Okay, so I started noticing everyone had pictures in their blogs, but I had none. (I'm slow to catch on). So here's a photo for your viewing enjoyment. Slinky Corn figure rocking a nasty pose for you.

I'm so ridiculous, there's no point in even attempting anything other than that. I've always known :).
Remember the early 90's when everyone was ranting over Tori Amos? I didn't get it & I don't know that I was even cool enough to fake that I thought cool stuff was cool. Umm,
at that point probably still listening to my mom's Kenny Rogers Gambler album.
(Not that I hate Tori Amos; I did like that weird hand video with the skateboard... although I don't remember the song that went with it. I just don't know much of her. Or perhaps not swayed for or against. Like lawn. I like the lawn but I cannot say I'm for or against lawn.)
I've gotten so accustomed to no one reading my blog that the idea that someone could come along and defend Tori Amos is far reaching.

Is anyone out there? :P

The Mooniest Moon & Other Things I Noticed

Last night was the full moon.
Warm bright Mooniest Moon. And looking at it, I noticed the clouds racing past, over and out, as though the moon were playing peekaboo. There are times when I feel I'm riding this life in a little night boat, and some things that may matter one day, like remodeling a kitchen, can seem trivial or momentary. As though time were drifting my boat too fast round each curve to take it in or want for a thing. Are the clouds racing, or is it me? I am a watcher.
Naomi informed me,"Tomarrow will be the waxing moon." I don't know what a waxing moon is, but I'm impressed with her moon knowledge. Were there no waxing moon, I'd be impressed by her creativity to invent one.
All fall to bed, and I lay on the sofa watching cheesy television for a few extra minutes. The baby runs down the stairs in her pull up and tank, two tore out coloring pages in hand.
"I colored these for you," she tells me. Why aren't you in bed? I ask. She climbs into my lap on the sofa, her head tucked in my armpit falling out like a light. I want to wash my makeup off. The show is over, and all electronic devices off. I look at the little baby hands and I cannot move.
Because I know one day I'll blink my eyes and there'll be no more coloring pages or little diaper butts. They'll be other things, but maybe not so precious as this.
I had to wake her and get her up the stairs, then turn the lights out behind myself. I climbed into bed and looked out the windows. The clouds had stopped, cotton balls dyed blue. Round puffy floaty things. Stopped. Had they stopped, or had my night boat slowed? Tiny frogs sing with loud little gullets.
You can't mourn the loss of a thing you didn't know you had.
Some folk never even knew they had yesterday, though they did, in fact, have it.
The boat went and they forgot to pay attention.

I suppose if you stumble here, maybe you'll see the waxing moon tonite.

I have to go clean. Not my TiVo box :).
Cleaning you're TiVo is like eating a piece of cheese and saying you cleaned the refrigerator.

I'm thinking of all my friends back in Chicago with
their Facebooked Saint Patricks Day party photos.
Strange how I always think of them when I think of friends. They seem the real people.
Not that Georgia doesn't have real people. They definitely seem real in the check out line at the store when I have to wait behind them. It's just that these people are not like me.
Some days it seems so ladder like. What rung am I on in the order of condescension today. Because no matter how slighted I may feel, there'll be a place where mentally I slight another, making me no better. Perfect hair Lily Pulitzer capri wearing mom may think she be on a higher rung, and I may find myself thinking I'm on that higher place when I see someone wearing a ragged rebel flag scarf on their head (yesterday at lunch) or when I'm in the car rider line and a car in front of me throws a cigarette butt out the window before the teachers load their child. (My pet peeve.) And of course, as always, my thought bring me back to the beginning of the loop, as everything is a loop, and there are, in the end, no rungs, no ladder. Just the greater than alligator eating the smaller number, and we are all alligators... (greater than or less than, depending on the day).

Let us not be hungry ones.

much love, yours truly :P

Hi!

Hi!
Really, not much time to talk- I've got The Other Boleyn Sister on TiVo, and since I read the book last year I'm looking forward to Steven & I hanging out with a blanket watching late tv.
Wanted to tell you about this great 'Democratic' discovery I made-

http://www.britebluedot.com/

I saw one of these stickers on a car and had to just jump online when I got home and order one for myself. Hopefully, our country will be seeing more and more blue, and I'm glad it's coming to that. Happy.

Have a cool weekend :)

Be not disturbed at being misunderstood;
be disturbed rather at not being understanding.
~Chinese proverb

Thai Casserole

Really quicky, my thai casserole recipe!
My 10 year old eats this, so I thought Id write it down...

1 pack of chicken tenders- boil em & cut in little chunks with scissors.
then add 3 cups of water & with 4 chicken boullion cubes
&
1 bag of pre-shredded carrots
1 pack of precleaned mushrooms
2 bunches green onions- sliced.

stir, then pour in 1 can lite coconut milk &
1 jar of Thai Kitchen brand Green Curry Simmer Sauce.
(you may have to look around for this. Food Lion sells it.)
2 bags of boil in bag brown rice. (I just cut open the little bags & pour in.
You can season it differently if you wish- sometimes I'll add a dash of ginger or curry
or a little sea salt if it needs it. Makes great leftovers!

Have a cool day!!!

Grosser than gross, and then a bit grosser.

Do you remember that game where kids would play "What's grosser than gross?" and you had to come up with a grosser thing about the previous thing that was said? (Am I even remembering correctly?) And perhaps I'm dating myself a little. I guess this was before video games were invented, when kids were bored and actually played with little plastic GI Joes and Barbie. Back in the Mad Lib day, I'm going.
So what is grosser than gross?
Waking up to the sound of my dog vomiting a pile next to my bed. (Okay, this actually happened the other night. Nasty, I know!)
What's grosser than gross?
Umm. Okay, grosser than gross would be someone sticking a dry toothbrush into the pile and brushing their teeth with it. (Blech! Nobody would do that in a million years. I hope. If you would, I don't think I want to know you. No offense, though. But that would make you a scarey person. Or just a person with really bad breath? I don't know. I don't have many friends. I may want to know you; but just maybe not eat at your house. Am I hurting your feelings?)

Moving on?
If that little blog bite above doesn't show you my infinite genius, how bout this one?
So these people come over cause they're buying something we're selling, and my kids are bouncing about the December driveway in barefeet, so I'm yelling at them, but in French, not because I'm fancy or my French is so good, only because my mother yelled at me in French, so it's this habit 'that I say what I heard said' thing. Well, we end up talking about my mother being French, and the man says,
"What do you think of Sarkozy?" & I reply,
"I've never been there."

So by now I should have built up you confidence for the day :).
Run! Run while you can! ( I don't know if that's for you or for me!?)

but I have a kitchen waiting for me.
She's got spilt coffee on her tacky teal tops, and some lentils that went over the pan & onto the stove. She's saying, "Come to me. Come squeeze out the soggy sponge in the sink and scrub me..." I must keep the fridge closed, because if I open it, they will perhaps harmonize. "Clean me with your stinky sponge, make us smell like pine or lemon! Yeah!" the fridge would add in a Barry White voice, "And get that stank old celery out of here, baby! Cause I can't get enough of your love! But I've got too much of Mister Celery's love! Baby!"
I know it already. I've completely lost my mind.
I haven't much desire to get in that kitchen but I think I'm going to have to face it. I'll though a cd in Shan's Hello Kitty cd player and be off now. Natalie Merchant, here I come.

(Thanks for reading me, by the way! You have been so 'Kind & Generous' ~)

I want to thank you, thank you ;) thank you, thank you

yt

The Cat from Hell. then some other stuff.

I have a cat.
You know, the funny thing is, I was angry at the cat this morning, and drove the kids to school, the whole time, thinking, I'm going to blog about how stupid my cat is. But then, you check your email, pick up in the house, and you briefly forget what got you so hot headed. Doncha?
No, only slightly.
I have a cat. I have this black persian cat, well, not black through and through- there is a charcoalish black band around her neck. (Argh, I think if you want to get technical she's something called a black colorpoint persian- which means she had a himalayan parent, so she's black and blacker.) Halle Berry, and she's horrible.
Ms Halle is many things. She's a pooper. She poops right outside her litter box, clean or not. I think she does this out of anger. The litter box is in the basement, but she's got a little door inside the door to come in the house. She almost always stays in the basement though...because,
she's a scaredy cat. Yes, scared of noises. Scared of cars pulling into the driveway. People knocking at the door. She's one of the animals that lurks under things, behind things, and if you come over, you won't see her. You'll never see her, because the basement isn't a good enough hiding place when we have company. She has to go into the basement, then back behind the dryer. She'll stay there until you leave.
Hair. As beautiful as you may think a persian or himalayan cat is, let me implore you- they have some hair issues. Actually, that brings me back to 'She Almost always stays in the basement' -
at night she comes out, and I know this because there are black hairs on the white chair.
!
My husband is barely allowed on the white chair, and the kids? No way. And I'm looking at my white chair thinking I have to buy one of those sticky lint remover things, and wanting to rattle the cats little neck. This is the least of the hair issues- the basement is now black and fuzzy.
As bad as she is, sometimes I let the kids catch her and dress her up, and I think it's sweet. My girls sticking her in a little doll dress with a lace collar, holding her, saying things like, "Her da little bebe!" Giving her bear hugs, I can see her eyes glance sideways at me, sometimes hear her low indignant warnings. I wink back.
Why do I stay in such an abusive relationship? I know a pet is not a disposable thing to toss if you get exhausted of your duties. I'm bound to this animal for the life of her, though she brings me no joy. Okay, you could count the times her food bowl empties, she does rub across my leg; but once it's full, she eats, hops on a high shelf and I see only her eyes glowing orange from backs of boxes.
I believe the cat will move outside in the spring, perhaps I'll buy her a little dog house and put it on the front porch. I think watching birds may loosen her up a bit. I've tried to set her outside before and she scratched like a mad woman at the door, catter-wailing 'Let Me In, you hear?!'
(I can hear you animal cruelty folks now. Three years from now you may stumble across this insignificant blog. Don't email me about it.)
Okay, I think I got my venting out of the way.
Moving on!
Steven put a spoonful of Turmeric in his eggs this morning.
Oh!
I discovered something brilliant at the grocery store, Kettle Thai chips. And I don't even eat chips. Ever. But I'm a Thai junkie, and seeing the word Thai, they sucked me in, and last night we were eating chips. Oh Lord, you must buy a bag. It's quite a joy. Although not a healthy joy, and it probably means extra time on the mill for me to make up for it, so I won't buy them unless its some sort of party or dinner from now on. But you, you probably buy chips, so go ahead and buy them and enjoy.
While you're buying that, look up the Adventures of Mark & Ollie on the Travel channel. There is no greater use of TV time than this. Just buy the box sets- starting with Living with the Kombai (two British guys trying to fit into indigenous tribes. Penis gourds, anyone? LOL.) Living with the Mek comes next (More penis gourds- ha ha ha ha ha...) and now, living with the Machigenga (alas, no penis gourds. But hallucinogenic shaman potions and only got to episode two!) I have been long hooked. But of course, I love seeing people eat grubs and learning about people untethered by the modern world at the same time. There isn't a finer hour of cable out there- I promise. If you watch this show, please comment. I'd love to know if anybody else is watching this stuff. It's completely awesome.
Probably even better with some Thai chips. One further? Someone you love and a snuggly blanket.
I'd better go. I hope you have a great day~ Breathe! ;)
yt