Strudel had lunchtime detention today, I am informed. She had already confessed to the crime last night, though.
Strudel: I put a “pinch me” sign on my friend’s back today!
Me: That’s not very nice at all.
Strudel: Well, no one pinched him very hard.
Good news, I suppose. Things seem to have stopped getting worse. I am in kind of a holding pattern now and am still crazy tired. The doctors have officially settled on viral myositis, which is nice because it goes away eventually. I am really hoping this will be the last week of my convalescence. I don’t think I’ve had a fever for 24 hours, but it’s gone away and returned before, as has the pain. We’ll see.
Strudel’s birthday is Wednesday and she will be nine. She wants to go out to dinner, which is a typical thing here at Rancho Asshole. If I am having trouble walking I’m going to take some codeine and suck it up. We’re going to have FUN. Dammit. I am also on the hook to make her usual pineapple upside down cake, which blessedly she is not making me dye blue or anything this year. Don’t tell her I said this, but YUCK.
She has demanded Indian food and submitted a long birthday list before we went out of town, which I cherry picked from as usual. Several years ago Franny began including “surprises” on her birthday lists, which I think is a very legitimate ask. Strudel twigged to that idea and has run with it. I like to be surprised sometimes as well–a good one is a gift in itself.
On Sunday night P. and I were laying in bed at the late hour of 8:30 or so, and we had done all the necessary marshaling to send the girls off to blow zees. Strudel came in to have her fine, thick, long hair braided into two chunks before laying down, which makes it less of a tangled nightmare when she wakes up. She took in the picture of her destroyed parents in repose. For a moment I imagined we looked like Charlie Bucket’s grandparents, just ancient and broken.
She said goodnight and turned to leave the room, but lingered in the doorway for a moment.
“Are you two going to…flake on my birthday?”
“NO!” we said in unison.
I’m not going to lie, that hurt. The thing about this kid is that she says things like this, which is exactly what’s percolating in her roiling, evil brain, and has no idea how things may come over.
Franny, hypothetically in the same situation: “I am worried that you two are too sick to execute my birthday in a satisfactory fashion.” Franny’s first word was “poopbubble” (while pointing at an airplane) and while I don’t quite remember her second, I’m pretty sure my little Betazoid’s second word involved an “I” statement.
Strudel: “Sup, flakes.” Ouch.
But you can decode the message easily enough. I have never flaked on a birthday, though I think she was less than impressed at our tired, lackluster Xmas decorating in the first year in this house. There was presents and Feast though.
Franny was feeling better this weekend. She never got the voms like the rest of us, but she was still pretty knocked out with the virus. This weekend her volume went up again so I knew she was doing okay. She was chattering about Stephen King’s IT, which she read recently and brings up anytime she sees a clown, some balloons, or even something like a funny-shaped cloud. I think it’s made itself home in her psyche.
There were balloons tied to an open house sign on the way home from the store.
“BALLOONS! ‘They all float, motherfucker!” she said in a funny voice.
“Is that what Pennywise says?” I asked, laughing. I skipped the whole IT experience.
“Well, I added the ‘motherfucker’ part.”
She made me laugh so hard I peed a little. She doesn’t drop the MF bomb too often lately, but when she does, it’s pretty effectual. And a good sign for her health.
Wherein we feature two basketball hoops, 70 quail eggs, Edith, “ten years ago”, and &etc.
PRESENTLY (h/t B-Potts) we are seated in the dining room, surrounded by the aroma of natural gas (well, okay, that gross stuff they use to scent it) and the windows open. There is a terrible grinding sound coming from the floor below me, but I am promised that the washing machine will be working by tonight, which is a fucking Xmas miracle in December. The cats and Horace are looking at me murderously, but Edith is chewing on a tendon that is almost as long than she is, with the attitude, “Tro lolo, it has always been this way and so I suppose it will always be.”
Puppies, like Earth girls, are easy.
I’m on vacation. Yah-TAH. I have no plans except to get out of town to Portland at some point soon. I’m enjoying hiding in my house when there is not banging noises. I think I like almost anything that changes my perspective some, which this remodel is doing. It has renewed my enthusiasm about having access to my very own personal washer and dryer that is accessible at any time day or night. That is really fucking special, isn’t it? How fortunate.
There have been small trials along the way, mostly under the column of capitalism fails. My contractor and I got our wires crossed and I ordered a tub and then he ordered a tub. Two tubs were hurtling towards my house from Kentucky. What a waste! My tub, which as it turns out was the wrong tub, had a bunch of fixtures I needed to fish out from under it, which involved cutting it off its pallet. I was afraid to have the tub come all the way to my house, thinking it would be a major fiasco to find strapping equipment to restrap it, and that it would take up too much room, since the non-Elco half of the garage is filled with things like dodgy dirt piles and tools.
So I decided the most efficient thing would be to drive to the shipping company that received the tub. They were amenable to this and were nice men to boot. One helped me undo the tub, fish the shower and sink fixtures out, and restrap it. I offered to pay for the materials but they waved me away. It was pretty cool to go out to a freight company in Woodinville. I need to find a job where I can hang out all kinds of places where no one wants me, like the laundromat and freight companies. I really wish I would have brought my camera. The office/dispatch area reminded me of some blue collar jobs I had in the way back before college. My back hurt just looking at the “YOU MUST BE COMPLETELY OFF DUTY FOR YOUR BREAKS” sign. I did get a sneak peek of the chrome lion footies as they will look on the correct tub and HOOBOY TACKY SHINY BONER AHOY.
The medicine chest arrived and when I brought it into the house I could hear the contents tinkling merrily–the mirrors were totally shattered. Also I have bought entirely too much tile, because I measured the basement before the plumber showed up and changed the design. The day they cut the cement floor open, many spaghetti poodles as well as other brik-a-brak jumped to their deaths off the shelf, gouging my toilet seat on the way down. There was something I’d never seen before that was original to the house–an electrical lock that opened the garage door, which was the entrance I was using for the workers. This lock is broken now. It’s these little things that I didn’t foresee happening that are adding to costs and are just kind of generally a bummer. It will be worth it when it’s done, though, and I am sitting in a giant vat of hot water reading a Lawrence Block novel.
I put the tile together last weekend to make sure I liked it and the design. This will be, basically, what the shower looks like when it’s done. If you cock your head to the left 90 degrees you will see what the vanity backsplash is meant to look like. Everything else is chrome and white.
This lighting is terrible, but let me assure you it’s a light green and black–Daltile “Mint Ice.” I decided to dance with the one what brung me and make the basement look like the upstairs. So, darker border tile, a “sizzle” tile and BINGO. It’s surprisingly hard to walk into a modern local tile store and get your mittens on boring 50s tile. HA.
Speaking of trashy writing like vintage Lawrence Block–I have written another short story, but unlike the one this spring which turned into a novella (whoops) and the one after that in the summer that turned into a novel (double whoops) this is an ACTUAL SHORT STORY. It’s about a woman who splits in two. I’m going to submit it to a few “exposure” (free) journals and see what happens after New Years. So that is a good thing that came out of my laundromatting.
I have been doing very little cooking, since my water is unpredictably off or on, and almost no entertaining. I did pickle a bunch of quail eggs on a whim, so these should be delicious in about three weeks. I used the last of my long pepper from my Victorian year. As well as allspice and mustard seed, so they will be Victorian goodness.
On one of my last days of work I decided to take the Elco out. It’s only coming out about weekly now, since it does not run as well in the cold, and as the former owner told me, “If the roads are icy and the back is empty, the rear can catch up with the front of the car and kill you.” Oh, okay. Good times. It’s rarely icy here, though, and the sunrises have been glorious lately. I think this car was made to be in Seattle now, really. Anyway I was driving it home and the volt gauge for the battery started jerking around.
“Nooooooo!” I melodrama-ed, which is my reaction every single time it’s not running perfectly. I ran home and played internet mechanic until I found out it was probably one of five things, all likely to do with the alternator. “What is an alternator,” I wondered to myself. I have made a vow to learn how cars go and so far I am doing okay with a lot of help. I gave P. the rundown of my findings and he volunteered to take a look. In previous lives before library school he was a tractor mechanic and a fishing boat mechanic, and what is an El Camino if not the bastard child of a boat and a tractor?
I added the weekly big gulp of oil and he looked from the other side. “Loose wire,” he said. I was so happy! I need to get a grip. (Not going to happen.)
As a finale to the 2013 part of the school year, Strudel performed in the holiday concert. She is in choir now, so she got to participate in almost every number done by each grade. Franny and I came to the school early so we could drop Strudel off with her music gang and we took a seat with a cherry view on the world’s most uncomfortable bleachers. There is not enough legroom for adults so all the parents end up sitting sideways and twisted for every event in the gym.
LO AND BEHOLD who should enter and make a beeline for where we were sitting but Loudmouth Nemesis Dad, who I have not seen since Halloween, thank fuck. Wait, what is someone who is like a baby nemesis who you only remember exists when you see them? A nemesette.
This jackwagon sat behind us and started making loud declarations about how busy they were and how stressed out his wife was. He has the loudest, most booming voice that can cut through, well, a gym full of parents and their excited children. “Well there’s the tree fundraiser,” he foghorned. “And my wife is busy with the wine fundraiser. She has to collect 35 more bottles! She is totally overwhelmed! And then we’re driving to Idaho for two weeks to visit my wife’s family…”
“Do you want to move?” I asked Franny.
“So much,” she said.
Our new seats were farther away on the other side and involved a very unpicturesque view of a basketball hoop. It was PERFECT.
SO. Let’s talk about TEN YEARS AGO. I am all over the place today, and I cannot even be arsed to use chapter headings or anything.
ANYWAYS. Look, Ma, I left my husband.
Am I different at 36 than I was at 26 with a three-year-old and totally freaked out? Yeah, I suppose I am. I’ve learned a lot, but sometimes I feel like the things I’ve learned about I will not have to go through again. Like, uh…tech contracting, maybe? I know how to do it, but I may never have to call on that special skill set again. I think I’m better at life in general. I learned how to go through a terrible divorce with years of custody fallout shit. Probably won’t do that again, because I know how to detangle myself from things now, as well as not getting with people who are rill bad for me.
This is what I, personally, would do differently, if my 36-year-old self was standing behind that little baby 26-year-old graduate student (ha).
1. Document all violence, big and little. I should have taken a picture of where his fist went through the wall, and when he put the doorknob of my new apartment through the wall. I should have called the cops when he was smashing the backyard. I should have called the cops and documented when he assaulted me after our separation, because then I might not have had to deal with the humiliation of the commissioner telling me in court that I “looked like I could take him.”
2. I should have kicked him out of our shared home. This, along with the documentation of violence, may have put me in a different standing for custody. I was operating from a place of personal ethics–it was not my house (his father owned it), so I felt like I had no right to stay. I’m sure my ex-FiL wouldn’t have minded, and if I’d daylighted the violence outside of court they might not have given him money. Hard to say now.
3. I should not have bothered trying to be friendly. This was a person I could barely talk to before I told him I was leaving him, so there was no point trying to chat with him after. I don’t think it hurt anything, per se, it was mostly just a waste of time and a headache. Cordiality and basic communication is different than friendly.
4. This is so small I hesitate to even mention it, but I left way too many things behind. Once the dust settles and you heal up emotionally, there was a lot of stuff I missed. Art I bought in Mexico, other dishes and appliances I’d had for years. I had to trade him a brand new Mark Bittman cookbook just to get the basic bitch Betty Crocker thing I taught myself to cook with, that I am emotionally attached to. Of course all the lovely Mexican art has been chucked now, but it was important that he keep it all at the time.
What would any of this have changed? Again, hard to say. You are rolling the dice when you set foot in family court. I’d like to think we could have avoided those two loooong years of 50/50 custody, as well as his bullshit claims that we should go back to 50/50 time when I filed for child support. But he moved away and his attention wandered eventually, so she has one room and a home base in the end. Would I do it again? Of course, in a heartbeat, and I would do it even more poorly if necessary. Things like my calavera last supper and my dignity lives on in my memory, at least. Merry Fuckmas.
About a week ago I listened to “The Seven Things You’re Not Supposed to Talk About.” In short, the program was about a woman who has particular conversational rules. A person should never discuss how they slept, travel routes, their period, health, money, dreams, and the intricacies of their diet.
At first I rejected this woman’s ideas as rigid and ridiculous, in part, I admit, because she had one of those posh British accents that makes everything sound like an Official Pronouncement. I like to think this is somehow related to Victorians and their seemingly-arbitrary rules for life. Maybe the British, as a people, are used to Telling You How It Is.
(As an aside, I picked up a book on Victorian culture when I was in San Francisco in October, and the one thing that stuck with me was the idea that unmarried women must never go on boating excursions with men lest they become becalmed, which would no doubt cause their legs to fly open, either willingly or by force. “Never go on a boating expedition” probably sounded odd and arbitrary to some sheltered young women.)
But then I started to come over to this woman’s side: I already have one rule in the house dictating that dreams must be recounted in three sentences or less, and no cheating with a lot of “AND THEN the wolf knitted me a poncho AND we all went to the county fair AND THEN my poncho got caught in this underground Ferris wheel AND THEN….” I’m not going to lie to you, children’s dreams are particularly dull. I also try to only tell interesting stories about work, which means none of the technical aspects. I think it’s a form of torture to completely recount every single aspect of your day to someone and expect the other person to listen.
So I suppose I am attempting the same thing in my own life–trying to avoid boring the crap out of people, and not being bored myself. I’m also trying to raise children who are as considerate of other people as they need to be, and as a side effect are lively conversationalists. What if I took my two rules to the next level?
I told the story of this woman at dinner that night. The girls listened with great interest. Then I made my pitch: “What do you think? Should we try this for a week?” We were all in agreement to be less boring and whiny.
On Tuesday morning I woke up tired, and sick feeling from getting up with the puppy a couple of times. I had been reaching the end of my rope sleeping with her, since even if she doesn’t have to pee, she fidgets a lot and tries to glue herself to me, which makes me end up some kind of weird tilde at the edge of my bed. I wanted to tell someone, anyone, how poorly I slept, and move on, but I held it in. Three weeks makes a habit, I told myself. Soon I wouldn’t even be having boring thoughts anymore. I would be like some kind of Zen conversationalist.
I took this rule to work with me, and found that I did a lot more listening than talking, which I liked. I realized that these seven verboten items took up a lot of small talk time with people I’m friendly with. I thought, if I never talk about any of these things, will anyone really know how I’m doing? I started feeling like a weird problem-free robot, but it was fake. I realized I liked hearing about some of these things, because it was what concerned them. You hear about people’s concerns and problems and you realize what motivates them, what’s important to them.
On Wednesday morning Franny woke up and gave me an earful about how poorly she’d slept. “There goes that rule,” I thought. On Thursday night, I drove downtown to see a movie and traffic was horrendous. I found myself wanting to give my dinner companion the blow-by-blow and then stopped myself. The final nail in the coffin was this morning when I woke up with some of the worst cramps I’ve had in months, followed by an unholy rain of bloody chunks. There was no way I wasn’t going to moan loudly about this uterine apocalypse, especially since I had to be somewhere at 10 and it actually hurt to walk.
When Franny comes back tomorrow I’m going to bring it up again, to see how their week went, to see if they even thought about it after Monday night (I doubt it). I know you can go too far with nattering on about your problems or listening to them, but there is something cozy about knowing someone well enough that they will tell you what’s really bothering them. And it’s a relief to say it.
In Other News
Yesterday afternoon I threw a bunch of tomatoes, onions, garlic, and three oxtails into my slow cooker with the notion that it would all melt into some kind of magic ragu that would make me not care that it’s cold outside now. DINNER IS SOLVED, I thought smugly, and settled in for an evening alone with Strudel.
We watched When Harry Met Sally and Four Weddings and a Funeral. She asked me if the latter was scary and I told her it certainly was, you could tell by the word “funeral.” I told her there was a scene where bats flew out of someone’s neck. She was disappointed and fell asleep after the second wedding.
My oxcoction was not anywhere near done by the time Strudel was ready to eat last night, so I made us bacon, apple, and mustard, grilled cheeses. I turned the slow cooker way down and let it cook overnight, which was the way to go. This afternoon I shredded the oxtails and gave them to Strudel, who made oxtail and shiitake ravioli for dinner. She was going to use a sausage filling, so being able to use this was handy.
Stollen prep.
I also candied a buddha’s hand and put it in a stollen. I’ve been futzing around on Sundays since I am relieved of cooking duties, and am telling myself I’m experimenting for the holidays, but I am actually just amusing myself (and fattening others).
”If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.”
–Charles Bukowski
It’s turnabout this weekend. My friend Laurie who I recently stayed with in San Francisco is now here with me.
It’s a gorgeous day and the tomatoes have died and so the chickens once again roam the Earth. Well, the limits of their Earth. They are happy to be out of their summer pen and they look TERRIBLE. The older ladies are molting, possibly worse than I have ever seen any of my chickens go. They look diseased, except they are just missing feathers, of course.
[Not pictured: dag chickens]
Like the chickens, I am sort of pecking away at my house. Hanging pictures and switching out things like doorbell covers, because brushed chrome is not where it’s at. Besides, you can see the little original outline in the cedar, right? When this house was built, space was the place.
There is something about places being exposed in houses that are normally not that makes me think of surgery, or of parts of the body. I see a sad vulnerability, as if I can see a place for what it really is. Sometimes I feel guilty when I have friends over when I am half through a project and you can see through the walls. Sorry, I want to say to the house, and throw a gown over it. It’s all a big metaphor, isn’t it? Nothing’s ever as together or as whole as it seems.
I think this is part of the reason I went crazy living in a three-year remodel of a very small house. There were constantly gaping wounds everywhere.
As an aside to Kurt Vonnegut and wide-open beavers, I wrote one of my high school term papers on Breakfast of Champions. I liked the idea that something could be so raw and smutty and still make me feel my feelings, all six of them. Also I think duality and insanity are some of my favorite themes, after death.
My contractor says he has obtained permits to begin construction, so what I really need to do, which terrifies me, is commit to about a billion dollars worth of tile. The purchase I am looking forward to is giant tub of doom. The upstairs tub is one of those short 50s bastards that is for kids or dogs and needs to be refinished to boot.
In Other News
Strudel was in the living room on Friday morning before school, braiding something, or sorting something with her dolls. Her favorite dolls are having a little hiatus because she broke a door on the chicken coop (long story there) so she was playing with the second stringers. Franny was at the table, attempting to memorize the capitals of the Northeast.
I walked from the kitchen, through the dining room, and towards the bathroom. I was getting ready for work. As I passed through the dining room, Strudel spoke to her sister.
“…So that’s someone ELSE added to my shitlist now.”
“What!” I interrupted. “How do you have a shitlist? You’re eight years old. What are you, Tiny Nixon?”
“Her sub sounds pretty bad, Mom,” Franny said, in Strudel’s defense.
“She’s a yeller, she yells at everyone. She’s talking to one person and yelling at them and it’s too loud. Everyone hates it.”
“Hmm, fair enough,” I said.
I don’t know what to do with this. I just needed to write it down.
P. made danishes this morning. I think I like the blackberry ones best.
Frannys Gonna Fran
I think it’s funny that she’s spending a lot of time lately trying on what teenagers are “supposed” to be. The other day she stomped off to her room shouting “NOW I’M GOING TO SLAM MY DOOR BECAUSE HORMONES” and went in and closed it with a little snick. She wasn’t even mad as far as I can tell. Though some times, it’s stormy for real.
It’s the first day of school. The video cuts off since my camera is still full of vacation pictures, but suffice it to say I carried on with the wakening.
As soon as Franny popped up, before she even had a glass of water, she told me about a dream she had about Kyle MacLachlan who was looking at a dead lady on a table and then she melted into cheese. Strudel has a nervous stomach ache.
This morning I’m leaving with my sister to go up to North Bend, where Twin Peaks was set, for the annual meetup there. It’s kind of sad, actually, that we haven’t taken a trip together in ten years, but you know. Time money babies school divorce. Life. We went camping for her sixteenth birthday. This post is a fun, cringe-inducing blast from the past. The good news is I don’t sound like a 100% moron like I do in some posts (including some from last month) but I see typos, grammar problems, and a declaration that I was done reproducing in 2003. HA! Guess what 2003 SJ? 2004 SJ is coming and her ass is going to SNAP. There followith a Strudel in 2005.
Anyway, I am excited. Twin Peaks first aired when I was in high school, and I didn’t really get the appeal of it. Other than Knots Landing, which I believe I was into solely [ahem] because it afforded the chance to stay up an hour past my bedtime on Thursdays, I didn’t get into a lot of TV when I was a kid. At least, not with my mother.
Plus I thought Nicolette Sheridan was probably the most beautiful woman anywhere, on TV or in a movie. The way her bangs would jump around, since they were so long they kind of rested on top of her eyelashes…well, that was kind of weird, actually. You don’t really see distracting hair like on TV anymore, unless it’s supposed to be distracting. I’m pretty sure I wandered off after the season when the scammy Greek guy showed up, so I didn’t see crazy Alec Baldwin on it. I still have a terrible tendency to wander off from a show during its summer break and not come back. “I’m full,” I say. There’s exceptions.
When I was a kid I thought of TV as something you did by yourself, when you were too lazy to read or move. I usually did something while I watched TV, like draw pictures of totally sweet unicorns or do the puzzle in the TV Guide. So I watched the first couple of episodes of Twin Peaks with my mother, before shit gets really weird, and I thought it just looked like a soap opera, which it was, in its way, or at least a parody of one. They did not hold my interest then because I was in the phase of my life where I was trying to make my own personal soap opera, and do actual drugs, and have actual sex with people/objects instead of just sitting in the safety of my house behind my pulled shades shouting “OH GIRL DO NOT RETURN HIS CALL” at the screen like I do now.
I worked at Tower Records and Video in college, mostly on the video side, and it was free rentals ahoy there. Every shift I would bring home my allotted two movies whether or not I would watch them. I saw White Men Can’t Hump [main actress had alarming leg bruise; when she was on her back her implants floated like biscuits, giving her chest this terraced effect], Jurranal Park [no comment], Edward Penishands [I’m guessing he never got into smartphones later], and a bunch of movies with plots and clothing and TV. The VHS porn section was prodigious, though, and I took to wearing medical gloves since you never knew how slimy a video you would fish out of the return slot bin would be.
So that was when I saw Twin Peaks on VHS, coming home to my unemployed husband counting out stacks and stacks of cash that must never be deposited. Okay, he was not constantly counting fat stacks of Benjamins, this is just how I like to frame him in my memory at that time. My life had become a soap opera I wasn’t enjoying (teen runaway becomes child bride to extremely small-time drug distributor) so I think I was happy to retreat into the cool pines of Twin Peaks then.
Franny’s gone again–I took her to the ferry terminal yesterday. She was very unhappy about leaving again after spending a month over there at the beginning of the summer. She tells me she sneaks out of her room and lurks on the roof when she gets sent there as punishment. She also told me she got into a fight with her father and threw Cheerios at him. I feel like I don’t know who she is when she’s there, but I love sweet Franny and the angry one. I know we can have many faces and behaviors for different situations, but there are some faces I don’t really see. She and I saw the first episode of Orange is the New Black so I sent the book to her after I dropped her off. The cover is subtitled “my year in a women’s prison” so I included a note that read “This seems appropriate. Love Mom.” I hope she reads it.
Everyone was on edge on the way to the terminal (such an appropriate drop off place, really. A terminal. This situation is terminal. Everything’s terminal, though. So.). This meant that Strudel was saying whatever popped into her damn head.
“I think instead of waving at your other sisters, I’m going to just flip everyone off,” Strudel said. She’s 91% nature, I’m convinced, and should thank her lucky fucking stars we haven’t died before now, because the Nice Christian Family who got their mitts on my healthy white baby would have attempted about 28 exorcisms on her by now.
“Strudel, you CAN. NOT. flip my sisters off!!” Franny’s voice rose in pitch and I could see how tense she was, clutching onto the dog in the passenger seat.
“Your sister is not going to flip anyone off,” I said, almost believing it.
“Mom! She’s not allowed, right? My sisters don’t even know what that MEANS.”
“No, she’s not allowed.”
“Mom, what will you do if I do it?” Strudel asked.
“Well. Laugh,” I answered honestly.
“MOM!” Franny was reaching middle-school girl glass-cracking levels with her pitch.
“Strudel will not flip off your other family because she is a NICE PERSON who wants to KEEP THE RESPECT OF HER BIG SISTER. Yes?” I glanced in the rear view.
“Look, it’s the motherfucking po-po,” Strudel said, changing the subject as we passed a cop car that had pulled someone over. It’s never “a cop” or “the police” with this one. Always “the motherfucking po-po.”
And she was fine at the terminal.
Strudel is spending the weekend with her dad as well. Unlike Franny, she throws Cheerios at the ones she loves the most, so probably the same scenes will be enacted by both of my daughters in their respective house, but for very different reasons. It should be a good weekend. I am happy to spend time with my sister, but I will miss my jerks.
This morning I woke up and the sun was low. I worked for a while and then it popped its head up through the trees and started eating the mist in my yard, which was swirling around. The mist and air reminds me of being in the woods foraging for mushrooms. The temperature has just been perfect–not muggy-hot, but not cold, either. Cloudy and hazy in the morning and then it burns off by the afternoon.
I took the girls out last night and P. made a fruits basket while I was out.
IN OTHER NEWS
We celebrated my sister’s birthday on Saturday. She is 26. Can you believe that? She used to guest star on this joint as a high schooler. I remember when I was 26. I was in library school! I had pink hair then and chickens. So much has changed since the…uh.
We went on a harbor cruise and then to dinner on one of the piers. The theme of the day was photobombing.
“MOM MOM WE DON’T HAVE ARMS!!”
Rilly girls. The hits just keep coming from this comedy duo.
Franny: I will wear the crab hat for five dollars.
Strudel: I will wear it for NOTHING.
SOLD!!
In today’s matinee, the part of Sally Draper will be played by Franny, who was not only wearing this dress but then promptly ordered a “Roy Rogers.” That is her grandfather all over. She spent a week with him at the beginning of the summer at sailing camp, exploring her WASP roots.
Morgan strokes the hot lemon towels.
I took a quick shower before we left to meet Morgan and her fella and when I got home I washed my face and all this dirt just sheeted off it. Holy crap! Summer pollution ahoy. Soon the rains will come back and stick the pollutions to the ground again.
Hello!!! Today’s headline from the weekend is as follows: GOETHE RETURNS.
I know, I know, I didn’t say she was gone. I was feeling super sad about the whole thing and was mourning her quietly and giving extra love to Mere and Matilda. She disappeared a couple of days after the Fourth. Incredibly and much to my relief, the cats don’t mind the fireworks AT ALL, it seems. This is their third year with them. Horace, however, was another story. He spent a few days before, when the extra amateur booms started, hiding under a chair in the corner and scooching under the bed at night on his belly instead of being the little spoon. I called the vet and got a tranquilizer and doped him up every night for three days. He was stumbling around like Courtney Love on a Tuesday until he would pass out. He seems to have forgotten about it now.
ANYWAY. Goethe was gone and gone and I called the pound every day, and was hoping she’d turn up since she’s a menace, chipped, and licensed. P. and I decided to tell ourselves that some old lady had kidnapped her and was smothering her with love and tuna. Even though she is an asshole and hates strangers outside the house and will claw them. Anyway, I knew what the reality probably was and it was a bummer.
Then on Saturday night I was laying in bed and I heard a distinct and annoying yowling! GOETHE RETURNS! She was skinny and demanded pettles for fifteen minutes, and then I gave her some turkey. She didn’t seem to be dehydrated, though, so that’s good. If only you could talk, Gertie. You would say: “Fuck you, gimmie some more turkey or I walk again!”
I also took Feral Dwarf to Dragon Fest, and she had a nice time. She likes eating rando dim sum samplers for $2 each. She also had a fish-shaped waffle with adzuki filling. She also became a dragon.
The yard berries are popping off. I made a blueberry buckle on Sunday but not out of my blueberries. I don’t have enough yet. Maybe in a couple of years.
But for now there is enough for a snack each day. Today Franny came back on the ferry. She had some interesting stories about her month over there, and I’m sure more will come out in the next couple of weeks while she’s here. Then she’s gone for two more weeks, and then back until school starts.
I am also up to my ass in bathroom fixture and tile ideas. It’s time to dig into the utility room. I’ll have some hideous “before” pictures soon, which will be followed by hideous “during” and “after” pictures, because you know my taste. I’m trying to keep it in the flavor of the house, so square tiles and chrome. What I do not want is a tiled countertop like all the surfaces upstairs. Too much work!
Strudel was standing over me as I was making a grocery list for blueberry buckle. I never have cow milk on hand–I only cook with it.
“I’m going to eat you, Mom. RAWR.”
“Uh, ok,” I said. I was only half-listening since I was staring at recipes and trying to remember what I needed.
“You have to take those earrings out, though.”
“Never.”
“Those are nice earrings,” she said. A pause. “Say, Mom, have you made your will yet?”
“Wait, what? Why are you asking me this?”
“I was just wondering.”
“I was thinking of having one drawn up now that we’re done being in court for your sister. Is just another clever attempt to get your hands on my jewelry?”
“Of course not. You just have to think about these things.”