a line, a pile, a piece

Remember when I did a whole month of posts in November? I can't even manage a consistent once a week post now. Which is maybe more because I haven't officially committed to it and less about what I keep feeling is a lack of inspiration or motivation. Without commitment, what difference does it make if I'm inspired or not?

Hi, this is the blog where every week I write Hi, it's been a week.

I might re-commit to daily posting again. But right now I confess to struggling with cleverness. I write as fancy strikes (whether that's on a daily schedule or on a random whim), in an up-in-my head, for myself, free writing sort of way. So by clever I don't mean like some relevant modern day Erma Bombeck wearing thrift store aprons and smirks (erma bombeck?! what? see, it's all whatever falls off the top of my head); I just mean more-or-less coherent and not exceedingly soporific. And when I'm struggling with that basic standard, with me as my only reader in question, well, then who knows what the three of you who wonder over from some wayward google search think.

So despite my baffled, sleepy brain, I will tell you that I finally got the husband to install my laundry line in the backyard. I'm not unfamiliar with a screwdriver, but when a stool would be necessary for shorty me to get the proper leverage, well, I prefer to pass the task along to Mr. Longarms Powerdrill.

I have a rod up in my laundry room and I've been air drying some items from most loads (save for, say whites and towels) on that since we moved here. But it took us a while to get the outdoor line up and in use. I don't know why. I love hang drying laundry. I've had lines up in every house we've lived in (if not a long line, then, one of those roundy spinny poles).

There's something very calming and purposeful about shaking out the wet clothes, clipping the pins. I find it oddly rewarding to pull the sun-stiffened garments down, drop the pins back into the empty tin, clunk clink clunk.

I'm very good about doing laundry, keeping my family in clean clothes. I'm not so good about putting the clean clothes away. I'd rather scrub toilets.

Taking the clothes outside to dry slows down the process. While it's arguable that the sun, on a clear hot summer day, is often faster than an electric dryer (this was certainly the case in Phoenix), there's just a lot more hands on time, every single piece being touched twice, instead of a jumbled pile (every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of, oh, sorry. I do that) being hefted as a whole. And I find that the slower pace reminds me to finish what I've started, instead of allowing it to build and grow. So I bring in the still-warm clothes and am compelled to put them away, right away. (feeling compelled does not always equal actually doing it, but hey, it's a start).

I guess it's a bit laundry life philosophy, but it's also plenty of good sense, too. It's silly to use the electric dryer when there's a perfectly accessible solar powered one strung up between the back door and our little grapevine patch.

Which reminds me: how goes the compost pile? Well, I'll tell you what I forgot to mention when I wrote about it in the first place, which is that I have an honest, genetic legacy to compost and a decent "all-in-the-family" reason to feel ridiculous for not having been composting all this time (we've been here in this house NINE months now): my father produces 200 tons of compost a day. Two Zero Zero TONS. A Day. He's something of a compost king over there in the southern half of The Land of Enchantment. My little heap is paltry in comparison, and won't be producing anything rapid enough to be measured daily, but at least now when we talk on the phone about any subject related to Growing Things, I'll be able to respond affirmatively when he touts the merits of building soil health by adding organic matter.

When it's warm out, do you feel less inclined to cook food, too? I'd like some cold wine and a piece of cake, but growing children really do require other things, summer or no. I'd better get on that. It's only in the mid-seventies, not appetite reducing temperature at all, so I can't even blame the weather on this sudden disinterest in cooking and one pesky, clamoring sweet tooth. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd blame my ugly kitchen floor, since I've convinced myself that if we had a different one, I'd be ten pounds thinner and could sing like a bird.

Our backyard has been a real eyesore, but it's starting to look so much better. So maybe it's just a matter of feeling pleased with that. Wanting to relax at the table on the patio with something sweet and refreshing, believing that this little corner of the world is, at this exact moment with my head tilted just so and my ears purposely tuning out the neighbors, just fine.

u-pick (i'll take pictures)

I hitched the camera over my shoulder and squatted down into the low, lush plants long enough (we were in the fields about an hour) to pick half of our bounty. That was long enough to fill about as many buckets as I can take home and process at once and long enough to feel a bewildering mix of gratitude and disbelief when thinking about the people who do this, for a living, all the time.

It's one thing to have a pleasant afternoon outing on an ideal early summer day with friends and children to go pick berries. It would be a very different thing all together to crouch so low, hands in the vaguely prickley stems, loading up buckets as quickly as possible to be paid mere cents per pound. For every complaint about the high cost of produce, I counter that our food prices are subsidized by the poor wages of people who work incredibly hard.

I cannot realistically grow everything I eat (my fledgling garden might produce something, but the scale on which I'm producing is too small for even our little family of four), and I cannot expect to acquire the whole balance from local u-pick establishments. I will always (so long as society hasn't collapsed and we still have stocked markets and money to purchase things) rely on the food grown and harvested by other people.

Oregon berries are so sweet. So much exploding with that perfect tart/sweet taste, it's hard to not speculate whether they've been injected with extra strawberry flavor. Of course, they haven't, they just come off the stem like that, grow under the mostly cloudy Oregon sky like that, come into my house and go into my freezer, to add into many future smoothies, just like that. But if I didn't pick them myself? Who did? It's like me to have to pair the sweet with something less palatable. It's so easy to imagine strawberries growing in tidy fields of turquoise paper boxes, straight from seed to little bundle.

Some person touched every berry you eat. Isn't that amazing? Some person with worries and fears, with children and hopes. Some person who's trudging through like any of us. My gratitude for these people isn't enough, but maybe it's better than never thinking of these things at all.

well, it's about time

It's not much to look at, that half-shadowy lump of fresh grass clippings. You'll have to fast forward in your imagination several months or so to see the rich organic matter of backyard home compost. It's taken us a long, old time to get our composting arses in line, if you will, despite a generous supply of those cloying and infamous "best intentions" everybody's always talking about (one of the few things I always seem have too many of: dust bunnies in the corners, pounds around my middle, best intentions).

Coincidentally, the same day we were finalizing our future compost spot, I had listened (on the trusty ipod while nursing the boy down for a nap) to a recent episode of the Alternative Kitchen Garden about the very thing. I always enjoy listening to Emma in the UK describe her gardening endeavors and accomplishments and insights and the composting episode was no exception. I was particularly glad to hear her list minimizing one's carbon footprint among reasons for home composting.

I have a hard time uttering the phrase "carbon footprint" without having something like a very small gaggy reflex. I think it's high time the masses envelope simplicity. I am very concerned about the state of our world, the future of our children, our obscene reliance on fossil fuels. Absolutely, all of it. But I'm disgruntled to see the Obvious and Necessary becoming the next trendy marketing scheme. Environmentalism shouldn't be trendy, it should be the default standard. And it shouldn't primarily encourage or require the purchase and acquisition of More Stuff.

I think they call that Defeating The Purpose.

Let me chase a rabbit for a minute [when I was a child, sitting in church with my family, our pastor used the phrase "chasing a rabbit" to mean following a tangent for a spell, and I don't know, maybe that's a common phrase and maybe other people say it, too, but it always takes me back to that storefront baptist church, drawing pictures on the backs of bulletins]. . . My only vehicle is an SUV. A 95 Range Rover. An apparent object of scorn from so many hybrid drivers. Every single time I drive into the big city now, I get the stink eye from any number of people and I am convinced my car is the reason. The truth is this: my car goes fewer miles per gallon than your shiny Prius does. But a gallon is a gallon. Don't assume that my fuel-guzzling beast is on the road every day: it's not. My other car is a pair of beat up converse and my husband commutes to his (rural, fourteen miles away) office often by bike. Could I sell my thirteen year old car for something else? Sure. And then what? What becomes of my mostly parked monster? Is it purchased by someone who starts driving it daily? And what do I buy to replace it? Because that Hybrid you (oh general you) are so smug about? Was not fashioned out of twigs and compost by some clever, modern ecofairy. The production of new cars does not have a negligible impact. No, I believe that society's More More More dogma is what got us into this mess in the first place. Making more stuff -even if that stuff is Environmentally Friendly! Green! Organic! Sustainable!- is still Making More Stuff. Stop the EcoGreen Insanity! (my apologies to Susan Powter and her early nineties appearances on late night television)

I have a front loading, high efficiency washing machine. When we bought our house, we needed some appliances. We made the decision to spend a little more for the machine that promises to use a little less. I support having such a choice as a consumer. The problem is, there are too many choices and too many consumers! Production isn't filling a basic need, it's catapulting sales of a whole new product bracket. How about we Buy Less Stuff? Because I'm pretty much convinced that the production and the packaging and the transportation of all this STUFF isn't saving the planet any.

So, in not so many rambley words, that's basically what Emma said about making your own compost. As in, compost is great! But buying compost only makes your carbon footprint all that much bigger. And when that phrasing isn't used as a marketing gimmick, when someone isn't insulting the size of my own carbon footprint so I'm compelled, in a fit of ecoguilt, to replace all my clothes with a new wardrobe of organic yoga attire? I can get behind it and say it again. Reduce your carbon footprint by doing it yourself. Whatever "it" might be. Make do with what you've got, see what you've got that might make something else you need.

And make secondhand stores (or rummage sales or craigslist or freecycle) your first stop for "new" stuff.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a funny, holey-lidded, enamel pot at the goodwill for two dollars. It was in good shape, whatever it was. Some peculiar old coffee percolator perhaps? I admit to being charmed by funny old things. I thought I might drill a few holes in it, use it for flowers or herbs on my front steps.

On Saturday, it hit me! I was standing outside, complimenting the husband on his readying of Compost Pile site, thinking of how glad I am to finally have a place to properly dispose of my kitchen waste when I realized that the funny old pot I didn't know what to do with is only the best food scrap bucket EVER! Time will tell if its functionality is as grand as I assume, but right now, it sure seems to be the right tool for the job:

It's a perfect fit in the cupboard to the very left of the kitchen sink, the one with the original built-in towel drying rods inside (they telescope for easy reach!). I have only taken one trip to the pile (visualize a grassy heap with a little plop of scraps atop), but I look forward to this arrangement serving me (and my garden and my world) well for a long time.

every day dad, because it matters every day

Father's Day, 1976, my mom ordered that shirt for my dad. I was seven months old. I can't recall what happened or what, if any, gifts were given for the very first ever Father's Day for the Father of my own children. Let's see, that would have been June of 2000. We lived in Southwest Portland on a steep street. I remember lots of summertime picnic dinners on the front lawn. I remember driving our little zippy Saab into the garage with my husband's bicycle still attached above to the bike rack. That first Father's Day, though? Heck if I know. But owing to a relatively recent resurfacing of that size XL bonafide mid seventies sturdy polyester t-shirt, I know exactly what my own dad got to mark his new title, new relationship, new status as somebody's Dad. Per my mother's memory, he did indeed wear it. Once. And then it shuffled around from drawer to closet to box through the years until it finally made its way to me. Which is kinda cool but maybe a little creepy. What should I do with it? You know, other than parade it out on nominally relevant holidays?

I asked my guy if he wanted to wear it today. I wasn't really being serious. He did not respond. I guess I can save it for my little boy and he can don his mother's half naked butt when he's bigger. Which is creepier still, no?

After nearly twelve years of marriage (and a lot of change and hard work), things aren't exactly as I might idealize them to be, but whatever else might be going on, I still (always) appreciate my husband for being, reliably, a really great dad for my children.

I displayed my appreciation by giving him something that fits just right and and is guaranteed never to languish in the back of any drawer for three decades: a fresh hot cup of coffee. Which is to say, I ground the beans and filled the press this morning, waited for the second kettle of water to make a cup of tea. And is, truthfully, the same thing I gave him last year. It's an everyday gesture for the everyday work of being an involved parent. He's involved and a part and my children's biggest hero every day. I appreciate especially that we're not the sort who require neckties or fishing hats or three dollar greeting cards with tired dad jokes to say Hey, Thanks, I love you.

He didn't have any of those teevee commercial magnanimous aspirations for his "special day" no poached egg brunch, no endless streaming sports station, no la-z-boy recliner naps. No, when asked what he wanted to do today, of all the things he might have said (a long run or a bike ride, a trip to a favorite mexican place, what?) he said he wanted to build a tree structure with his daughter.

They've been at it since right after breakfast. When it's all said and done (sometime later this evening) there will be a strong platform in the magnolia, nine feet up in the air.

And that's why he's a good dad. Because he's there. And building and making and talking and sharing every day.

close enough for horseshoes

So that title's not meant to make any sort of comparison between me and creatures of the equine variety. It's a broader remark. Meaning, it's not a ringer, I didn't quite hit my mark, but right now, today, I'm having a little love affair with my town.

Add Shoe Repair to the places I can get to on foot. I've had those Dansko sandal-y clogs languishing, dust gathering, in the backs of many closets now for years. I remember wearing them when I was pregnant with the boy, twisting the brittle, stretched-out elastic around a safety pin, a temporary fix, all the while meaning to take them to a shoe repair shop. I drove past one often, then. I would see it and think, I should grab the shoes, stop here sometime, bring them in. But I never did.

I consulted my yellow page directory a few weeks ago and, yes. That independent shoe store up the way? The one that sells the Birks and the Danskos and the Keens and those sorts of shoes? Why, they're a full service shoe repair, too. And just a few blocks from my house.

I took them in and the small section of elastic on each shoe (a tiny section attached to the buckle, funny how such a small piece has such a huge impact on their wearability) was replaced and they were ready the next day for a very respectable ten dollars. Not bad for a pair of shoes I picked up long ago, for about the same, off eBay.

What are the odds that if we lived in Portland again (oh Portland, I still love you best, but. . .), if we made it back to the place we missed for so long, if we were in that same hip northeast neighborhood that formed us in obvious and important ways, that I'd be within walking distance to. . . a shoe repair shop, an independent toystore, a second run theater, a new and used bookstore, a natural food store, the library, a thrift store, a drugstore, a non-chain movie rental store, parks a-plenty and a McMenamin's brewpub? Yeah. That's a tall order from any one spot. But that's what I've got here. In this little surprising place.

rice is nice

It's not all grief and wallow in the kitchen, no, sometimes I cook in there, too. And, for the record, I actually really dig my kitchen. The tall cupboards (unpainted birch, sweet.), all the drawers (can you believe, a few of them are still empty!), space for the little wooden play kitchen to sit (so my boy can play cook alongside, at least that's the idea, though he really prefers being up at the counter on a stool, but, hey- there's space for that, too). Remember, I've come to terms with the lack of a dishwasher (uh, more or less). I don't mind handwashing. Rather enjoy it, to be honest, it's the splayed across the counter drying part I don't like, the always having dishes, clean or dirty, hanging around waiting and up my business all the time that irritates me. Dishwashers are handy for keeping things tucked away: I like a kitchen to have bare counters and my counters are rarely bare. It's a great kitchen, though. It is. Which is why the whole floor thing is such a problem. Because I get distracted when I'm in there by the stupid floor and then I don't enjoy whatever other thing I'm doing in there as much as I might otherwise.

But catch me in the right mood and I'll still get flipping giddy about some kitchen happenings. What's new in my kitchen? Aside from the little cuphook in the ceiling and the faint lingering smell of pureed meat babyfood? Huh? Oh, did you know? We have a tiny new kitten named Ozma. So tiny that she won't yet crunch dry food or terribly textured wet food and, on the advice of several different people who would know, we've been supplementing her diet with pureed meat in a jar. The first jarred baby food I've ever purchased! It stinks.

The kombucha experiment isn't so new, but I'm just as enthusiastic about the stuff. Why isn't the whole world brewing and sipping this magic tea?

And why did I screw up rice cooking so long?

I read recently about the boiling method for all grains and if a person can get really excited about something like boiling grains, then whoopee! It's almost revolutionary!

I had rice cookers for a few years, a long while ago. But they cluttered my counters and were a hassle to clean and who really needs a whole appliance for one thing anyway? So since then I've been cooking rice like this: put in rice, add twice as much cold water, cover, cook. And it mostly turned out okay. You know, except when it didn't. And lately, it was mushy pudding every time, overcooked and despondent. All those sad little grains smushed together in one pathetic, gooey clump.

I don't know how I managed to get it right for so long to start turning out mush all the time. I imagine it's a little like the way my pizza dough had a recent bad spell: week after week of dense, hard crusts. I was baffled. I've been making the same pizza dough every week for years. I make it on autopilot, a quick tasty reflex. Yeast, flour, oil, water, salt. What is there to even mess up? Oh, the kneading. I could mix it all up and forget to knead it. I could mix it all up and forget to knead it many times before one night I think to myself, hey, didn't this used to take longer?

It doesn't matter what I was doing wrong with the rice, because this is how to do it right: boil it. Like pasta. Set a pan of water to boil, rinse your rice, add it to the boiling water, cook until almost done (taste it, like noodles!), and then drain in a colander. I've done it several times now and what I'm getting are beautiful, distinct happy grains. You can throw the drained rice back in the pot and keep warm on the stove.

The night I took that picture, I whipped up something I call (when pressed, my family just eats what I put in front of them, they don't usually ask for a name) some vague kind of slip slop approximation of a chana masala. I cook up my onions and spices and add tomato sauce and coconut milk and garbanzo beans and cook it down until it's less soupy, more thick and stewy. Just before serving, I throw in roughly chopped spinach. I throw in roughly chopped spinach (or chard or kale or. . .) to just nearly almost everything.

And then I put the whole mess in bowls and called it dinner. Do you see that lovely unmushy rice? It was good. I'm quite fond of one-bowl meals for everyday family dinners and I'm doubly delighted with food that cooks up easily. Nearly no fail rice! Who knew?

swabbing the deck

See that cleaning implement splayed across my kitchen floor there? That is not a mop. It is a long-handled very stiff scrub brush made to give backyard decks a seasonal once-over. I picked it up at the local farm store a few weeks ago. Thought, hmm, if it will muck moss and lichen and inches of outdoor sludge from off of coarse wood, well, then this will help me clean my kitchen floor. Right? Yes?

No.

We've been in The House That Jake Built (I tried, little ranchy bungalow to give you some compelling moniker, but it always comes back to the elderly people who custom built the place, being that they were they only owners and all. and the home was left vacant for 25 years after they died. it's hard for me not to think about them. ahem. anyhow. . .) for about 8 months now. And my kitchen (and bathroom and laundry) floors have never been clean. Not once. Oh, they were new when we moved in. The house was donated to a college, the college slapped some putty colored paint on all the walls and The World's Worst Vinyl Flooring on the floors, put it up for sale, and we bought it.

Our first home improvement priority upon possession was to replace the original carpet with bamboo. The 1958 formica? Charming. The same vintage wall-to-wall? Not so much. But replacing the vinyl flooring didn't even register. It wasn't even on the list.

Eight months into living here, and I'll tell you: It's on the list. I tried to be Zen about it. And by Zen, I mean, hunky-dory in that air-quotey way because I'm not buddhist. And when did "zen" became such common lingo any disgruntled housewife with a dirty floor can drop it down on a blog and get away with it, anyway? And those were air quotes, by the way. I feel itchy about appropriating other people's beliefs and philosophies, but I'm totally down with dorky irony. The irony being that I'm a dork. And I use air quotes.

But the floor. It is so bad. Unlike any floor I've ever had (all the frequent moving gives me an ample personal history on this one) or noticed elsewhere. It's not smooth at all. Textured. I want to say Orange Peel, but really, more like Sandpaper. Really, rougher than it looks:

Regular mopping doesn't touch the ground in dirt. And we're not all that dirty, I don't think. Our backyard is a dirt pit, yes, and the children and the dog are in and out all day long, but I sweep every day, at least once.

A while ago, I thought, I know! I'll start mopping every day! Who has time for that? I guess I do. But that wasn't good enough. So then I tried to hands and knees, hot water and scrub brush the floor every day. But that left me stiff fingered, dry-skinned, shaking my fist at the heavens and having an existential crisis in my kitchen. Because if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a new outcome, the definition of futility is doing the same thing over and over again and knowing it doesn't matter anyway.

Last night I filled up a bucket of hot water + vinegar + a few drops of lavender oil (my usual mopping solution) and decided to have another go with the long handled scrub brush. And the brush pulled the dirt up, it does do that. But being that it's a brush and not a mop, it doesn't absorb any water, so then I need to grab an old towel to sop up the overflow and I was just about to get to that step, to the grabbing the old towel step, when I might have lost it.

I'm not going to divulge the whole story, but I might have screamed the sort of guttural, primal roar normally relegated to pushing babies out of hoo-has and I might have whacked that long handled brush against The World's Worst Vinyl Flooring with a force befitting Beowulf in the hall of halls. And I might have felt so disgusted and frustrated and DONE that I just left the whole mess in the kitchen and went to bed.

So what's the wrap up here? My husband (who spends a lot less time fretting about the cleanliness of our home, I'll tell you that) tells me I should find an acceptable level of clean and just let the rest be. But I tell him that it's none of it acceptable. It all pokes my sore spots and makes me feel like my whole existence is epitomized by a ding dang floor that won't get clean. It's either I curse my futile task, but keep at it anyway, or I give up.

I ignored last night's bucket of scrub water and broken long handled brush this morning. Walked around it while making breakfast. Tried not to make eye contact. And you know what happened a while later, when I was standing on the counter screwing in a little cup hook in the ceiling above the kitchen sink (so I can finally hang that little bluebird doodad I like so well and has lived in so many of my kitchens): the boy dumped the whole bucket of water on the floor.

I climbed down, grabbed an old towel, stepped on it, and scoot-scooted across the floor. Hollered at the girl for more towels. Kept at it. And then, then it was all dry and, maybe, sorta, a little clean? I've eliminated every other method, I guess we'll see how long this skating on wet towels in cartoon house cleaning way lasts. Except, not really skating. Because it's hard to skate on sandpaper.

keep a stash of cash hidden in your glove box

Or, maybe not the glove box. That's the first place thieves look for enticing stealables, yes? So maybe in the little finger-well on the door on the passenger backseat that suspiciously fills up with paper scraps and ginger chew wrappers and the tips off of broken ballpoint pens. Do your self a favor and stick a twenty in there. Because you just never know.

You just never know that even though you laid out clothes for everybody the night before, even though you woke up bright and early and got breakfast going straight away, even though lunches and snacks for the day were packed, even though you restocked the car with diapers and wipes and car sickness vomit catchers, even though you threw a book into your bag in case the two-year old naps in the car and you won't be stuck without anything to do, even though you remembered EVERYTHING you could possibly need for a whole day in the city afoot with a toddler, you might still FORGET YOUR WALLET.

I discovered the offense half way in (on our hour trip). Too late to turn around. Forge ahead. I immediately launched into a grumpy IF ONLY. . . wishful thinking diatribe, feeling mad at myself for being so forgetful, mad at my house from being so far from my destination, mad at the world for not delivering me a time machine yet. Where's that De Lorean, Emmett Brown?

It's hard to remain too grumpy, though, when one travels with an encouraging life coach and motivational speaker in the form of a wild-haired nine year old. "Don't say How could I forget it", she told me, "say, What should I do now?".

A friend who answered my plaintive cell phone call suggested we check to see if the Zoo would accept phone payment and allow for Will Call ticket pick-ups. Nope. Well, then, no zoo. Which is unfortunate because, up until I discovered the missing wallet, and for the last several preceding days, I'd been talking up the Zoo big time to the boy, who was too little to remember the last time he went, a year ago. We deposited the girl at her drop off spot. And then we parked the car by the river and attempted a walk.

It was a decent twenty minute walk. But we have five HOURS to kill. And it's cold here today. Yeah, yeah, make up yer dang mind already. Last week was too hot and this week we're back down to the fifties. It was still in the high *forties* when I pointed out rowboats along the river and my little guy responded with, "peeese no more walk, mama. peeeese go back to car. peeese, i so tired mama".

So he napped all the way home and we've had lunch and I have forms of payment and identification again and if it took me having to go back and thorth and back and thorth (ah, my daughter, who just about came out of the womb with impressive and articulate language skills, had a few baby-words, that being one of them. it wasn't until she was five or six that she said back and forth, before it was always repeated twice and with the extra 'th' and, i must admit, i was sad to see it go) to learn it, this isn't a lesson I'll soon forget. The lesson, no. But my wallet again? Probably.

so like moles

Who was just wishing it would warm up already? Was that me? What? Who knew I had such powerful Magical Thinking? It's been hot here. Like so respectably Hot, not even my Arizona friends could sneer. Sure, it's no One Hundred and Seventeen degrees, but even 97 is sweltering when you don't have central air. Nobody around here has central air. Oh, sure, maybe some folks do, but aside from the occasional window unit, I'd say most households rely on fans and iced beverages for keeping cool. And, if you're lucky, auxiliary living space in a Basement.

I'm lucky.

I don't have an interior thermostat, but ground temps are still in the high fifties and our basement is probably about that. There have been movies watched under blankets and rowdy big movement play without breaking a sweat. Two nights ago, the children tossed about in their own beds (did you hear? the boy has been starting out every night in his very own bed in his very own room, sometimes lasting ALL NIGHT! which translates into hours of uninterrupted sleep for this tired mama, how about that?!) until long past bedtime, so we packed it all up and went underground. The children and I slept on our extra queen bed in the "guest room" (we have, in fact, hosted guests there, so I guess the title fits) and the husband retired to the sofa (our television is down there in a cozy little den space). My teeth may have chattered a bit that night: my children are cover hogs.


And if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need, aw yeah. I landed in this town which was not the town I was aiming for, I landed in this house, which was not the house I imagined, and yet, I keep being reminded, that it's all Just Right.

Our Must-Have criteria included more than one toilet, walking distance to community resources, roomy kitchen, plenty of storage. Under the Wish List were items like, big front porch, clawfoot tub, tall trees. I didn't think about a finished basement, although as soon as we saw this house, and went downstairs, I realized how useful it would be. All that extra space, for playing, creating, hanging out. I guess we could have looked around longer, waited for the original bungalow with leaded glass and hex tile, but we put an offer on this place and the deal was done before I blinked. It is not at all what I thought I wanted, but for so many reasons, has been just what we needed.

It's cooling back down already. On Friday we stood so close to Triple Digits, we could feel that hot air on our necks, but today it's only in the eighties. I like having the main level doors and windows open, the breeze, the sounds, the children running in and out. But I like knowing that when it warms back up again (and it will, Oregon sees plenty of hot summer weather), we're just a flight of stairs away from relief.

but the river it goes right on

Every time Mother's Day rolls around, I think of this one particular quote from The Grapes of Wrath. It's well suited and is not some questionable word association that wouldn't make a lick of sense to anyone else. I have a lot of those. Words and images and ideas that randomly bumped into each other once in my brain and then, dubiously, remain attached. And it doesn't matter how long it's been, how weak the connection might be, the relationship endures. Like the way I'll always think of Clowns anytime someone says Clear when specifically speaking of traffic. It's all clear. And in my head, I see Clowns. Don't expect further explanation. I have no idea.

But this one makes sense. I think the first time I discovered The Grapes of Wrath it must have been in the spring and around Mother's Day and I must have read that little passage and thought, yes. Not the first time I read the book, that was much earlier, before I had any perspective. It wasn't all that long ago, really, that I brought the audiobook home from the library and was completely astonished by it. I was astonished that something so ubiquitous and referenced could actually be so good. And then immediately after listening to it (and if you haven't listened to it, I sure recommend it, says someone who loves to read and generally disdains audiobooks. The version read by Dylan Baker is fantastic), I borrowed an old harback copy and read through all my favorite parts.

So in my head, I can hear this certain passage being read and I can see it in the borrowed library book, but since I've never read through the thrifted paperback copy on my shelf, I can't find it.

You'd think if I hit the right google keywords, I'd be able to dig up the excerpt somewhere online, but the only quotes I pull up are from the movie.

I've seen the 1940 production and I enjoyed it, but it's no substitute or even near comparison to the book. But Ma Joad has a line that's just about the same as the book, so I'm sharing that one with you. I can't remember how it's different in the book. I'll keep looking and report back.

A woman can change better'n a man. A man lives, sorta, well, in jerks. Baby's born and somebody dies, and that's a jerk. He gets a farm or loses it, and that's a jerk. With a woman, it's all in one flow like a stream. Little eddies and waterfalls, but the river it goes right on. A woman looks at it that way.

Yeah.

the pox, take two

The boy's outbreak occurred two weeks after his sister's. And about six weeks after beginning his most recent (and most virulent!) objection to bathing. So the frequent baking soda baths that helped the girl aren't an option for my boy. There's nothing therapeutic or relaxing about his baths lately. In fact, I'm a little bit not looking forward to warmer weather (even though, yes, really, I am looking forward to warmer weather: it's been one long and incredibly cool spring around here) because that means we'll have the windows open and that means the whole neighborhood will hear his I HATE WATER! screams. Of course, they might be the same neighbors who would find him soaked and dripping any time we have the garden hose out. That boy will find the one muddy puddle in the backyard and be totally drenched in the time it takes me to turn around and sneeze. He doesn't hate water, he just hates baths, and I don't even think he hates baths all that much. It's just a convenient thing to have a fierce opinion about. Which is one of the most charming and most frustrating parts of toddlerhood, the fierceness. Such big ideas in such little people!

So as much as he's been letting me, I've been giving him a rubdown with oatmeal water. I pour rolled oats into an old stray sock, tie off the end and let it steep for a few minutes in barely warm water. Then I squeeze out the sock to get as much milky oat water out, and wipe him down with a cloth. I'm not so sure if it's helping or not. He still tells me, "me no feeling so good, mama". But it makes me feel a little better, to be doing something. When your baby is hurting, you just want to help.

Last night was pretty miserable, we were in bed for nearly twelve hours, but there sure wasn't much sleep going on. He's been much more chipper today (which translates currently into ripping his sister's reading material from her hands and pulling her hair, for attention, eek!) so I hope we all make up for lost rest.

she's got electric boots, a mohair suit

There's something about the long stretch of highway between our house and the big city that makes my kids puke. They're both car sickness prone, just like their mama (who abates sickies by being the driver), so it's not a surprise or anything. Our car is well stocked with extra towels, empty lidded containers and plastic grocery bags. We've got a regular gig going that gets us up and out the door early, when tummies are less settled. I've built into our driving time enough room to stop for one clean-up. I've almost declared it an inevitability. I am a careful but speedy driver, hurrying (within limits!) to beat the dreaded up-chuck. I keep one eye trained on the rear view, so I can rally the girl into throwing her brother a bowl or whatever if he gets that very particular green look.

Today I noticed a few quick urgent movements from the backseat, oh no! And I glanced behind me, but it wasn't what I was expecting, it was just my daughter rocking out to Elton John on the radio and my son throwing back his head in laughter. She saw me watching her and said, "you probably don't know this, but this is one of my favorite songs. Who is this guy, again? Does he have any CDs?" And I think I might get her a greatest hits album, but maybe minus any candle in the wind.

fizzy lifting drink

I have vague memories of visiting my grandparents many years ago and listening to my grandma tell me all about some wonder mushroom tea she and my grandpa were drinking every morning. But I also have vague memories of watching bad saturday television while eating -cold and uncooked, one after another- those frightening processed wiener dogs with the cheeze product in the middle. Which is to say, my childhood wasn't exactly a compendium of good nutrition, so one particular health supplement wasn't bound to make much of an impression.

Kombucha has been on my radar for a long time. I have been curious but not compelled to try it. Until now. I've lived in my new town almost eight months now. Which isn't long enough to, say, be recognized by clerks at the store or library, or have finally gotten the house organized after all those last years of moving (on the average: at least one move a year!), but it is long enough, as it turns out, to have made a friend who will gladly have me over and then send me home with symbiotic yeast and bacteria cultures and an extra pickle jar to brew it in.

I'm already a big fan of cider vinegar, so kombucha isn't that much of a stretch. Oh, and I'm also quite a tea drinker. And I like carbonated things. But not soda. I haven't had a soda since I was pregnant with the girl, lo! a whole decade ago. I cut it out for the good of the little alien critter in my womb and found out, after all, that if you don't drink sodas for a long time, it's nearly impossible to start again. Too sweet and sickening. So I'm particularly fond of slightly carbonated and unsweet beverages. Like beer. I'm particularly fond of beer. For the ritual of five o'clock, for the snap of the opener on the cap (no twist-offs, please), for the tiny, tiny ice crystals that form when I leave one in the freezer just long enough (but not too long!), for the way it feels in my mouth. . . for the way it feels in my head.

I don't expect kombucha to be all that, but I do think it will do me well to have a new drink in my end-of-day repertoire. Also, not even the best northwest brew ever claimed to assist with inflammation, aid arthritis (someday maybe I'll tell you about my stiff and clicky joints, and my increasingly crooked fingers, but I've still sorta got my head in the sand about that stuff), or level one's metabolism. You mean, I can drink this fizzy, fermented tea drink every day and it might boost weight loss? Because beer? Yeah, it works the other direction. See my shrinking wardrobe and my expanding waistline as evidence.

I've read conflicting information on its neurological properties, that it either gives a little energy burst or it instills a sense of well-being. Maybe it does both. Quick and mellow? I can use some of that.

I can't give much of a personal report yet, though. I drank a few glasses from my first batch today. Two days ago, five days into the brewing process, it was still too sweet to my liking. Today it was just right. I shared with my children (the eldest sincerely liked her serving and looks forward to more, the youngest took a mouse sip and said, mmm, that's good, but refused further tastes) and had two small glasses myself. And I like it.

Who knows if it will do me any good. I am assuming that it will, or at least won't do any harm, and I am not at all opposed to any possible placebo effects. Because in addition to having a refreshing, barely bubbling beverage, I guess I already enjoy the process. You know me and process and ritual. I appreciate having an oversized pickle jar sitting on my kitchen counter for a week, covered with a napkin affixed with a rubber band, and doing sniff and taste tests every couple of days. I like taking a slimy starter (which is really called a scoby, so much for the magic mushroom tea) and turning it into something we can drink and use. I mean, when I usually find symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast growing in the back of my fridge, I throw them out, not drink them, right?

And, yeah, I guess I like having a reason to use these cool self-corking bottles from ikea:

faith like a kale seed

Kale is in the mustard family so I'm not exactly taking liberty with that reference. And I'd consider it a common reference, but maybe you haven't read the new testament lately, or at all, so I'll tell you that it's from the book of Matthew, Chapter 17, verse 20. And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

I'm not so sure about moving mountains. But doesn't putting such a tiny speck into the ground with the hope it will yield a bounty of nutritious greens seem just as impossible? It's biology, sure. Or not. Like raising babies.

Anything could happen. But you trust it will all turn out for good in the end. If you don't believe it will, then don't even start in the first place.

If you're certain that the birds will eat the seeds before they germinate, don't waste an afternoon getting mud in your fingernails, poking them into damp soil, just don't.

It's hard to believe. My gardening past has been spotty. Flowers in pots and sporadic attempts at container vegetables. One year we had piles of romaine lettuce but the broccoli was anemic and wilted before maturity. We've moved around a lot (no really, I never stop playing that broken record) and I haven't grown all that much. So it's not rote yet and still very much fantastic and magical.

Maybe it never becomes routine. Maybe serious gardeners with years under their rubber clogs still believe in magic. Like having babies. You can do all the right things, you can read the right books and put forth your very best effort, but these little people come to us so full of their own ideas and dreams and predilections: the resulting yield might not be what we are expecting. Or it might be so much more. Amazing!

We hope for the best. We have faith. We water and weed and shoo starlings away.

i love the smell of bay in my kitchen

There is a pox upon our house. A little over twenty-four hours after discovering a fresh crop of red blisters across her chest and stomach, my girl is growing tired of couch life. The littlest one in the house has surely been exposed, but has yet to show any symptoms. I mean, symptoms other than inexplicable crabbiness, which could be the start of something sicky or could just be my current taxed patience. Or could just be a being Two, with all the rights, privileges and frustration therein.

At any rate, this isn't my long awaited discourse on my take on the increasing eco-green industry. The whole Let's Save The Environment by Buying More Stuff! insanity. I've been meaning to write that all week, what with earth day this past week and all, and while I hope if you have some mind reading supertool, you're using your power for good, I don't expect that you've aimed it at my head and rifled through my random blog post ideas. Which is to say, by long awaited, I mean, I've been long waiting to write it, not you've been waiting to read it. And I'll write it later, which is why I'm mentioning it at all right now, so I remember.

So this is just what I'm having for dinner. An easy recipe to share, a variation on the old lentil and rice stand-by. From the Vegetarian Times Cookbook. I tweak it a little, you know I do, but this is the recipe as written.

Lentil-Chickpea Stew with Spinach

1 C dry lentils
3 tbsp virgin olive oil
3 C diced onions
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 C uncooked long-grain rice
6 1/2 C water
2 Bay Leaves
1 1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
1 C cooked chickpeas

Cover the lentils with hot water and let sit. Warm the oil in a soup pot over medium-low heat, and cook the onions and spices, stirring, for 8 minutes. Remove 1/3 of the onion mixture and reserve it for garnish. Add the rice to the onions in the soup pot, and cook 1 minute to cat the grains. Drain the lentils and add to the onion-rice mixture along with the water, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Simmer, covered, until the rice and lentils are tender, about 30 to 45 minutes. Add the chickpeas and heat until warmed through. Discard the bay leaves.

Steam the spinach, chop coarsely and stir into lentils. Ladle the stew into bowls and top with a spoonful of yogurt cheese or yogurt. Add the reserved onions, lemons, pepper and parsley or cilantro.

Okay, so I didn't list all the garnish ideas on the ingredient list. I skip that part. Actually, I use fewer onions from the start and don't remove any to use later as a garnish at all. The people for whom I cook much prefer onions all cooked up in the mishmash of a stew, not plopped on top of everything. I think we'll be eating this soon with feta melted on sprouted wheat english muffins, for no other reason than the pickings are slim in my kitchen today and that's what I've got.

I like this recipe because it's so fast to make, everybody in my house likes it well enough to eat several bowls full, and it gives me a good excuse to pluck leaves off of the bay plant in my backyard.

suspended animation

It's been a while. I've been meaning to report here with some progress on some of my recent subjects. Namely, the haircut conundrum and the push-up endeavor. I actually titled this post 'progress report' but this week's This American Life episode about cryogenics is fresh in my head and it seemed fitting. It's been cold here. And I've been hovering, waiting, freezing. This might be a missive from the insulated chamber. Don't mind my choppy thoughts and empty complexion: I'm not completely thawed yet.

Exactly three seconds before I grabbed my haircutting shears and whacked off the front of my hair in some imprecise approximation of the same shorty-bang bob I sported six or or so years ago, I was convinced that I'd give long hair one last hurrah and see what braids are like come summer. But, oh, the allure of sharp metal on dry hair. The scissors were just right there. Okay, so I had to open the drawer and root around for them a bit. But then they were in my hand and I had a fist full of hair and when you have scissors in one hand and hair in the other, there's really only one thing to do. Because deciding could really take all day. And growing hair is so passive, it's a decision by default, a body tagging along on the ride of so many hair follicles, hoping it works out in the end. Vanity thine name is wonky-hormone induced existential crisis. I know all about decisions and defaults. Snip. And that first cut is always such a relief. Yes. I can do this. It's a little thing, but it's mine. I trimmed up the sides and back, too. Which isn't as bold and important at all as harnessing some new career or returning to school or creating some fantastic, inspiring piece of something worth remembering, but there are only so many decisions I can make while wearing pajamas in the bathroom.

For the first week or so after my push-up test, I faithfully practiced every day. I admit to having slacked some since then, but BUT! I am now doing ten solid, serious pushups every time I try. Near daily, not quite. I don't think I've built stronger muscles so rapidly, rather I think this experiment indicates that exercise is, indeed, partially a practice in muscle memory. My arms know what to do now. They drive down the street without thinking and turn into the driveway while my thoughts are elsewhere. I just personified my arms *and* gave them a driver's license. Which is the least I could do, really, since I've been secretly fond of my shoulders for many years, hushing my self-deprecation just long enough to notice how nice and strong they are (and the freckles, so cute, but, no, such worrisome little reminders of excessive sun exposure, shhh).

make your own kind of music, sing your own special song

There was a moment this past weekend when my daughter rushed by me, on her way outside, and I didn't so much take notice of what she was wearing. A few minutes later, I peeked out the living room window to see her marching in a circle in the front yard, a large cardboard box embellished with color and eye-holes over her head.

And it made me think of a recent conversation I had with a friend. She was relaying something her son did that might have made some of his friends snicker a little bit, or else, if there wasn't overt snickering, there could have been, but my friend's son didn't care. We talked about how admirable it is to do something, choose something, or maybe be someone a little unexpected, a little unusual, a little different, and be fervently and unabashedly okay with that.

The box on my daughter's head? Apparently some attention grabbing tree disguise, made with the intention of compelling questions (from neighborhood kids, I reckon, maybe something like, What are you doing with a box on your head? Weirdo!) so she could jump into a conversation about nature and conservation.

For the record, no children asked her what she was doing. Which, considering the veritable parade of costumes and funny play often present on our front lawn, is unsurprising. But she kept at it a good long while and then came back inside and wrote this:

The trees trees
that sway in the breeze
I stand by these.

Good and strong
they'd live long
if man would not destroy them.

Trees are not some toys -ahem!-
Man has no right
to toy them.

They are strong, they are true
they live not to make
boards for you.

So stretch a rope
from me to tree
and tie it very tautly.

You'll cut this tree down
over my Dead Body.

To get the proper delivery, you'll have to do like my girl and raise your fists in the air for the last line, bellowing it out loudly. Which isn't so over-dramatic at all if you know Freya, whose passions have always ran deeply. I love that about her.

push it real good

Disclaimer: I debated with myself long and hard before deciding to post that (decidedly cropped and intentionally shadowy monochrome) picture there. I guess it could be misconstrued as being too open, too revealing, too much; it's more of me than you're likely to see should you see me in person, but less than you'd see of a lot of folks, should you happen to not live in a bubble. I'm not in the habit of posting nude pictures of myself, but I am in the habit of writing about myself online, which is something of a verbal Full Monty equivalent, naked in words every time I post. Even my words aren't so revealing here, in this quiet blog spot any person could stumble upon and find, but it's still me, raw and real and honest, even if you have to squint a little and leave the rest to your imagination. This is who I am. And I'm working on being more okay with that.

Last week, I was listening the The Satellite Sisters, my turn-to podcast when I want to be amused and vaguely informed and generally kept company while I nurse a toddler or wash some dishes, and they were discussing the push-up. Of the drop and give me twenty variety, not the frozen confection out of the back of a beat-up van playing the same tinny version of Turkey in the Straw a thousand times over.

Apparently, new studies (to which I offer no links, I'm not that sort of researched blogger) find some correlation between a person's ability to do push-ups and his/her general fitness level, especially as one ages. This makes sense, in a making broad assumptions sort of way, as we might assume that if you can do twenty push-ups somewhat easily, you're likely not a two pack a day smoker. I'm not sure if the relationship is symbiotic or coincidental, I am sure there are many exceptions, but I'll buy it. I might have my numbers a little off, but I'm recalling that studies indicate that a reasonably fit 40 year old woman should be able to do fifteen pushups. A similarly aged man, 27.

Now I don't purport myself to be super fit or anything. In fact, if I'm really telling it like it is, then I'll tell you that the truth is that I'm closing in on twenty pounds above where I was a year ago, and it's not extra muscle bulk I'm carrying, no. It's twenty pounds of a dang hard year, clinging to my middle like bad memories. I don't exercise as much as I did before. The one-two sucker punch of miscarriage complications slash fractured foot followed closely by the onset of one very wet winter did a number on me and my ability to move my body as much as I did before. I'm not athletic in the slightest. I'm the opposite of athletic and dislike sports of all kinds. But I do like being active and walking and hiking and bike riding. The only weight I lift is my thirty-five pound son.

Genetics didn't give me a dewy complexion or musical talent, just a stocky and stout stature with maybe a little bit of an extra inclination toward being muscley. So despite any dedicated effort on my part, I have a strong upper body. I mean, stronger than you might otherwise think. Or I thought it was pretty strong, anyway. Who knows what you think. I may have even had passing thoughts of pride, which confused my customary self-deprecating disposition, regarding my strong back and shoulders.

So when the youngest of the Sisters (but still, a decade or so ahead of me) declared her push-up test total at 16, I was challenged to try myself. I can't recall the last time I tried to do one. Not on the on-your-knees type, but a regular full on push-up. I had no reference for guessing how many I could do, but if a woman in her forties can do sixteen, me, with my strongish back and strong enough arms, well, I can do ten, right? Easy.

Not. Easy.

I managed a measly three. And my husband, who says that at his best he could pump out sixty-eight in two minutes, reminded me that to be "right" my arms must bend to ninety degree angles. So the three I barely did? Probably not even right. I'm pretty sure I didn't go down that low. Now, I have since seen websites that demonstrate a proper push-up starting prone and working up, one, back down, up, two. Like that. If I start flat and go up, and back down, flat, I can do lots, lots of independent push-ups. But hover with my nose near the floor and my arms at right angles? No freaking way.

So all this means what? That maybe I have some serious training to do before I quit my day job and join the women's bodybuilding circuit.

My new goal is to get to a point where I can do ten in a row. I'm practicing by holding plank exercises and doing half-pushups, where I focus on just the downward motion. We'll see what happens from there. I don't really aspire to the full on body wax, oiled skin and string bikini look, arms clasped above my head in flexing competition pose, but I do want to be just as strong as I can be. I'm not there yet.

don't blink or you'll miss it

I have so many things I want to tell you. So many ideas that crop up quickly, like those intense momentary wind gusts in the desert that seem to come out of nowhere and sting your legs with flying sand, but then, just as suddenly, fall quiet. What was that thing I was thinking? That thing that made me lose track of the present and wash the same dinner plate over and over so many times? It seemed important then, but now, I don't remember.

Have you read a particularly good book lately? Fiction? What I need is a decent novel. Someone who knows me well enough thinks I'm hard to please, but I'll tell you what I think: I think I have an abysmal track record for picking real doozies. Books, Movies, What have you. So it's not that I don't like *anything*, it's that I have such varied, unpredictable tastes that I try a little bit of everything and I have to slog through plenty before I find some that fit just right.

Of course, it may also be argued that I might (and this is purely speculation for while I am an expert at resorting to snappy self-deprecating retorts for humor's sake, I never say anything overtly incriminating, a gal's got to have a little bit of mystery, after all) be a little bit of a contrarian. I've been considering this quite a bit recently. I can be contrary. I don't know how to get along with everyone but I do know how to take the dissenting opinion. This applies to lots of things, media, fashion, lifestyle choices, presidential candidates.

I don't care to discuss politics at length, but I will say this: It's hard for me to look at the current campaign without seeing a fat, fast moving bandwagon. Just guess how I feel about bandwagons. It boils down to this. I don't care for the masses. If the masses care for something, then I can assume it's not for me. This fuzzy logic has proven true more often than not. Which is why I'm having a very difficult time considering Obama's rising popularity as more than a parade, people falling in line just because the line is long and people are in line. I see a lot of enthusiasm. And? A lot of enthusiasm. This cynic isn't blowing horns for anybody yet.

The truth is, the more popular something (some one, whatever) becomes, the more suspicious I am. So if I am building a reputation as a curmudgeon, I supposed it's deserved. I'm a jolly curmudgeon, though. Not one of those surly ones. I never (okay, rarely) rap angrily on the window at passers-by from inside my house and I only smell like urine a little.

You saw Blades of Glory, right? Will Farrell? That urine line had me laughing for days, but it was all in his delivery. I don't really stink. But I do contradict myself, all the time. I have a soft spot for the basest comedies. I still quote Chris Farley movies with my sister and I find Will Farrell hilarious. It's true. You couldn't pick me out of line up of the hoi polloi if you tried.

I've made two bad comedy movie picks in a row, though, and I didn't find them funny at all. Not the 40 year old Virgin and not, definitely not, Superbad. Just because I loved Michael Cera in Arrested Development and just because I had so recently watched and adored Freaks and Geeks, in which Seth Rogen plays a part, does not mean I should assume their respective future projects will appeal to me in the same way. I didn't make it past the first twenty minutes or so, but if the masses made it a blockbuster, I'll gladly be the grumpy curmudgeon calling bullshit from the corner. Because it wasn't funny to me at all.

I haven't seen so many other movies lately. When I discovered NBC was streaming The Office online, we watched all of the current season, which we hadn't seen, and got all caught up. It does make me laugh. See, and that's popular, right? I'm right there with you. Movies often feel like such a time investment. I can much more easily commit to watching one, okay just one more, television episode than a whole full length feature film.

Oh, but this isn't about movies! This was just an incredibly roundabout, freewritey way of saying that, yeah, sometimes I like regular old stuff that you probably like, too. I'm overdue a trip to the library and I need something compelling and brilliant and life changing to read. Or, you know, something Not Terrible. I'm easy.

i beat dead horses with scissors

As much as I tout the diy hairdo, and as much as I grimace at my bedraggled appearance every day, I'm at the same exact point I'm always at, about three months past a trim: I waiver. I think, maybe, I should let it grow out. Or, I should chop it all off so short. Or I should cut bangs. See, I thought my flirtation with bangs was five years past, but then I heard someone refer to them recently as "the poor woman's botox" or something like that and -I must confess- I can't get that comparison out of my head. Even though it contradicts so much of what I believe, in theory, about beauty and aging and self-confidence.

Recently, I listened to a PRI To The Best of our Knowledge podcast on the beauty biz and the part that really rung with me was how younger and younger women are putting themselves through invasive cosmetic procedures to avoid looking old. But a young woman with a chemically unexpressive forehead and plumped up collagen injected lips doesn't look like she's embracing her youth, she starts to look like the women who have already lost theirs.

I don't want to look like that.

So, the verdict's still out. Bangs or no bangs? Short or to my shoulder? My hair starts doing this thatgirl flippy thing the longer it gets and I don't enjoy the way that feels. Can you believe that of all the things I'd like to think more about and write about and receive some comment feedback about, I'm still stuck on my fricking fracking hair? It's safe, that's what. And easier to write about amid the distractions of a suddenly extra-needy two year old and an always (but always) chatty nine year old and the various half-neglected chores around the house. How thoughtful do I need to be in writing about my hair, fer cryin out loud? Not very.

weekly fly-by

I don't intend to wait nearly a week in-between blog entries. In fact, I've started several drafts over the last few days, but for various reasons, I get distracted or frustrated by my lack of articulation or bored with my subject and I just haven't finished. Let's you and me pretend it would be all such fascinating stuff. Because the dirty corner truth is that it's the same old soft focus, isolated moment fodder that doesn't mean much of anything to anybody but me. And that's okay, because the whole reason I'm here at this party in the first place is for practice. Not writing practice. Noticing practice. Remembering practice. The practice of sharing. Whatever that means.

Oh, here's something worth sharing. Consider this a friendly public service announcement, all ye who arrive here via misspelled google searches: this blog is called little pitchers. I sometimes share pictures. But pictures and pitchers? Two totally separate things. Pitchers are vessels for holding and pouring. Or, so I've heard, the tossers of balls in baseball games. But pitchers are not photographs or images. Those would be pictures. Here, let's try that again. Pictures. They even have distinct pronunciations. Yes, it's true. Pitchers. Pictures. Not the same thing. Frankly, I'm a little embarrassed for you, and by "you" I don't single out some poor lone poor speller, no, I reference the handfuls who clonk on over here every single day looking for pitchers of teeth, pitchers of lolas (what the heck?), pitchers of any sort of word I've written. But no pitchers of pitchers yet.

And while I'm on the subject of search engine keywords, I'll mention that the number two way random anonymous folks find this little quiet place of mine here is from looking up haircuts. I haven't trimmed mine since I wrote about it in the beginning of December. I'm overdue. I'm a lazy haircutter, it's one of those chores I always procrastinate on for a long old time, but then it's such a relief when I finally get to it. Owing to the number of folks who seem to be seeking out information on d-i-y haircuts, there must not be enough validation out there. So, you! Hey you! With the scraggly hair and the sharp scissors. Just freaking do it already, why don't you? Cut it off. So what if it's a little crooked? It'll grow back. And you'll get better. You've spent more money to look worse before, admit it. And the feeling you get when it's all over? Like Sydney Bristow dying her hair in an airport bathroom. Bad. Ass. Not that here, here's my self-esteem, please take care of it fretfulness that happens at the hair salon. The do it yourself haircut isn't just about saving a few (or a lot) of dollars. It's about being yourself, not some not-quite version of yourself as translated by someone who doesn't watch you flex muscles naked in the bathroom. It's about not hoping to heck it doesn't look like crap or having to buck up and pretend, in the big, swivel chair reveal, that it looks fine when it so clearly, painfully, does not. It's about not having to come home and touch up spots that the stylist missed. It's about never having to break up with a longtime stylist because she keeps giving you the same old lady 'do. It's about doing it your own effing self. I don't know why haircuts have become so specialized. If you catch me in a cynical mood (not hard to do), I'll grumble about how everything has been industrialized and specialized and don't get me started on the standards of aesthetics and beauty in our culture. Must we all have frosty tips and chunky highlights and some fancy style heavy on appliances and product? No. I mean, if that stuff all rings your bell, then do what you must. But when somebody else does it for you? Something changes, some little shift in responsibility, some little erosion of your own self image. And, by "your" I mean "my" but I'm going to be bold and assume that this must apply to others, as well. I don't want to hand someone else the power, even some faint suggestion of power, to influence how I perceive myself. If I do it all wrong, I'll blame myself, but I'll get over it. I blame myself for a lot of crap. But if it turns out fine? Man, the best haircuts I've ever gotten at salons never gave me that feeling. No way.

What do you want to bet that my inclusion of the word "naked" up there pulls in all sorts of gutterminds with questionable spelling skills? Maybe they need a haircut. Ha!

smells like spring, or something

I caught a crappy whiff last week. Which is to say, a whiff of crap. And I checked the bottom of my shoe, immediately, because I can't tell you how often I've walked across my yard and slid across wet dog crap. Not my dog's crap, mind you, but random, anonymous dog crap. (My apologies to my daughter -who does not read this blog, but whose expected future proficiency with a search engine is bound to reveal the secret online life of her mother one of these days- as she has respectfully requested that I strike the C word from my speech). We have a plan for a front fence, but until then, the unwelcome feces situation sneaks into my head all the time. If I'm not stepping in it, I think I'm stepping in it. If I don't think I'm stepping in it, I'm glaring through my big front window at the person letting their dog piss in my grass, waiting to confront them if the squat-to-crap position is assumed. It's becoming a problem. So when I smell that unmistakable smell, it's only natural that I'd check the bottom of my shoes. But this time, last week, it wasn't my shoe.

And then I had a small flash of some psychosomatic existential crisis: I'm having such a crappy week, it even smells like crap, something like that (though maybe ramp up the maudlin a few extra notches). I talked myself down from that, so ridiculous, and determined that it was just phantom crap smell. At different times in my cat's life, she's taken out her frustrations (with many, many moves, mostly, but sometimes it's just breakfast coming a few minutes too late) by urinating in places cat urine does not belong. It seems to come in bursts. It hasn't happened for a long time, thank goodness, but when it does, when I pick up that pile of laundry and smell that unmistakable ammonia-laded acrid but sweet stench, or when I stretch out my legs in bed upon waking and wonder, is that cold or is that wet?, when it happens frequently for a spell, I think I smell cat pee all the time. The odor crawls up inside my sinus cavity and hunkers down low and then surprise! does jumping jacks to get my attention all of a sudden, whether the cat really peed in some strange place or not. Phantom Cat Piss Smell. So, if the wafting stink of crap wasn't from some mutt's mushy pile outside, if it wasn't the rotting smell of my own wayward psyche leaking out into the atmosphere, then it was probably just my imagination.

But my imagination was so vivid. I kept smelling it. It was growing stronger. It was driving me crazy. And then I walked back to my boy's room, which isn't his room for sleeping, yet, but just his room for toys and books and clothes and books, and found, a discarded, forgotten poopy diaper. As in, I vaguely recalled changing it hours and hours earlier and just upon finishing, the doorbell rang (package delivery) and then the phone rang and then it was probably lunch time and then the day just clipped along and I never took care of that diaper. And it had sat there all day, warming up in front of one of our original 1958 cutting edge of technology radiant wall heaters. Like my own personal shit scented aromatherapy diffuser.

So sometimes life is crappy, and sometimes it's just a diaper you left behind.

This past weekend was a pleasant rush of yard work and muffins and reading and hot baths. You'd think I'd been missing hot water for months the way I jumped at the bathtub as soon as the hot water heater was replaced. I don't take a bath every night, usually, but I always could, if I wanted to. And something about the not being able to made me want to all the more and it was only three days, but I've taken five baths so far to make up for it.

And we built a new raised garden bed in an under-utilized corner of our front yard. By we, I really mean "he" as his building skills far surpass mine, but I stuck some annuals in pots for the front steps and stood by with the camera, should anyone care, or not, to have their picture taken.

It felt like Spring and I am excited about this shift in our family's busyness, the activities moving outside and in the dirt. The children coming in for dinner with grass stained knees, the obligatory removal of tiny splinters from hands with tweezers before bed. Our transient past has meant that we haven't done much in the way of vegetable growing, but I'm feeling enthusiastic. In general. And there's nothing crappy about that.

the boiling point

There aren't a lot of things that make me feel so Little House on the Prairie like having to boil water to have any warmer than, say, cold. Okay, so there are a lot of things that would make me feel so rustic and antiquated, but they're usually cozy little things I do because I choose to or want to, or maybe they're things that wouldn't likely occur in my life anyhow. I don't expect to play catch with an inflated pig bladder anytime soon.

I also didn't expect to wake up last morning and learn that in the night the bottom to our (old) hot water heater had rusted out. A whole night of running water, running hot water. A whole day with no hot tap water. Another whole day ahead of me tomorrow. It's not a big deal, in the big fat grand scheme of life and love and other things. It's just an inconvenience, a hassle.

It's my habit to fill my kettle up to boil water so many times a day. (not the kettle pictured above. that's a recent thrift treasure and, I think, will soon live on my front stoop as a house for some small plant or flower). I already wash all the dishes by hand. It's not a large leap to add the two together. So, it's not the boiling of a large pot that I find troublesome. It's just the being mindful enough to set a pot to boil and then to wait for it. I'm no good at waiting.

I guess one could say that hot tap water is the email to our times past handwritten letter. We all love to get mail, to send mail (I made generous assumptions here). But email is expedient and fits in the small fissures of our busy days. Letterwriting is something that has fallen, is falling, away. And it's a shame and just about anybody would agree. We should write more letters! Everybody loves a little something happy in their mailbox! Mail is great! Yes! Sure! Oh, but email. So quick and simple. And so we tap away when a postcard would be so much sweeter.

And what does all this mean, you wonder. . . Well, no, you probably don't wonder, or at least you ought not, because often I start in on some tenuous analogy, linking up disparate concepts with the most fragile threads which rarely no one else can see but I, and then I drop the whole mess and it doesn't make even the tiniest sense any more, not even to me (especially not after midnight on a Tuesday). But I'm finding this, the incessant boiling, actually a little pleasant, in a slowing down and noticing sort of way. The thing about letter writing is that we don't want it to become obsolete. Even if we aren't writing a lot of handwritten letters, we see the value in keeping the tradition alive.

And so maybe it is with water. Only, the tradition of boiling and boiling fell to the wayside. Having to do it is a hassle, not a simple happy task. We don't miss it because it transitioned out of our modern daily lives before we were born. I'm not starting a fire in the backyard, so the stovetop still allows for a certain amount of convenience. The truth is that my whole life is pretty darn convenient, busted hot water heater or no.

Lopsided analogy dropped. . . now! I told you it wouldn't last so long. And that's mighty close to the repsonse I had when the husband relayed our predicament. We're keeping fingers crossed that the home warranty folks cover a replacement and, in the meantime, boil water, drink tea, hope nothing else goes wrong for a while.

Which would be a Nothing Else after the something which was the husband's pick-up truck making the unfortunate acquaintance of a telephone pole this evening, on his way home from work. Not a banner day around our house. His truck is in sad shape, but he's unhurt. A plumber won't be here until Thursday, but at least we have water at all.