Weeeee-law!

So it's April. I'm beat. The first grade teachers of my elder kid are coming to dinner tomorrow night. The only way I can keep this place clean anymore is to continue to have regular guests. I hate people, but I love a clean house. A girl's gotta make some concessions.

ONLY JOKING. I like people okay. When they're nice.

Not Sure What To Do with the Blog

I have a lot of blog here. Obviously, I don't use it anymore. I don't want to lose it, though, through neglect. I guess I can copy it into a file? Maybe I'll then take it down. Delete it.

Anyone done that?

The search for quality kids' lunch food

The school year is almost upon us. The advance toward September also brings fall sports and packed lunches. Both of which mean, a) I will need to get more food into my kids to make up for their increased calorie use, and b) I will need to find a variety of lunch foods that they will put into their mouths instead of into the lunchroom garbage can!

Last summer I did a few weeks of research on what foods (home-made and pre-made) my children would eat, and thus would be willing to take to lunch. Here is my post on the hits and misses.

When I next go to the store, I'll see what new and exciting and potentially edible is in the snack-food aisles, and then I'll post the taste-test successes and failures.

vay-cay

I've taken a breather from blogging. One word: FACEBOOK. It's two words smooshed together, really.

The Game

My 4yo daughter eats ALL DAY LONG. She doesn't weigh very much and she's exceedingly tall, so I don't feel good holding back the snacks. But our interchanges regarding food are often unpleasant, because I choose to fill her with more nutritious fare than she would choose on her own.

She complains, "I'm HUUUUUUNgry."
"I'll make you some cheese toast."
"I don't LIKE cheese toast," she says in a pained voice. (She eats it almost every day.)
"Then you'll just have to wait until dinner." I put a slice of bread with cheese in the toaster oven.
"But I don't LIKE THAT." Pouting whine.
"Okay, don't eat it."
POP. I put it in front of her, and it disappears within thirty seconds. That should hold her, oh, another half hour.

FLU

This is not a joke. One week ago, under the tutelage of a 103.5 fever, I composed a screenplay entirely in my head. I gave it the working title of FLU, shockingly, and recollect that it was a hi-LAR-ious story of misadventure.

You will writhe with laughter as a thirty-something single woman fights it, but ultimately falls flat on her fluey face. I don't want to spoil the yucks, but she loses her job, loses her dog, and loses several days to delirium. I am not joking that I thought I had done a pretty good job, and that Jennifer Anniston might just want it. I can't remember all the details, however, and you can thank me for that next time we chat.

Practice Makes...a Practitioner

If perfection is equivalent to lacking nothing in this very moment, then I guess practice might also make perfect.

It's not that I DON'T mind..

I'm not sure my blog title fits just now. Sure, things could change with a sneeze, but at the moment I'm practicing having no opinion.

A moment of silence

I have drafted scores of unpublished blog entries through the years. More, lately, than ever before. Right now I am not pleased with what I've written, nor do I particularly want to share what I think. And mere pleasantries seem a waste of all of our time.

Hence, the long pause. Just breathing, I guess.

Rocket Is One with the Universe

Marchwind Blue Monk, CGC, 1995-2008
Our dear dog Rocket, our first dog as a couple, our stubborn, energetic, beautiful Italian Greyhound, was laid to rest in our backyard on December 31st, 2008. He will be remembered fondly by the five remaining in our household, our extended family who knew him well, and our good friends and neighbors.

Here are a few blog posts of the past four years featuring that old hound:
June 10, 2004
June 23, 2004
July 19, 2005
Nov. 11, 2005
Dec. 18, 2007
Dec. 27, 2008

Saying Goodbye

D and I have decided that it is time to tell Rocket goodbye. Probably tomorrow at our vet's.

Rocket's Status

The 13.5yo dog is wobbly. He has trouble keeping his balance, or his muscle strength is gone, or both. His haunches were weak before the surgery, but now his shoulders/front legs are weak too.

I took him to our vet today and she checked for vertigo and sensation in his limbs, also for obstruction in his large intestine and for glucose metabolism. All were fine, she said. We have moved off of one antibiotic onto another because one spot in his incision is weeping, but it doesn't look like an infection, she said. He's off the pain meds, and being transitioned from the low-residue food back to his old food.

We just don't know why he is unsteady. Yes, he's blind, but he would run blindly into the fence after a suspected squirrel in the past. Now he can barely take two steps without a wobble and possible fall onto his side.

She has me trying to feed him Pedialyte in case his electrolytes are out of whack. Trouble is, I can't get him to drink it (I got the plain type). We are running out of ideas for the poor guy. I take him back to have his staples removed Friday afternoon. I'll have more to report then, I guess.

Year's End

Just some tidbits to munch on as we finish out the year.

Rocket almost died. He ate an ungodly amount of inedibles a week ago, and now has a long incision down the middle of his belly, lots of staples, and is pretty unsteady. The good news is that he is eating and drinking well and will probably be okay. He is my first baby, so this was quite a scare for me.

I like this ncfoodie person's blog: inmymind-ncfoodie.blogspot.com. Check it out!

Today, I have rented Brokeback Mountain for the, oh, tenth (?) time from the library. There is a strong possibility that I will finally watch it tonight. But maybe not.

With my Border's gift card, I bought Sara Gran's Dope and an address book. Can't wait to dive into both. Luckily, one already has words in it.

I've got to stop using Facebook. My multiple personalities coexist uncomfortably on one page that friends from all my eras can access. As my worlds collide, who will prevail? The fair but tough professor? The high school cheerleader? The swinging grad student? The aspiring mystery writer? The gay divorcée? The married mom of two preschoolers? Can they really all be the same person?

A former student called me a few days ago to check in. She does this a couple times a year, and that's okay. Just between you and me, I've always known she was mentally ill. That was a dicey situation, of course, because SHE never knew. But now she knows, and even told me so during the course of our conversation. Funny thing was, she sounded the sanest I've ever heard her. She got married last year. I'm happy for her, I guess, because it was what her parents wanted, and she lives for her parents, but I honestly felt like getting her a lifetime prescription for birth control as a wedding gift, because if there's one person I didn't want to have a kid, it was her. But now, maybe with medication and therapy, she can take better care of herself. She deserves it.

Kiss Parody

This St. Sanders parody of KISS (aka PISS) is the funniest one yet. If you are a KISS fan, then you quite deserve this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw5oJoUYTb8

You've got to check out his other shred parodies: http://stsanders.com/.

What a difference two years makes

I advised the children that in the nature documentary we were about to watch, March of the Penguins, some of the penguins and their chicks "don't survive."

"They die?" asks my five-year-old son. "Is it fiction or non-fiction?"

"Non-fiction. It's the real world, just on camera."

My son's face goes white, his lips turn blue. "I don't want to watch it," the boy says in between sobs.

"I do," says the three-year-old girl. "I like it when people die," she says enthusiastically.

"They aren't people. They are penguins," I tell her.

"Oh. Yeah! I like to watch penguins die!" she nods with a smile.

She just wants to watch the movie and will say anything to get me to put it in the DVD player. Or else she is the next Aileen Wuornos.

What my son doesn't remember is that he saw this DVD two years ago, and didn't have a single negative reaction to the "Circle of Life," as it is referred to by a certain entertainment organization. I think mine grow into their sensitivity gradually.

Remember those sandals?

The Ferragamo sandals I coveted in an earlier blog post? Well here is an updated pic with a foot in it. Zexy.

Here's the naked shoe.


And by the way, I got the price on them. One thousand and ninety dollars. For two sandals. Naaaah.

Three Going on Thirty

You may already know that every night before my daughter drifts off, she draws me in to a surprising Q&A peppered with scraps from the recent past. Tonight she channeled her preschool teacher and made my husband's sinus problem her own.

AC: "My body seems a little stuffed up. With something. I think I need something for it."
Me: "Sleep?"
AC: "No. That's a good guess, though. Something else. What could it be?"
Me: "Let's talk about it tomorrow, okay?"
AC: "No no no. I need to take something. Hmmmm. What is it?"
Me: "Good night."
AC: ...

I Wanna Perfect Body; I Wanna Perfect Soul

This takes up lots of my energy. The wanting. I used to work at it. Now I just want.

Population Control through Better Corn

I guess it's going to happen, whether we want it to or not:

http://www.gourmet.com/foodpolitics/2008/11/politics-of-the-plate-infertility-from-gm-food

I have always wanted to...

Thought I'd come over to the blog and brush away a few cobwebs. Blogwebs. Weblogs. Dust off the weblog. Yes. That's it.

Just for funz, I'll make a little list of five things I've always wanted to do. Mind you, I'm the type of girl who's gone ahead and DONE what she's "always wanted to do," even if it wasn't so wise, so it is really curious that I haven't gotten these done yet. I think the arrival of children five years ago has had something to do with the slowdown in my goal-fulfillment. So, without further ado, I have always wanted to

1. Build a cabin or garden house from scratch.
2. Grow enough backyard garden produce to be self-sufficient in the veg department.
3. Stay a few nights at the Four Seasons in NY, no holds barred.
4. Help low-income families learn how to eat healthier for less money.
5. Finish writing a mystery novel.