Category Archives: Sweet Domesticity

Recursive; or, Damn Dirty Grapes

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DEAR GODDAM DIARY,

Last weekend’s ice cream was chocolate malt. I am starting to think that these recipes have a wee little bit too much salt for me, in general. But it’s still good. I’m buying the nice cream in glass bottles, which I also use for piima yogurt and such.


Egg in sugar and malt powder and chocolates.

It was a really nice weekend in that way that people go crazy about here–upper 70s, overcast. I am worried about the tomatoes. A cold snap now that they are on the vine and green will turn them into mealy pulp.

Franny’s back for two weeks. She was weird for a couple of days, like a little satellite who had ranged too far out on her tether. I am glad she was gone for almost a month. If she was here all the time, we would have moved on, but it seems like kind of a reset. We are still talking some about what happened at the end of the year with her grades and the Japan trip and the mood she was in at the end of the eighth grade. I think she was just way outgrowing that nest.

So she seemed a little aloof and distant at first but seems to have settled in. I feel bad about how hard it’s always been for her to transition from two different lives.

“The floors are so clean here!” she said. They are not super clean, but they are free of toys.

She said she had a marvelous time with her dad and I believe it. She said he seems calm and like he has his shit together now. It takes some people a really long time to grow up. I grew up fast but it took me a long time to realize I was human, too. I happened to come outside when SeaFed was dropping her off and I always feel so irritated when I see him because he looks so old now, which means I do too. This is not about vanity but mortality.

I’m home today. I wanted to work every day this month but I didn’t make it. I woke up with a pain on the back of my head like I’d been hit with something. My lymph nodes are huge back there, like olives, and I’m just off. It’s not like a normal headache that feels like it comes from inside your brain somewhere or like a band squeezing. It’s like my actual head aches.

I’m giving it a little time, because I need a little time, and then I am going to dive back into the world of doctors and testing. People ask me about my health and I say, “It’s fine.” I cannot say how I’m really feeling all the time. They say they’re glad I’m feeling better and I nod. This is how the transaction goes, I think. I cannot pretend I am getting better, though, and no amount of taking care of myself or altering my diet seems to be completely licking it. I’ll make an appointment for after Twin Peaks.

I’m going off of some medication to get myself to flare up again. I know for the next round of testing I will need to have accurate inflammation levels. I’m dreading this. I cannot go back on steroids. I know I was on too high of a dose, but I really don’t want that look into my id again. I have this pattern of some life-changing event and then I get what I am afraid is a look into who I really am. I don’t like what I find there. It’s an asshole who likes to wear fringed leather jackets.

I don’t want my life to be about being ill. Some days I cannot bend over because of my joints and I feel afraid. I need to figure out how to be unafraid again.

Franny was saying the wants to see the new Planet of the Apes movie that’s out now. I think I would rather eat ground glass than sit in a theatre right now, so I offered to show her the original at home. I think Charlton Heston is appropriate for any season, but especially summer. We have now watched the first two and the girls have made me promise to show them ALL FIVE this month.

I always enjoy watching movies with them. I had Strudel convinced that she had misread the title and that it was Planet of the Grapes, and it was all about winemaking.


A thirteen-year-old hath given me a mani-pedi during Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

I am counting down to going out of town, but not too far away. I am really looking forward to taking a trip in the Elco. FDR had mineral springs, I have an El Camino with a couch for a seat. I have a long history of traveling alone and sometimes it’s horrible but usually it’s fine. It’s always transformative, at least, which is what I need right now.

“Meathead.” “Do not call me this.”

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My sister and I stayed up tooo late last night talking shit about the apocalypse and some other stuff. And drinking rosé and eating rosemary fried chicken.

I forgot how much she remembered about way back in ye olde days when she was like, six. She gave Strudel an earful of how I was in some kind of Harry Potter situation. I was kind of cringing as she was telling her niece about my parents’ plans to lock up the food, so I would go away like some kind of stray cat, and the other plan to spend all the college money. Among other things, but she didn’t mention those.

It was true though. I can’t imagine how this sounded to Strudel. Probably completely fucking absurd. There’s A LOT the girls don’t know, because why?

It’s a weird thing to think about, the fact that my sister was subjected to watching me be treated very poorly. I know my mother had a lot of “survivor’s guilt” over how brutally my grandma would beat her step siblings. And I think about how my mother put my sister through that. Rinse, repeat.

I don’t hurt children; I have always turned the knife on myself.

“You are VERY lucky,” Morgan told Strudel.

It’s not very hard, I said. Step one: don’t be crazy.

Afterwards I went out to lock up the chickens, late, and there was a disgusting slug orgy happening on my porch. They were LITRILLY

fucking in a slimy pile.

I got out one of my work gloves and threw them all VERY FAR over the fence. PROPER. My porch is the perfect storm of chicken pellet crumb, since the bucket is stored there, and moisture from plant pots. There are jizzy slug trails over the sides of my house, on shoes, on window screens, errrwhere. YUCK.

Speaking of stray cats and chickens, Goethe decided to stomp around in the chicken run tonight.

What are you DOOIN?

Last weekend, after months of saving money and waiting for it to get warm, Strudel and I collabo’d on a lemonade stand. She is saving up for a laptop so she can geek out with her creek out. I bought her a bank in April and glued the buttplug in so she could not embezzle from her LLC. She has been counting down to smashing it.

Don ye now our mom’s onion goggles.

HOLY SHITBALLS I MADE MY FIRST DOLLAR

It was successful. I piled the table and such into the Elco and took it to a busy corner in our neighborhood. “You should write on the sign that it’s fresh-squeezed” a guy in a van said. We’re going to do it every weekend until the rains come.

Krumpy was in town and we met at Matt’s, which has to be one of my all-time favorite Seattle restaurants. I hoped she would like it, since she has fancy NY taste. I wore a silk dress and was on the verge of sweating the whole time, but not quite. This is a pretty awesome summer.

The ice cream of the weekend was salted black licorice. I like ouzo and fennel and absinthe but I cannot hang with salted licorice.

JESUS FUCK LICORICE CUSTARD GROSS

It was for Mr. P., who has like only seven taste buds.

Look who got a summer buzzzzzzzz.

FIN

Happy Fourt…zzzz

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Shit shit shit I am sick again. I have lumps on the back of my neck (swollen lymph nodes) and I am dragging ass. I kind of ignored it for a couple of days but it’s not going away quickly, anyhow, and I am just sleep sleep sleeping, and turning to my usual coping mechanism, cooking. With mixed results.

I keep touching my neck bumps and going YEP STILL HURTS like a dog touching its hotspots. Why does human nature compel us to lick chancres and probe burns? I’m sure there’s a reason. Don’t answer that.

I’ve been pondering how much time I’ve spent in the 19th century, not in a just glue some gears on it sense, but just reading and cooking and thinking about that whole cool syphilitic cobblestoney situation. Now I kind of feel like I’m unraveling, slowly, in fits and starts, but I don’t have a lady’s maid and I have a job and children, so I can’t sit around writing gloomy poetry and sucking on a shisha all day, like some kind of plump overeducated caterpillar, which is probably what I would be doing right now if it was 150 years ago. This too shall pass? Don’t answer that either.

This weekend’s ice cream was chosen by Strudel. It’s fruity miso. The cookbook’s authors recommend using whatever ripe fruit that will mix well with the miso and is in season–pear, apple, or peach. I used two smallish nectarines, which is what I had (it called for two “large” peaches), and augmented with a couple of small red plums.

You caramelize sugar, and then mix the fruits in and cook them down, caramelizing them as well.

This was all well and good until it was time to stir the miso in and then blend everything. BLEH! It really called back to some unfortunate times later in high school when payday meant takeout sweet and sour chicken and a couple of bottles of Boone’s sangria. The flavor part of the ice cream base really reminded me of that–fruity but also kind of sour. I made myself taste the custard once it was all blended together before it went into the fridge to cool and steep and it was…okay. A little vomity, though, really.

I’m not going to say anything to the kid. By the time I was her age I was a professional vomiter (allergies, poor parenting, etc) but I think she’s only technicolor yawned three or four times in her life so far.

Oh hey, look over here! Shiny thing.

I was a plus one at a BBQ yesterday. We didn’t stay too long in part because I got really cold and tired. The weather suddenly turned and I had dressed for sun. I brought this cake, which is a Texas sheet cake, and comes together very quickly. The frosting and part of the batter is boiled. Patriotic sprinkles for the win.

I like to experiment on people at parties, so I also tried a cherry slab cake. My pan was too big and I didn’t like the way it looked, with the juice leaking and and slightly burnt at the edges, so we kept it at home.

Strudel declared that we would have to have black coffee and cherry pie for breakfast, like Agent Cooper. She is getting into character to be him for Halloween. She spent the entire meal exclaiming that she was drinking a DAMN FINE CUP OF COFFEE. I really can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning. I told her I would rent her a small FBI agent’s suit for trick or treating.

I am also getting excited to go back to the Twin Peaks festival this year.

You can fly

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We’re going to start with eggs and end with a BEEYOOTIFUL swan.

Recently I read that double yolkers are the results of first-year hens trying to get their albumens together. I think this must be one of Fruit Loops’s, who is around a year old. The eggs are big this year.

I ordered duck eggs recently, because they were on mega-sale through my CSA, and if you know duck eggs you know they are large.

The duck egg is in the middle and mine are flanking it. The biggest one on the left, which ended up being the double yolker.

Last weekend we popped out and picked up three more pullets, since I recently lost a couple of chickens again. We’re back up to eight again.

These are kind of my garden variety deviled eggs, except with some goddess dressing in place of lots of mayo, and with some beet horseradish and a pickled jalapeno on top. I found the horseradish at some random store called…The Europe Store (?), in Mill Creek, maybe, after an unsuccessful mushroom hunting trip in BFE. I am always sad when stores like that don’t sell what’s in their name. Imagine buckets full of dirt from Belgium or deeds to castles in file cabinets for sale at the Europe Store.

This sinister mess is custard steeping with coffee grounds. Beloved Shan stayed overnight almost a year ago on her way to a vacation elsewhere and she brought a really cool hostess present. I am cooking (ice creaming?) my way through it this summer and the first one is Vietnamese iced coffee ice cream. It is KAPOW. A good start.

It’s a pretty nice here, for June. Cloudy today but it’s been really sunny and the tomatoes are going crazy.

My scented geraniums are going bananas. I have flavors like nutmeg, mimosa, chocolate mint. I am trying to figure out how to overwinter them without bringing them indoors.

I’m also slowly digging up the front yard. This is a weird one, because there’s going to be an egress window from the basement happening in this yard, which will make kind of a big covered pit, so the plantings need to move out from the perimeters of the house.

So other than the quince tree behind the birdbath, and the boxwood hedge, I am not sure what’s going to stay. When we moved in, it was four square raised beds with pebbles between, centered with the birdbath, but the bed frames were rotting and it needs to be shifted. I want something kind of more organic and less formal, but I really don’t know what I’m doing here. I stopped digging it up, because I could feel the bees frowning at me. P. wants to transplant some of the herbs in the fall as well. So I am leaving it bee for now. GET IT BECAUSE “BEES.”

Finally, since it is early summer, they actually let my kid graduate. I got her report card and she mostly recovered from her disaster, EXCEPT her Japanese grade got WORSE. A complete flunk out there!

I have been wondering if she sabotaged her own trip, honestly. She was becoming increasingly anxious about going. I’m still sad, I really wish she would have pulled it off.

She’s been really clinging lately–to childhood, I guess. She’s been mad at me for lots of things, including insisting that she check her email once a week and suggesting that she start a book of faces account to keep track of her middle school friends. I want to hand her a crow feather and say, “Beat it to the mall like a normal kid and come back before dinner, ok.”

Her father, the notorious SeaFed, was there, which was a nice surprise. He was trailed by his three youngest daughters. Two of them look like toilet paper commercial angels and the other one looks like his wife. Strudel met them for the first time.

After graduation we were invited to the cafeteria to have cake and punch, but SeaFed fled to the parking lot, where he waited for Franny to come out so he could take her to ice cream. Franny ran back and forth between the cafeteria and the parking lot until I told her to STOP IT ALREADY, I would just come out and see her off with her father. She was obviously anxious about her worlds colliding and tried to slip off, to just leave, but I kept up.

I offered to take a picture of all of the SeaFederales, and he said, “You might be surprised to learn I remembered my camera.”

There was so much in that single sentence, it was kind of stunning. It was sort of a dig at me, because I used to have to keep on top of him about the tiniest shit (until I stopped and found that the world didn’t end, not even close). It was a dig at himself as well, famously forgetful and on Planet Mars half the time.

“Oh no, I meant all of you together,” I said.

“Oh!” He handed over the camera and I snapped him and his four girls.

Franny left a couple of days later and has not been in touch as usual. I don’t think she knows how to bridge the gap, to stay in touch. Just like her running back and forth between the parking lot and the cafeteria. I should be collecting her from the airport on July 15, but instead I will be meeting her at the ferry terminal as usual.

Here is a taco holding an Abe Lincoln.

Tall Tan Young Strudelly

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So, dig if you will the picture of time traveling back to Mother’s Day. The girls went spelunking into the chicken coop and there: there be dragons.

They found a demon egg. Seriously, that is an egg. Shell on the left, red yolk on the right. Whisky tango foxtrot!!??!!

Naturally we had to dissect it.

Very auspicious.

So last weekend, since my life is not boring enough as it is already, I decided to re-line the bathroom drawers as part of moving into the basement bathroom. Most of my stuff was in the pink Eisenhower bathroom.

I have approximately 4,000 small bottles of beauty snake oil. FUCK. And they are ALL necessary, because you never know when you’re going to have a day that you specifically need a heat protection cream that works for crimping irons. YOU NEVER KNOW.

So here’s what I think is the original contact paper.

It gave up easily and peeled out dignified-like and without a fuss. I was telling a friend the other day that it was strange to have a bathroom with extremely high-quality, unfinished wooden drawers, as opposed to plastic shelves or lined ones. I think I could sell every drawer on ebay for at least $280 dollars. That is how nice the wood is.

Naturally I felt compelled to recover them. Franny has already spilt makeup in one of the drawers of the mocha bathroom, so I covered all those too with a different pattern that I did not snap for some reason. I am capricious.

A “bonus” was that I found an ad from 1987 behind a drawer (hollerrrr d.o.b. Morgan).

GIRL YOU BETTER LEARN HOW TO TAKE A HARD DICKING FROM THE PATRIARCHY I MEAN NICE PANTYHOSE

God I’m so angry. It’s making me tired.

(reverse)

PROTIP: How to prevent wrinkles: kill yourself. Because wrinkles be happening.

Let’s have some boring jive about my digestion.

Franny made beautiful heart-shaped sugar cookies on Monday and I ate three. Big whoop, right? They hung me over! WHAT. I had a headache and brain fog all day on Tuesday. Crap. I am broken, I think.

She frosted them with pink frosting and brought them to her friends at school, though, and someone innocently asked her what the occasion was. Her snappy, perfect best friend patted Franny’s stomach and said, “There’s another little one on the way!” Cookie fell out of the friend’s mouth. MAD PROPS AND GOOD BFF CHOICE FRANNY.

So I am fermenting the shit out of everything. A couple of weeks ago Franny and I hit a simple cheesemaking class in West Seattle and we came away with piima culture and a bunch of recipes. So I’ve been making kefir (not pictured) and piima butter (l.) and fruit kvass (r.).

Let’s talk about the other one, who writes notes to herself.

I found this on the table on Wednesday. Strudel is very close to the children’s librarian at our neighborhood library. This librarian, I am told, has just gotten pregnant, and is considering naming her baby after Strudel. Then there may be two of them in the U.S. We are very pleased.

Finally, it’s me. I wake up with my hair all crazy and I call it good and head off to work.

My SurfBOOWARDT

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Strudel has been talking constantly since I picked her up from school an hour and fifteen minutes ago. That one really has the gift of gab, as they say. She talks until the air is full and my brain is empty even if I say, “I’d like to enjoy this book I am reading” or “I need to concentrate on writing right now.” For a while I would put a pink glitter skull (Martha Stewart for Target ftw) on the table to signal that I was writing and then she would come by and loudly say, “OH I SEE YOU’RE WRITING THERE.” I think she’s probably all set to be a grandpa.

I had her in the car with me because I had to pick Franny up to drop her off at Japan! Camp! which is a practice sleepover at one of the participating middle schools. She was feeling very negative about going because she just started her period. I feel that. Starting my period makes me negative about everything. It’s a SeaFed Friday but I emailed him and offered to drop her off, since it would be kind of silly for him to come out to where school is just to drop her off for an overnight. He can pick her up tomorrow, I figure. He and I are being barely nice to each other, and I am trying to do things I can be generous about and not feel bitter about. This was a small thing. Plus, I had all of her sleepover stuff, like sleeping bag, etc.

Franny wore one of my old thymey flannels to school today because we are watching My So-Called Life together and she is amazed by the flannel and the sheer 90’sness of it all. It is very 90’s. I didn’t see it until I was a so-called adult because when it was airing I was out being busy. I think I am pretty close to exactly Angela Chase’s age. What is Angela Chase doing now? I’m sure she didn’t inherit her parents’ crappy printing business. Like that survived the internet age. I think she has turned into her mother.

I am trying to show her things about high school in hopes that she will feel better about the whole thing. I don’t think she feels bad, per se. I think she’s just nervous. She cried the other night because she was worried. She’s been admitted to a pretty non-standard high school, but I think she’s pretty non-standard (SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE ALERT).

“If I don’t like it, can I go somewhere else?” she asked.

“We’ll talk about it,” I said. “If it’s really bad for you I will certainly consider other options. But remember, you don’t know what a “normal” high school is like either.”

We waited for it to be 4:30 in the car outside of the middle school. Franny whipped out some lipgloss I got her for her birthday.

“LOOK AT THIS SHIT,” she said. I looked, I could see the bottom of the tin. “I found this in my STEPMOTHER’S DRAWER. SHE STOLE IT. And used most of it.”

Franny has a habit of shouting emphatically and dramatically. I DON’T KNOW WHERE SHE GETS THAT FROM. She reminds me of a drama student but she does not have a drama gaylord squad yet like I was part of.

“Maybe you should talk to her and tell her you don’t want her to keep your stuff.”

“She’ll just lie about it and say one of her kids put it in her drawer.”

“Hmm, okay,” I said.

Sometimes it’s just important to vent, I know.

What is happening now: something new. I’m experimenting with my diet. I figure if I spent a couple of weeks not being able to walk well or far due to inflammation, that warrants some experimentation. Plus I felt like absolute crap after the round of Prenisone and my brain fog was worse than usual. I could barely think of focus at work. I started reading about diets for Candida and brain fog, and so forth, and kind of decided on the spot one day that I would eat differently all day long.

I’ve cut out grains, dairy, booze, caffeine, and most sugar for now. I had already gone off my 3+ cup of coffee a day habit when I got sick in February. Maybe it’s easier to say what I am eating: meat, eggs, veg, fruit, and nuts. It’s not too different than I normally eat–I try to eat a lot of “whole foods” anyway. I’m only about a week into it and I feel great. I don’t really want to be one of those assholes who can never eat anything anywhere at any time but I feel so much better already. My guts aren’t puffy and I don’t have bags under my eyes, and my brain fog is lifting. I can recall names quickly and the precise points of conversations I had. Also, my face (rosacea) is much less inflamed. After the month’s up I will add things back one at a time and see what disagrees with me. I am guessing the turd in the pool is going to be gluten, but we’ll see.

Here’s the crazy/best part. For the past five years, dating way back to when I had that nightmare IUD in, I had a headache every single morning, no matter what I did. It lasted for about an hour after I got up and I would chug water to try to put it into remission. If it was really bad I would take a painkiller. This would happen if I drank booze the night before, or if I hadn’t for several days; if I ate before bed or had not eaten for many hours; if I was getting enough sleep or was short, and so on. I tried everything: changing my sleep schedule, getting massages before bed, waking up in the middle of the night and drinking water. Often the headache would wake me up before morning, at 3 a.m. or so.

I really thought I was just getting old and busted. Well, I am, but I think I don’t need to feel terrible. I cannot tell you what a gift it’s been for my mental state to wake up five days in a row well-rested and without a headache. I already feel like a new person. Someone asked me if I was doing a cleanse, which implies something temporary, and I thought about it. I don’t want to feel this good on the temporary, you know what I mean?

My House is Filling with Chicken Grease Smoke and Looks Like Hoarders

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FRIENDS. Once again we dye the chicken abortions bright colors, and struggle for the next two weeks through a lot of egg salad. First, be warned, my house is totally cattywampus today. I don’t even think the table will be cleared off by the time this chicken comes out of the oven, though that will be good motivation to clear it. I’ll get to the why in a minute.


No tabletop in sight.


Strudel is doing very well; her knee bruises are fading.

I was partly prepared for egg dyeing today. I only had half a box of regular food coloring, and a little more than that in the neon variety.

Like every year, P. suggested we get out the intense dye–the kind you get at the cake decorating store that can legit make frosting black. (Trust me, there are three October birthdays in this house. I know from black frosting.)

I knew there was a reason we shouldn’t use it, but I couldn’t remember why. Since I had no rebuttal, the Jewess and her paterfamilias won and talked me into busting out the fancy colors. I quickly remembered that the reason we don’t use them for this is because they don’t mix with water and vinegar like regular food dye.


We call this egg “Womynist Mooncycle Expressions.” It was supposed to be purple.

Here is a little round up of a couple of things I did during my drug-induced mania.

I’ve been having a love affair with monstera deliciosa, as you do. I got one for the basement bathroom, because it is a low-light tolerant plant, and then I got one for upstairs, so they can race.

Speaking of the basement bathroom, I hear you asking, how did the re-inspection go? WHY, IT FAILED AGAIN. Jackass Plumber put the wrong valve on the hot water heater, in spite of the inspector telling us exactly what was needed.

“The next time I come back, I’m going to have to charge a re-inspection fee,” he said.

Of course my contractor chased up on the plumber very quickly to get him to come out and fix it. Jackass Plumber decided to ignore that email. So my contractor sent the plumber a FUCK YES CAPLOCKS email today, on Easter Sunday.

Because I am A. uncharitable and B. want to use my tub someday, I confess I loled. I have zero confidence in this guy at this point. We just want him to finish.

So here’s new monstera:


It’s terrible on this pillar, though, and I will be getting something so it can be lower. Also, if anyone is actually reading this (this is not a test) have you ever cut back a very leggy rubber plant successfully? I think we need to start over on that guy. [Not pictured.]

Moving the monstera to the pillar meant that I had to move the rain lamp, which I did not like in the dining room, because bronze on bronze weirdness.


I like it in the living room better. Look, it’s like a page out of Dwell magazine, if the room was decorated by a drunk okapi.


Y U SO PRETTY, LADY??? And you smell of melted crayons. It’s like my dream woman, really.

To finish Snake Plant Madness, I got plant stands of differing heights to “add visual interest.” I was talking to a friend yesterday about much I love the word “interest” used in that way, and how you only use it in two contexts: decorating and gardening. And gardening is just decorating outside, so there you go. And then I took that wood thing outside, and rubbed it all over with Murphy’s Oil Soap, and then rubbed teak oil into it. MAN it looks great now. It really does. I am so impressed.

WHO WAS THAT PERSON? WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO WITH A FRINGE JACKET AND A GALLON OF TEAK OIL? Christ, what an asshole. I kind of want her back though, as long as the inside of my head is not going “EEEEEE/KILL ALL HUMANS.”

And look, there are some cords, and there is the ladder, leading up to the attic….

I started a carnivorous garden in a “comically” oversized brandy snifter, because I bought it and it was too big for my marimo to go in. Maybe someday the marimo will graduate into it, like when I am 90.

A carnivorous garden is something I wanted in the back of my head, like when I would be falling asleep at night. I’d say, “And it would be cool to, like, have a bunch of carnivorous plants in a jar and we can reenact scenes from Suddenly, Last Summer in the living room.” And then I would say to myself, “Self, pull the other one, it has bells on,” AND THEN I felt like I had hoovered up Cocaine Mountain 24 hours a day, so boy howdy was I ever doing seven projects an afternoon.


“We will eat all of the fruit flies that will bother you in August.” No you will not you fucking LIARS, there are TOO MANY.

I have a little twinge when I look at it, like it’s a gift from another personality or something, or something you did when you were blackout drunk. I actually did things like this when I was very drunk in college. I was like a very drunk retiree when I was on school holidays. “Mmm, drank two martinis, time to do some gardening.” SIGH, past SJ. You were pathetic. But STI free. EH.

ANYWAY. Am I the type of person who can actually maintain a fussy little window garden? We’ll see, I guess.

Now it’s shameful secret overshare time (a day ending in “Y.”). My poor mocha bathroom, the one with the insano teal walls, has been hideously abused. The guests only see the pink poodle bathroom, but today you get unfettered access.

I asked P. to switch out the exhaust fan because it was ancient and really not cutting the mustard, especially with four people using this bathroom. I’m kind of glad to have a delay on working on the basement, because this bathroom is turning into a 911.

Look at this mildew. There was a little patch when we moved in, and all this has spread this winter. The new fan has a “humidity sensor” and will run as long as it goddam needs to. And will be quieter!


CHEESE AND CRACKERS MAN. It’s IN the paint. THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!!

So I got some of that Kilz stuff to coat the ceiling in, and I’m going to repaint as soon as he’s done putting the fan in. I figure there’s no point in repainting until there’s so more powerful sucking in this room. I know, why don’t I just stand in the bathroom? HA HA, you’re hilarious.

And then we have to address this poor sad bathtub. Horrifying, innit?

This poor house has experienced A LOT of benign neglect. I guess we’re the ones to turn that around. Anyway, hope your weekend is going swimmingly. Monkeychow out!

My Bark is Worse Than My Barf

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Oh a twist–Monkey #10, who successfully traded hats on stage with eleven monkeys for two matinees and an evening performance last week, not to mention all the practicing, has suddenly come down with lice. What a crazy random happenstance. I dropped a dime on her with the school, because I am also hearing that there is a full-on outbreak and girls are “hiding” lice so they won’t need haircuts.

Things kind of festered because Strudel has not really been having me braid her hair at night for the past week or so, and I was just suggesting a Nice Bob to resolve her tangling and pain issues.

“NO!” she said last night, as her dad picked her nits.

Franny, meanwhile, has not had a haircut since September, and her ends and layers were getting a little tired. She asked me to give it a blunt trim across her shoulders, which was easy to do once I had gotten laundry load #4000 in and dishes were done.

“Oh that looks nice, Mom.” She thought for a minute. “Should I have…BANGS?” She started pushing little wispy bits down to preview what it might look like.

“I think you should, but I’m going to tell you what my hair stylist tells me: commit fully. No wimpy little bangs that you will have to style endlessly and they will still kind of look crooked and weird and not behave. You should make it a hairstyle.” I pulled a chunk of her hair forward to show her how it would look full and frame her face.

She went for it.

I like it. It’s very hipster anime Cleopatra. I showed her about a little heat, and a little style product, and BANG (no pun intended, but there you go).

THEN, not to be left out, Strudel clamored for a bob. I JUMPED! This is probably the quickest haircut I have ever given and she said the same thing she ALWAYS says every single time.

“I HATE THIS. Wait. This is actually okay. This is pretty good.” Sigh. “I think I like this. Thanks, Mom!”

And then after I was done, P. swooped and picked even more nits. This was after a round of smothering with tea tree oil and almond oil, too, of course, since I was out of Listerine (note to self). It will probably need a wee bit of clean up when she wakes up.

I tried to take a picture, but she turns into a blur. I get that she doesn’t love the camera, or holding still, and a lot of times I just leave her be and “miss” stuff. It’s okay, some of it stays in my head. I really wanted to snap the bob though and I was a little disappointed in myself for pressing it.

“Can you just…hold still?” I asked.

“Not really!”

“I want to see your hair in this, can you just, like…act normal?”

“I AM ACTING NORMAL!!” Hmm. Touche, there, Calvin.

Lady Lice-a-lot is coming to the rheumatologist with me this morning. Guess what? I “have something” now, I think. Parvovirus B19 came back positive, finally. I will let you know more when I know what the heck this means, overall.

Also I am burning with desire to show you my bathroom, but I am missing VANITY LEGS. OH GOOD GOD. SJ problems. I am going to shoot it later anyway, because there is an inspection today and tomorrow and then it is DONE, vanity legs or not (legs are backordered til next week).

ETA: Okay, it’s NOT parvo. It was just showing that I have had it. Dammit. Still, I’m getting better.

There’s so many people who can talk and talk and talk/And just say nothing or nearly nothing

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Here is what happened today: I left work around noon after doing approximately two things that required a moderate amount of brain power. I suspect these tasks took me about twice as long as usual. I had to check, and double check, and ask stupid questions via IM, and reassign tickets to people who would receive them with annoyance. We’ve established that I am not so smart right now.

A compounding factor was that I could not get to sleep until 2 a.m. last night. My heart was pounding and I was feeling bad about every single thing I had ever done and said, so it was a lot like when I started this blog in the first place, as my past-tense evil confessional. Atavan was not making a fucking dent. I knew I couldn’t write and I was reading random internet articles that were titled with statements like “Ten years ago,” and I would determine that was moving TOO SLOWLY. I don’t need any stinking context, people. BUZZFEED was too in-depth for me. Alas. And then up at six, go to work again.

Side effects. So with the sleep dep and the brain fog I am literally running into walls at work, which is amusing in some ways, except bruises. I left work after noon, having put the biggest dent in my highest priority things that I could. I drove the El Camino to work because in some ways it feels safer and more comfortable to be cruising through town around in a boat. However, a 1981 car is not foolproof the way my newer Honda is.

I had parked across from a plant shop, and I wanted to pop in and get some soil, quickly, for some snake plants I had purchased last weekend. The temperature of the car was very mild and I think it was supposed to be 60 degrees outside. I knew the spaniels would be okay for ten minutes with the sun roof popped and the windows cracked. I set them up and said goodbye to them, and then realized I had locked them in with the keys in the ignition. The engine wasn’t turned over, but the battery was on. I sighed and tried to snake my arms into the sunroof and the window cracks.

People walked by on the walking trail next to me car, indifferent. I didn’t expect a lick of help, honestly. Years ago I had fallen over with Strudel on my back in a baby backpack on an icy patch and no one around me batted an eye. I just don’t expect help, really. Everything I had, like a phone or other tools, were locked in with the dogs. I had my work badge and six dollars in my skirt pocket.

Much to my surprise, two ladies who were probably about ten years older than me stopped on the path.

“Do you need help? OH NO PUPPIES.” I should have gotten dogs years ago.

“I do, but I’m not sure what you can do. The locks are tricky and I can’t reach my arms in.”

“Oh! She’s got skinny arms,” the grey-haired lady said about her friend.

“It’s true, I do.” I was impressed at how quickly she jumped into the back of the Elco and snaked her arms into the sunroof. She was only about two inches from the lock, which was the old manual silver type. There was some fiddling, and some jiggering, and not many suggestions from me since I was feeling stupid and exhausted but was making grateful and encouraging noises. Finally the solution was to send a skinny arm into the sunroof to guide a purse strap that went through the window and acted like a noose to pull the lock.

“YAY!” declared the sliver haired lady. “I have little dogs, too.”

“This is not me, usually,” I bumbled. “I’ve been going through this auto-imnnune brain fog thing. I have never locked a dog or a child into a car. But I’m getting better.” I felt super pathetic but I didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, that’s the worst. I’m sorry,” she said, and hugged me.

“I wish I had something to give you,” I said.

“It’s okay, this was fun!”

“I will do something nice for someone else, don’t worry,” I said.

And I will.

In Other News.

Once I finally got some soil I napped and then noodled around the house some. While I was buying the soil I was crashing into walls and pillars with my cart.

I bought a few snake plants a couple of weeks ago because this image from Mad Men never left me. Mmm snake plant entryway. I had snake plants in college and they worked pretty well in my 50s rental rambler.

I bought a few blowout pots from the bargain section and hit them up with teal and my bff, Rosemary Rustoleum to unite them.

And then when I came in from outside I realized that something delightful had happened. Orange and teal. Haters to the petards.


AHHH SYNERGY BONER LIGHTNING STRIKE!

After I lost my mind on Saturday and showed you my fringed jacket things got much worse and I started losing it and MEGA CLEANING. I would lay down to rest because I was exhausted and then I would be mad for no reason and get up again and scrub things.

This brain fog is reminding me of why I drank so much when I had the IUD in. Not only did a crave alcohol, but I was already stupid, so fuck it, I guess? It was easier. I drink much less now, but brain fog makes me want to, because it makes me not care that I am deeply stupid.

Look what I did to my fridge, angrily:

FUCK YOU, HAVE SOME SHELF LINERS. EVEN THE BEVERAGE SHELF.

And then this happened. Labeling due to my BFF dry erase Crayons. I am not kidding, these things have changed my life. I use them on everything in the fridge. Expiry dates SOLVED. Loaned containers SOLVED. Sometimes I make eyelashes on the giant google eyes on the fridge. I write H on hard boiled eggs. You get it.

The downshot (is that the opposite of the upshot?) of this is that I could not go to a volunteer gig I had lined up for the Japan trip, since I felt like my chest was collapsing and I could not be around people. That was pretty hard. I am not usually an anxious person unless someone is actually suing me or something. It has to be pretty extreme. I puttered around the kitchen muttering incoherently about “tech burritos”, which was possibly the best idea I’d ever had. I’d like to take this moment to publicly apologize to the Bloggess for scoffing disdainfully about her crawling around on a bathroom floor at Blogher 07 or whatever. I give up, I am humbled by my condition and medications.

The next day I had a “breakthrough” and “tech burritos” morphed into an actual novel idea, so I am outlining that now (hint: it has nothing to do with tech burritos) and I figure if I have burned off all my paid time off and sick leave, when my medication is done two weeks from now I should start writing this novel, because I think it’s good. i wrote a novel last year around this time. What did I do with it? Nothing. No one cares. Okay, I am off to make a meatloaf. I love you, and yes, that is good fortune and strawberry blonde beer talking.

I planted a peony under the bow, and stargazers are under the “plain” ones. I have a lot of ribbon right now because I had a little beauty subscription box issue around Xmas and I am just hoarding ribbon now. I like it.

XOXO,
Monkeychow Girl