daysgoby

Crafty Tuesday

2008-07-08T21:40:00.002-03:00

follow me over to Playdate...I'll tell you about a few disasters, and one I got right.

Oh, and I'll share two recipes that we're eating a lot of 'round here...

i has the dumb

2008-07-07T22:14:00.002-03:00

and the tired. Back tomorrow.

yaaaawwwwnnnnnn.

festivaling

2008-07-06T23:56:00.000-03:00

First, there was this:
(Rosey's first all-by-herself carnival ride!)

And some of this:
(Cass's favorite, the alligator roller coaster - huge quivering lip on the girl when she wasn't tall enough to go on)

And many other things. Including the Tilt-A-Whirl, which I was foolish enough to take them both on. No, actually, they both looooved it - I was the one whining and drunkenly listing to the side when we got off. Can we go again Mama? Can we? Through white lips: Ask your father.*

Then we came back to town at dusk and watched the world dim.

Cass is fascinated with the way the sky goes blue before night falls.
Why does it do that, Mom? Look, I see the moon! (And the moon sees me!)

Then, suddenly, there was this:

And this:

And many ooohs and aaahs later, this:

And we bundled them both in the car and drove home and the questions got slower and slower and then....and then they were asleep. Dreaming of rides that never end and fantastic lights in the sky, I'm sure.

It had been a big day.

*How the mighty have fallen. I used to love the Scrambler. Now one little ride on the tilt-a-whirl and I had to go home, take two gravol (anti-nausea stuff) and moan on the bed awhile. I missed fair food. Getting older sucks.

lelephant mine

2008-07-05T23:13:00.005-03:00

It was a purchase I couldn't resist in a gymnasium filled with booths - old coins, pull-along toys, boxed Barbies galore, all sorts of odds and ends. I strolled through the indoor antique fair and was finally pulled to a corner, where a man turned it over in his hands and gave me a history. He'd found it in India, he said, and brought it back.

It's been a bookend, a place to hide rent money, a ring-holder, a cherished conversation-piece and the place to find stamps and paper clips.

It is a very old wooden elephant, hinged and on wheels. I have been told it was made as a cosmetic pot, but it seems more likely to me to be a toy or a sweet hidey-hole.

Whatever it is, I love it. It makes me smile, and I stroke it with a finger whenever I go by.

And I can't wait for my kids to be just a little older so it can come down off the high shelf it lives on.

I want to show them the small compartment in its' belly and the cunning wheels and talk about the uplifted lucky trunk and let them choose what Mama's lelephant should harbour next.

And I can't wait to find out.

punkins

2008-07-04T22:11:00.003-03:00

These were gorgeous this morning before I left for work - unfortunately by the time I got home they'd all closed up shop for the night.

Pretty, just the same.

And this is just one plant. How many pumpkins are we going to have, a quadrillion??

And hurrah! It's the weekend. The local festival runs over the weekend - if we have decent weather we'll be taking the kids in to the little carnival, finding a parade or two and eating some hotdogs.

Really, isn't that what the essence of summer is?

pennies from heaven

2008-07-03T21:28:00.003-03:00

The town I work in has a pulp mill.

I hesitated before writing that, because the pictures people invariably get in their heads once you say those words is more Allentown - gloomy, forbidding, a smudge in the sky casting a pall over everything and less like the town actually is. Really, it's just an industry in one area of town,* not a giant building looming over the landscape.

To make the pulp they use wood chips. Trucks full of wood chips trundle up and down the hilly streets, blasting your nose with the quick-dissipating scent of fresh-cut wood.

The backs of the trucks, you see, are made almost like a big wire cage. To get the chips out, the mill has a giant slide that hoists the trucks up in that air until gravity prevails and all the wood falls out. (here.)

Tonight I was toodling home behind an empty truck after a long day's work, idly watching the wind catch some chip bits - and then the sun gleamed just so, making it look like bright coins were skittering ahead of me on the highway.

A nice drive home.

*And it used to support a lot more workers than now, too. A pity, that.

the date, the garden, the cat

2008-07-01T20:11:00.006-03:00

A quiet Canada Day here.

No parades, no face-painting, no ring toss or bouncy castles, just parents still waiting for all the allergy meds to kick in.

Two kids gleefully running through the sprinkler and then collapsing to look at the sky and kick their feet and discover the pictures the clouds made.

The pumpkin plants have lots of tight-budded flowers and three even unfurled to give us tiny waves today. If you're very still when you water them you can hear the vines stretch and begin looking for new ground to cover.
(They're so much prettier than all the flowers I planted around there - the ones that haven't bloomed yet, argh - next year I may just plant squash and pumpkins and sunflowers, easy crops that pretty much just soak up the sun and do their own thing)

Lucy (the new cat) is gaining a bit of weight. She was skinny as a rail when she got here, and has been making up for lost time and eating her fool head off since. Given her history*, we weren't going to stop her, just assumed she needed a bit of courage and then once she'd settled in, she'd settle down.
We work on a free feed system here for the cats - the bowls are always full. You see, I already have two cats. Chumba, who is so big that he outweighed Rosey until just before her third birthday, and Kate, who is teeny enough that if she loses more than a few ounces the vet gets worried. (Size difference probably most apparent here, although I swear he's bigger now.) We hesitate to go to timed feedings, for the few times we've tried, Chumba tucks in...while Kate (who apparently likes to purge in private?) puts her nose up and saunters off. It appears we will soon have two fat and one lean cat.

(How do we know it's Lucy doing most of the scoffing? Well, we see her there, and she likes to come in and lick Bear's nose at night and give him kisses with her hot little Iams-scented breath.)

Happy Canada Day! May you all have pretty things to look at, fun in the sun, and good things to eat today!

*We know she was found in a locked garage two weeks after the owners had moved out. Horrible, sick, twisted bastards.

I will hug her and pet her, and call her Lucy

2008-06-30T21:42:00.002-03:00

Yeah. We have another cat now.

She's a smarty-pants, that one, with her long white paws. She took a flashing look around with her gold eyes and picked out the person that had no defenses, the one who couldn't resist purring and cuddling and swift lashes of her tail...

Kate and Chumba are horrified. What? She's staying? She doesn't even have stripes! This is wrong! We demand a recount!

but Bear will not be swayed. Any cat who jumps into his arms and kneads and purrs and licks his cheek has his heart.

So welcome, Lucy-Patches.

Welcome home.

snorfle gzink

2008-06-29T23:39:00.001-03:00

Back later, when the allergy meds kick in...

coming around again

2008-06-28T21:49:00.005-03:00

My parents, being the '60's flower-children-dippy-hippies that they were (God love 'em - and I do) sang me lullabies.

But along with the 'All The Little Horses' and 'You Are My Sunshine's',

there were the Beatles.
I grew up with a lot of the Beatles music running as a background to my life.
It was a fall back when I just.could.not.sing one more lullaby

(ask me sometimes about the twelve verses of Blackbird)

and good bouncy music for the car during teething time. (It was during a rendition of 'Yellow Submarine' that I figured out that Cass would sleep through the most belly-wrenching grippe if he was in a moving car)

But the car seats are turned forward now, (and have been for a long time) and those Beatles have faded away for awhile, replaced with other songs.

Until today, when Rosey leaned forward and said 'Turn the music up, Mama! I love this song!'

I was taken aback as she began to sing 'O-saba-dee, saba-da'

Life goes on, eh?
(La lala life goes on.)

the last day of primary

2008-06-27T11:29:00.005-03:00

the first day is here

in the last 24 hours

2008-06-27T08:53:00.005-03:00

Rosey, thumbing her nose:

"I'm just getting all the crunchies out."*

and Cass, after t-ball practice:

"Mmm! My hand smells like balls!"

*thanks, kid. Now I can't look at these anymore....

True Thursday

2008-06-26T23:17:00.002-03:00

Because after a refreshing afternoon of confinement, a gentlemen should be allowed to be free....

snort.

I especially like the last line...appeared rational, but naked....

crushing

2008-06-25T12:16:00.005-03:00

**This post exists because of this morning's lovely and evocative writings by Woman In A Window - what? You're not reading her? Really?**

The fall I went into seventh grade I made a concentrated effort to grow up. While the junior high (in reality just a wing of the high school) was only located across a small breezeway, it was a whole new building and the big kids were there.

So that summer I decided I wasn't going to be a baby anymore. I gave up Saturday morning cartoons. I stopped wearing my cartoon tshirts, I (tried) to stop whining when I didn't get my way.

I was going to be the coolest seventh grader in the world.

The first day back I was astounded. While some of the girls were wearing lipstick, most of my classmates...were just.the.same. as they'd been in the spring when I'd last seen them.
And even though now we had lockers, some of the guys had Ren and Stimpy pictures up...so everyone hadn't given up cartoons, after all.

A few days in, I found there was another small difference.

Folded notes weren't cool anymore. Now there were slambooks.

Slambooks were one-section notebooks with a sentence written on each page.

Breathless things like : Who do you like?
and then you'd write in your answer. Without writing your name, and trying to subtly disguise your handwriting.

The next page might say :Who is your best friend?
What's your biggest secret?
What's something you've never told anybody?
and so on. When you were done, you'd pass it on to the next person in your group.

And depending on how much you trusted your friends and/or how naive you were, you'd answer them all.
They were cathartic and terrifying. You scanned what people had written who had it before you and tried to decide how much of your soul to bare. If the book was circulating only between you and your closest friends, it was certain to be much more tame. If you started asking new friends - or even the new girl - it was sure to be more colorful.

I was pretty trusting, and usually wrote about my crushes - the handsome football player, that senior in the library (swoon) - and then was always hurt and betrayed when the new gossip all over the lunchroom had my name on it.

It was crushing.

But that was seventh grade, right??

new things every day

2008-06-24T19:40:00.007-03:00

A busy day here in ruralsville....

Cass went to a friends house to go swimming.

After he left, in the resulting quiet, B and I heard a funny squeeeak! Squeeeeak! noise - it sounded, vaguely, like a fan needed oil.
B went upstairs and looked around, but didn't find anything, and chalked it up to something that would make a noise again, and then we'd find it. Probably just the cats messing around.

I went upstairs about half an hour later with the notion of getting a new library book out of my room, went to shut the window fan off in Cass's room, and saw a small brown glossy (squarish? what the heck?) mouse? fieldmouse? thing? inside the window fan.

We had thought to leave Cass's screen to the last to fix - it only had a small hole, (perhaps the size of a nickel? No larger than that.) and he had the window box fan in, so there was no worry....

But now I was staring at a very small indignant animal, flattened out to avoid the blades of the fan. An animal, I suddenly realized, that wasn't a mouse.

It was a bat.

A very cunning little ~~fruit~~* bat, folded up no bigger than a cat's paw, unhurt and obviously squallingly upset to be where he was.

B (summoned by my trumpeted "B! Oh, B, you gotta come here!") rocketed up the stairs and gaped with me. It was a bat. In the house. And it was in the fan. But unhurt.

So B unscrewed the fan and...let...it...out, helping it hook onto the quince tree.

And then this evening? Me, the girl who doesn't like to ride motorcycles or four wheelers or snowmobiles or anything smaller than a Ford Fiesta....

I learned how to use the ride-on lawnmower. And it was fun.

Although I still think the bat was cooler.

*Not a fruit bat. He was, I think, a Little Brown Bat. (honestly the scientific name)

Playdate Tuesday

2008-06-23T23:51:00.000-03:00

I'm over here, talking about newspaper and why rolled up 'pretty snails' make little girls' hearts sing.....

it's just her name that's a flower

2008-06-22T17:44:00.004-03:00

Rosey and I went to the farm market yesterday.

Now granted, it's getting late to plant. But the ten packets of wildflower seeds that the kids helped me plant haven't shown a green bit yet, and interest is fading fast.

So we went to re-stock.

I went looking for sunflowers. Bright, blowy flowers that grow quickly. (and look interesting while doing so) I also wanted pansies and johnny-jump-ups, and couldn't find any.*

R circled the tables, pointing out different colours.

Then I got a brainstorm. If I wanted her to be interested, shouldn't she pick what was going in there?

Patting myself on the back**, I squatted and told R she could pick a flower to put in the yard. Without hesitation, she pointed - picking a leafy one with a gorgeous orange-yellow flower. She was certain that was what she wanted, too.

Which is why if you drive by my yard this summer? We live in the house with the pumpkin vines curling among the flower bed.

It's going to be gorgeous.

*The staff informed me that those are all gone now.
**O whut a gud parent am I!

clippings

2008-06-21T03:28:00.004-03:00

When I was growing up, my great-aunt would send my mother envelopes stuffed with crossword puzzles cut out from the local paper. My mom always loved to do crosswords (she and my grandfather share that hobby) and I think the care packages may have started when she was away at college and continued on through marriage, two kids, subsequent moves, etc. Every so often there'd be an explosion of half-done crosswords around the house - a few in the kitchen, a few next to Mom's chair, some tucked up by her bed, and even a couple set carefully with a pen on the back of the toilet.

Those are actually the first crosswords I remember peering at, trying to puzzle out the rare spots my mother had left undone, racking my brain for an answer while my brother beat on the door and howled that I was taking too long and he needed to go nooowwwwww....

After Bertie died, a fluke in the mail delivered one last envelope addressed in her tiny careful printing, the folder heavy and full,with even a brief note for my mom to treasure among the newstype.

It always seemed like such a loving thing to me. Great Aunt Bertie subscribed to the Louisville Courier-Journal daily, my mother lived far away, why not send them if they would be enjoyed?

And they were.

Last week I found an email in my in-box from my grandmother, (who is bravely learning all this computer mumbo-jumbo so she can keep up with her far-flung grandchildren) telling me that some books were coming for the children. Yesterday a beautifully illustrated book of children's bible stories came, with the notation inside that this book had once belonged to my great-uncle Louie (and then my grandmother) and...a clipping about helping your children learn to read.

A clipping from the Courier-Journal.

Sometimes it doesn't take much to let us know we're treasured.

summer's here

2008-06-20T16:01:00.000-03:00

And just in time for summer -

the wild irises have bloomed.

Happy summer, y'all.

True Thursday: I can't make this stuff up UPDATED

2008-06-19T00:01:00.002-03:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the beach....

The lovely Chantal of Two Hands Full sent me this UPDATE today, which doesn't clear up the mystery and injects an even more sinister tone....

nothing to see here

2008-06-18T13:22:00.003-03:00

We have the super-duper model couch. Not only the bright colours, but the optional large brown throw pillow, as well.

R is recouping from a brush with almost-ickiness (fever and whoopsy-feeling tum) and whatever helps her sleep today is a good thing. Jasper would have been given a Hail Mary pass this time, but apparently I'm fiercer than I thought - I shot this photo and he tromped all over R to get down, shame-faced and wagging his fool tail all the while.

I'm sure if she sleeps again he'll scoot up there. Just to keep her company, you know.

budding conservationist

2008-06-17T20:51:00.007-03:00

We were loading up in the car tonight, ready to go to Cass's Literature Night, and there was a lump? something moving? on the road across from my neighbors' house...

and damned if it wasn't another turtle.

Ever since a few years back when the our returning grande dame was squashed we have been turtle defenders 'round here - holding up traffic and standing boldly in the road, prodding the beasties across to grass and safety.

Something about their funny gait and obvious uncomfortable movements out of the water makes me feel tender towards them, like children learning to walk. They hitch and bob from side to side just like the chilluns did, spreading their feet wide and blinking owlishly to determine if you're fish or foe.

(Not that my kids can catch fish with their mouths. If they could this blog would be *all kinds* of different interesting, and feature the circus prominently.)

We talked about how their (wicked) stubby-sharp claws work hard to pull their big bodies back to the reeds and pools of the riverbank, where they dig happily in the mud and use those same claws to gracefully propel themselves through the water, and how we feel at home on land and the turtle feels at home floating in the current.

Then Cass's voice turned slightly wistful and he mentioned the old turtle and how much bigger she was than this one.

(It astounds me that no matter how hard I try to shape my kids' lives with happy experiences, the negative ones -and all they learned from them- linger on so completely, ready to be recalled at a moment's notice.)

And I hugged him and told him that maybe, just maybe, this turtle was one of 'our' turtle's babies. That turtles return home to the site where they were hatched, and lay new eggs. (And now I've got to go google turtles, as I have no idea if they all do that or if the homing instinct is only apparent in sea turtles.)

We left the new turtle contemplating the flowers in my neighbor's yard. It's a short push from there to the river, and she should be fine there, as long as she doesn't go back across the road.

When we entered the gym Cass ran over to his friends and told them 'I saved a turtle!'

(I'm buying him a red cape later.)

influences

2008-06-16T22:42:00.003-03:00

R was happily playing with her Barbie dolls, enacting some huge thing about two dogs and who got to feed them and the fluffy cat whose water bowl the dogs weren't allowed to touch. (Really, it's amazing what goes on in her head.)

I decided to play. 'What are your dolls names?'

R put her finger on the redhead. 'Moya.' The brunette. 'Nadoila' The blonde 'Linka.'

I tried to think if I had any old termpapers buried in my room. Or if we had a pop-up version of The Brothers Karamazov. All I could come up with was a tattered VHS of Anastasia, and she hadn't seen that in months.

____

There's a corner of our yard where the wildflowers grow rampant. We've never planted seeds or moved plants in that area, they just flourish there. I found out why today. It seems the ash pile (that lump behind) leaches into the ground with the rain, and the wildflowers looove them some increased ph levels.

Pretty, no?
____

I'm getting really excited about the BFF trip. It's coming up in 32 days!!!!

I like your laugh lines

2008-06-15T12:20:00.004-03:00

and your smile.

Happy Fathers Day, Bear! Me and he and she love thee.

sugar bombs

2008-06-14T11:50:00.005-03:00

I fall for the supermarket arrangement scam every time.

Each time, I turn into the vegetable/fruit section, spend some quality time sniffing lemons, picking out the best mushrooms, the crispest apples, the plumpest ears of corn, all with the jet-speed help of my little farm hands, who think we're running a race and move accordingly. By the time we're done there and I've done the detours into the bread/deli area and the butcher section, the kids are beginning to show signs of strain and tiredness and an obscene fondness with the blood pressure machine in the drugstore. By the time I drag them off that, the whinging and carrying on isn't too far off. We stump through paper products, pet food, canned goods, household products, (while maintaining that the toy aisle simply isn't there) and arrive at the cereal aisle. By now, I've shot the Mom-glare six times, hissed 'Stay with the cart!' twelve gagillion times, and am unenthused and heartily sick of the whole operation. I mean, eating is over-rated, really.

Which is why we tend to end up with the bad cereal.

Oh, I used to fight the good fight about this. Back before I was outnumbered (and back before the boy realized marshmallows existed) we had Cheerios. Rice Crispies. Granola. The basics. He didn't care.

Now we have a girl. Who is programmed (are they all like this?) to be hyper-sensitive to pinks and purples, so any bright colored box catches her eye and screams her name.

So while I'm busy veto-ing Lucky Charms (otherwise known as the repository for ALL the food coloring numbers*) Cass is eying up the boxes for whatever prizes are hiding inside the waxy paper insides. Score! Indiana Jones!

'Mo-om? Can we.....' I swung around and eyed the box. Wheat. Good. We'd had this before. Oh look, a new flavor! Okay.

Then, this morning....

'Mo-om? This doesn't taste good.'

I lifted my head from my coffee cup. Why can't the kids sleep in? Not even once??
Huh? What? Who said that? Oh, the Boy.

'It's too...sweet.'

Blink-blink. You - think it's too sweet? Let me have a taste.
He obligingly brought me his bowl. I dipped, spooned, chewed.
And winced as my tongue went into spasms of sugar shock.

Toast, anyone?

From now on, I'm going to the cereal aisle first. Best to get that battle over with.

Public Safety Notice: Do not EVER EVER EVER buy Vanilla Flavour Mini-Wheats. Despite the (weakly) healthy sounding name, actually putting a biscuit in your mouth will cause the greasy, curling sensation of licking out an icing container.

You're welcome.

*Red Dye #7, Blue Dye #3, etc. A clunky reference.