchange. I am not even putting it on the shelf; I have been wanting to read it so it will go home with me first.

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Snippets:

An amusing take on the aforementioned Cat in the Hat.

Salon has an interesting article today on the evil behemoth Wal-Mart. Even my children know I don’t shop at Wal-Mart, such a silly little stand to take, but hey, you have to do something. Mostly for me it’s tied up in their censorship of music and books. Hey, I *am* a librarian…concern for civil liberties is a priority for me.

Check this out:Pravda Online. The child who grew up in the seventies and eighties, listening to Reagan rhetoric and knowing that all press in Russia was heavily censored, finds this very cool. (Although I must admit that I found this through a blurb about the “Russian Kama Sutra.”)

All right: Women should keep their ovaries. (And not in a jar on the shelf.) This headline is right up there with one of those drug disclaimers I heard recently, for a menopause hormone treatment sort of thing, which went something like this: If you have a uterus, you should consider a different medication. Um, all right. I mean, I understand why some women have to have their ovaries/uteri removed, but it’s just the ridiculous wording that gets me. It’s like those disclaimers for heartburn meds or whatever that list this huge bevy of side effects, ending solemnly with “and sometimes, death.”

By the way, I have a uterus, a fact of which I am all too well aware at the moment. Especially since a coworker just repsonded to my due date with, "Oh gosh, really? You're HUGE!"
I hate her.

Hair Today . . .

My overwrought, overweight hair dresser of the last several years has defected in that secretive, cloak and dagger manner that hair dressers do: No forwarding address, because the salon looks on that as a crime. Rumor has it that he couldn’t deal with working next to his awful, obnoxious ex any longer, and went back to his first love, teaching.

Good for him, if that’s the case, but he did leave me in a bit of a lurch. I mean, I admit that I was growing tired of his dramatics—you can only be amused by a man whose clients refer to him as Aunt Jonathan for so long before you get tired of seeing him toss his (Meatloaf-style) hair, mop his sweaty brow, and succumb to the vapors like some Miss Havisham gone wrong.

So Aunt J spared me the break-up, but . . . it looks like I’m on my way to becoming a salon slut, hopping from chair to chair. I was sure I’d fall in love with the new Aveda Concept Salon that’s been open for about a month. I’ve loved Aveda stuff for years because A.) its earth-friendliness appeals to my hippy sensibilities and B.) it smells like heaven. Heaven!

In the interest of winding up this long story, I’ll just tell you that I was disappointed despite the good smells, polished wood, bamboo plants, and surprisingly tasteful absence of Enya. Not that I didn’t got a perfectly good hair cut, mind you, but I think I paid too much to have to sit at a “station” that was peppered with flecks of hair—that weren’t mine! Yuck! And then, because this is a full-service salon/spa, fully half of the working portion of the space is dedicated to manicures and pedicures. Totally appropriate, yes? The thing that totally isn’t appropriate is that employees who aren’t busy utilize this area as their lounge: I spent the duration of my time in the chair listening to them GOSSIP ABOUT CUSTOMERS as if I weren't even there!

I’m going to call the manager and complain, and I never do that. And I think next time I’ll just go to SuperCuts.

"People forget the feeling of having to go to school on Monday and take a test in physics that you don't understand at all." - Molly Ringwald

Oh Molly, no we don't. Welcome to my world.

Simon: Jude, I am going to tell you whose world it’s going to be today.
Jude: OK, Dyman.
Si: It’s going to be MY world today. And forever!
So, wonderful, I’ve given birth to Dr. Evil.

Is that feeling of doom and dread and exhaustion I feel in the pit of my stomach every Monday morning at the thought of a whole day with the hoodlums normal? Or should I look into stronger medication, perhaps the Zoloft and some Valium washed down with a nice glass of straight alcohol of some sort? Oh wait, I am pregnant. Dammit. Maybe I could just bang my head against the wall until I am unconscious?

If I weren’t getting a blow-by-blow description of the current activity, I might be able to cope. But I defy you to listen to hours of the following sort of monologue and maintain sanity:
“Blue crayon, Mama. Black crayon, Mama. Mama. Dyman took crayon, Mama. Dyman! No, Dyman! Mama! Mommee! Oh wow. Mama. Me eat now, Mama. Me find my Wiggles tellering book, Mama. Purple tellering book, Mama. Mama. Oh wow. Piece of toast, Mama! Red crayon, Mama. Mama, red crayon peeled. Mama.”
I can’t form a coherent thought anymore. (Isn’t this blog proof of that?)

And I now *completely* sympathize with my husband’s cousin who one day had had enough and exploded: “Jake! You may call me Sheila. You may call me Mrs. Evans. You may call me Yo. You may call me Hey you! But if you call me Mommy ONE MORE TIME, I am not to be held responsible for my actions!” Remember the days when we longed to hear the word Mama fall from their cute little pink bow-lips?

I am *this* close to getting rid of our TV. If I hear the phrase, “Watch movie, Mama?” one more time, I am calling AmVets and having them take it away. Family Guy, INXS, and hockey season be damned.

Pushing the Harry Potter Geek Limit

Hello and welcome to my Harry Potter timeline! It's not the first or most beautiful one out there, but I hope that it will be the most complete. I have painstakingly gone over each book to lay down events of note, and now present them for reference and your browsing pleasure.

Oh, it'll be my pleasure. Work? Forget it--I've got better things to do! :-)

U-Scan Shopper

This is neat, but I can’t decide whether it would make my life better or worse. I love the idea of being able to keep a running total (which I know I could do with a calculator, but this is much more fun), and I think being able to bag as you shop is super.

There’s also a feature that lets you look up recipes if you find an ingredient that appeals to you.

So, is this an example of technology making grocery shopping less awful? Or is this the 2005 equivalent of this?