i've said it before and i'll say it again

Anybody who is lobbying for forbidding the use of cell phones while driving has NEVER DRIVEN WITH CHILDREN. I'm all for safe driving. I think it should be harder to get a driver's license. I'd be supportive of additional requirements to maintain said license, say, bi-annual testing or something. I do believe there are too many people on the road and that, in general, cars are not much respected and are totally overused. We sit behind these giant, heavy potential murder machines and we zip around like it's nothing. I like being a biker and a pedestrian when I can. But I also really, really love driving. Fast. And Far. It's a wonderful feeling. I like to think that I balance my enjoyment of motoring with my conscientiousness of other drivers, the rules of the road, the environment (but I'm not a hypermiler. No. I leave that one to the mister). And as much as I'd like to believe every other driver on the road is similarly mindful, I know that's not true.

I see stupid drivers all the time. Some of them are using cell phones, most of them are not. Studies apparently indicate that driving while using a cell phone is the same as driving while drunk.

And yet, I find myself the most distracted not while talking on a cell phone (our only household phone these days is one cell phone I share with my husband and sometimes, yes, I have it in the car with me) but while attending to the needs of my children. And any parent probably knows what I'm talking about. And any parent of carsick-prone children definitely knows what I'm talking about. Have you ever been hurtling down the freeway when you hear that unmistakable pre-puke chokey cough from the backseat?! Have you ever been the sole adult in a vehicle with two green kids with their hands over their mouths?! No? Because I have. I have scrabbled for some sort of vomit-catching vessel, I have flailed my short arms backwards and tried to dispense bowls and cloth napkins. I have tried desperately to keep my eyes on the road while assessing the damage behind me (did it all get in the bowl? do i need to stop to take the car seat cover off and give it a rinse with the water bottle?).

So I'll tell you what, Hang-Up-And-Drive-ers, I'll get on board with your agenda when you find someone to ride shotgun with me all the time. Or when you ban kids from the car. Because when they're not puking? They could be crying (my babies aren't babies anymore but I did not have little ones who tolerated the car well at all. There was screaming. A lot of screaming) or, maybe, singing, like, I'm Henry the 8th I am Hen-er-eeee THE EIGHT I AM I AM I GOT MARRIED TO THE WIDOW NEXT DOOR SHE'S BEEN MARRIED SEVEN TIMES BEFORE AND EVERY ONE WAS AN 'ENERY ('enery!), WOULDN'T 'AVE A WILLY OR A SAM (no sam!) over and over and over again (SECOND VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST) until driving into oncoming traffic begins to sound like a sensible alternative.

So you know what I think? I think current road rules need to be enforced. I think driving has become a right and not a privilege (and really, rights vs. privileges is a subject that crosses many topics and deserves its own post). I think making rules against cell phone use will not make the roads safer. I think it should be much more difficult to become a driver in the first place.

And for the record, I'm not serious about banning kids from the car. Even if I relish solo drives by cranking up the speakers louder than growing ears should hear, I am in the car with my children more often than not and I like it that way. But let's call a spade a spade, ok? Distraction comes in many forms and good drivers need to be prepared to handle most of them.

it's friday i'm in love

When life gives you lemons, watch youtube clips of somebody else's peaches! Or pick your own blueberries! Or um, amuse yourself with silly words you write and share with other people. I do all three! And by 'peaches' I mean 'music videos' and not, well, I'm not looking to shake any trees, ok?

So, instead of totting up a pile of troubles, I present a few things that are glad things which I am loving right this moment:

Blueberries. Maybe my favorite fruit. They're so easy and snackable and versatile. I like other berries, too, but blueberries aren't messy and seedy and thorny. We have a place right local that picks on shares: pick and leave half and take the other half for free. And you know around here we've got more time than money these days, so it's a great trade.

Most of our berries go in the freezer for post-summer snacking and such, but I have been banging out a batch of muffins about every week (I'd make them more often but then we'd just eat more). I make some delicious muffins. If I do say so myself. And I do. I use this recipe as a guide, but I sub and fiddle as I go. Following recipes exactly makes me itchy.

And while we're in the kitchen, let's give a shout-out to the newly installed and fabulous DISHWASHER. A fanflippingtastic electric machine that washes dishes WHILE I AM IN THE OTHER ROOM like magic. Beautiful. It's been a long time coming, in the idea and the design and the securing of salvaged and secondhand materials and building and the putting in and everything. Because, oh? My handy husband constructed an island to house said dishwasher and then had to finagle electric and plumbing to the middle of the kitchen. He is an ace. And now I have more very useful counter space. I had a lot of counter space already, but having an island in the middle, accessible from all sides, is extra great. The island has an outlet, also, so I can operate my stand mixer from it, which is more convenient than hefting it across the kitchen, where it doesn't work so well anyway because the above cupboards are too low for it to slide underneath. So, dishwasher island? All around Win!!

Eventually, we'd like to procure a fat butcher block, the island top is currently a scrap of old varnished and trimmed plywood we found in the garage. It has faint perforated cutting marks all over it, so I think it was Mrs. Duerst's pattern cutting board for sewing. That's my guess anyway. I'm sure she'd be glad to see it getting new life in the kitchen, instead of gathering dust up in the dusty rafters.

OH! Bonus! I almost forgot: check out the dishwasher picture again. Notice anything else? Anything wonderful and yellow and smooth and clean? That's right, chickens, somebody got a new kitchen floor! We've been living with it for a few months now and I never got around to posting about it here. Having a floor that actually is clean-able and is not the texture of sandpaper is pretty terrific. The before and after contrast is astounding and, trust me, every bit of complaining I did about the old floor was justified. Really, the old floor was so awful it deserved more grousing about and public humiliation. I've lived in a lot of different homes and I've had as many different kitchen floors and I've never felt so defeated as with that nasty surface. Really, if your floor gets dirty and cleaning it is a trial, remember: it could be worse! It could be so rough and pitted and scratchy nothing will clean it! Floor cleaning was sure put into perspective for me.

Okay, and this is sort of kitchen related, too, because if you were in my kitchen now you'd hear Neko Case's newest, Middle Cyclone. I've been listening to it all this past week and I'm not done yet. She has, so says me, maybe one of the best singing voices in the history of voices and singing. She sounds like a huge sky and deep blue and perfect clouds and I love her. I could listen to her singing all day. Oh wait, I have! I'm nothing if not repetitive! Anyhow, this song I'm sharing isn't my favorite off the album, but the video is tops. You'll like it.

oh, southern new mexico.

I am from goatheads in bicycle tires, from Sunny Delight and sunburns.

I am from a single story ranch with stucco exterior, so dry, the sand in windstorms attacking legs like a thousand tiny knives.

I am from yucca pods and anthills and hundreds of acres of green grass in the middle of the desert.

I am from restaurants with salad bars and not talking about it, from Johnnie and Dave and Ruth.

I am from funny and acting like everything is fine.

From too big for your britches and ENOUGH!

I am from a southern baptist deacon and the church secretary and vacation bible school and being there every time the doors were open (of being the ones who opened the doors).

I'm from The Land of Enchantment and Hatch Chile and pizza delivery.

From a large man with a larger personality who broke his back in the rodeo, lived loud and wild and then settled down with a small town girl. They eloped three months after meeting.

I am the school pictures in frames on shelves in my grandma's house, alongside so many jars of marbles. Faces stuck in contrived smiles, bad haircuts, dated styles holding little bits that I thought I wanted to forget, but as it turns out, I do not.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I snagged the bones of that poem whilst booking some face yesterday. (Also, and only precariously related to the subject at hand, hence the overused parentheses: how much do I simultaneously love and hate the facebook? A Lot. On one hand, I am tempted to get all Tyler Durden-ish and flip the whole insane concept the bird. Knowing where we come from is one thing, but keeping tedious record of every step along the way is something completely different. We are so much more than status updates, than folders of photos, than lines of basic info on profile pages. . . We are thoughts and words and relationships. We are not things to be collected. But, then, I do like having a list of folks handy, like a loaded, useful Rolodex. And I do play some mean Scrabble. So. . . I stick around).

You can make one, too. A 'Where You're From' poem. Let me know if you do. I had my girl write one, and asked her if I could post it here and she declined. Maybe later, she said. She had some tweaking still to do.

For your creative writing enjoyment (the following copied and pasted from a friend's facebook post, which I will assume she lifted from elsewhere and so on):

"If you don't know where you're from, you'll have a hard time saying where you're going." Wendell Berry, among others, has voiced this idea that we need to understand our roots to know our place in the world. A poem by George Ella Lyons is called "Where I'm From." The poem lends itself to imitation and makes a wonderful exercise of exploration in belonging.

I'd like to suggest that you give it a try. The prompts have a way of drawing out memories of the smells of attics and bottom-drawer keepsakes; the faces of long-departed kin, the sound of their voices you still hold some deep place in memory. You'll be surprised that, when you're done, you will have said things about the sources of your unique you-ness that you'd never considered before. What's more, you will have created something of yourself to share--with your children, spouse, siblings--that will be very unique, very personal and a very special gift.

The template is below. Give it a try, and post your own "Where I'm From" poem. Then tag a few friends, and see where they are from...

I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______.

I am from the _______ (home description... adjective, adjective, sensory detail).

I am from the _______ (plant, flower, natural item), the _______ (plant, flower, natural detail)

I am from _______ (family tradition) and _______ (family trait), from _______ (name of family member) and _______ (another family name) and _______ (family name).

I am from the _______ (description of family tendency) and _______ (another one).

From _______ (something you were told as a child) and _______ (another).

I am from (representation of religion, or lack of it). Further description.

I'm from _______ (place of birth and family ancestry), _______ (two food items representing your family).

From the _______ (specific family story about a specific person and detail), the _______ (another detail, and the _______ (another detail about another family member).

I am from _______ (location of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more lines indicating their worth).

home bittersweet home

Having 13 different addresses in 13 years has blurred my concept of Home. I am more attached to things than place. I am always one foot out the door. I am tired of starting over (with people, routines, what's familiar). I am envious of those who can Stay.

Almost every time I listen to a To The Best Of Our Knowledge podcast, I hear some little piece (or sometimes, the whole thing) that I want to talk, to someone, about. A friend of mine said it's a little too "baby boomer"-ish and, well, it's true. The intended audience might be a few decades ahead of me. But when I was in the 5th grade, I honestly wrote, for an autobiographic school report, that my favorite television show was 20/20. Which is to say: I've always been a little old for my years (what's quirky at ten is maybe less so come thirtysomething).

The other night I listened, riveted, to an episode about Home. The segments were not so compelling, but the subject is just so confounding to me.

Confession: I always feel like an interloper.

The last 13 years of my life have provided very little continuity, the setting keeps changing and the supporting cast revolves and I stand on the periphery, out of place. I don't know what it's like to be an integral part of anything beyond my own little family of four.

I was so attached to the place I grew up, I bolted at first chance. This is not uncommon (but neither is a grown-up desire to move back, which I don't have and would not consider). My story is not unique. We've changed homes a lot. So what?

So I'm done. I don't want to pack up and move again. I don't want to cram my stuff into the back of a U-Haul one more time. I don't want my furniture to get more bangs and scrapes from smashing through doorways, up staircases.

But I don't know if I can call this place Home. We just ended up here. I said I wouldn't move to this town and then, so quickly, here we were. Here I am.

Who knows how much longer we can keep the bank happy. As it turns out, joblessness is not so compatible with paying one's bills. Which means the shuffle shimmy balancing act will topple one of these days and our house will be on the chopping block. And we'll be. . . ?

Home is rest. Of not thinking about where you might be living down the road, of the question not even entering the equation. Because it's always in the back of my mind. I'm always wondering, anticipating the shift in the wind that will cause circumstances to change and have us scrambling for a new place. My how we've scrambled.

So it might happen that I'm not done. That there's more moving in store for us. It's a worry. And not such a great lurking shadow to have around if becoming more invested in this place is the goal (is it?).

Yeah, I don't know.

don't be afraid of what you've learned

Some while ago, NPR All Songs Considered shared for free download a collection of songs from the SXSW music festival in Austin. (It is endlessly amusing to me that my number one source for new music is national public radio.) I listen to it often and this is probably my favorite of the bunch.

I had this great idea that I'd share a song I'm currently enjoying on Sunday nights here, and that has worked out some, but I'm so sporadic with my posting, it's better to just put stuff up as it occurs to me.

Tonight we loaded up the bicycles (3 plus a trailer for the boy) and zipped down to an outdoor concert. We sat on a blanket, near friends, and listened to fun music (not music I'd share here, or want on my ipod, say, but just right for hanging out with a picnic dinner in an oak grove) and basked in the perfect loveliness of a summer evening in this part of my green state. I am not musical. I sing in the shower. I think about singing karaoke (but have never done it!), and wish I could *play* something. I can't. The radio. That's it. Yet, even so, music is such a force. Such a perfect background. Like the right color paint on the walls. And I'm glad for it. That's all.

the freshy fresh

(plus bonus proof that my kids are all kinds of awesome)

I never ate a fresh pea, right off the vine, until I was an adult. I grew up with a peripheral, suspicious, disdainful relationship with vegetables. There were salad vegetables (assumed mostly for my dad, who can build and eat a salad the size of a breadbox) and there were side dish vegetables, which arrived to the table via their interim life in a Del Monte can. Globs of slimy spinach, Flaccid asparagus (which, it's true, I still sometimes get a craving for, though I haven't indulged in well past a decade), and Mushy peas, too limp to bother rolling off the plate.

It's a stark contrast, then, how my two run outside. How the little one asks me, before he plucks a pod, "is this one fat enough, mama?". How they sit on the front steps, together, dropping the shelled peas into a bowl. How they eat them up by the handful, how they always want more.

So, it's like a triple whammy of wonderfulness here to me. Fresh, delicious veggies in my own yard. My children being sweet and cooperative, a little pea-picking team. Knowing that fond memories, of food and family alike, are being created every day.

the garden post

Earlier this spring, a lady drove by my house, screeched to a stop, threw her car into a fast reverse and pulled over by our curb, "I love what you're doing here."

We love what we're doing, too, even if I have a hard time seeing past all the Undone stuff to appreciate the accomplishments we've made in our 20 months of living here. Of course any outdoor improvements are for our own sake, but a little compliment goes a long way. It was nice to hear something positive, even from a stranger.

And then she asked, "Were you inspired by the First Lady?"

Ok. I admit that my first reaction to that question was something like, really? Results from all those pushups I've been doing are that noticeable? Dang.

Oh wait. Random friendly stranger lady was not talking about my biceps. Michelle Obama's upper arms have sure had a lot of media attention in the month's following her husband's inauguration. But let's just say that I wouldn't want to arm wrestle her. Yet.

She was talking about our raised beds. She motioned toward the the first baby kale leaves coming out of the ground, "She's planting vegetables in the White House lawn, you know."

I do know. I think it's wonderful.

But the presidential garden was not an inspiration for our decision to use a chunk of front lawn for food. No, I told the lady, we were doing it already.

Our garden is in our front yard because our backyard, while giving us grapes and plenty of hazelnuts, is too small and shady for much of anything to grow. The orientation of our house on our lot is such that we have more open space in the front than we do in the back. As in, the exact opposite of the way most city houses are situated.

If we wanted to grow anything -and we did!- we had to depend on our front yard space. Last year we put in one raised bed in a funny unused strip along the front side. And this spring we added two more, and beds around the perimeter.

Certainly front yard gardens are not so unusual. I notice them here and there. But it's much, much more common to have vegetables in the back.

We did what worked for us. And it's working, still. What I didn't expect, though, was how people would react. Not just the I Brake For Gardens lady driving by, but others. They ask us what we're growing. They nod their heads and say, oh, my back yard is shady, too. They smile.

I like having food growing in a place that is so visible to the street. I like owning our decision to have a garden in a way that makes our gardening part of the landscape of my neighborhood. I can't grumble about my neighborhood if I'm not doing anything to make it better. The more we're out in it (and we spend so much time out front these days), the less I grumble.

My front garden isn't going to wow anybody. It's humble and weedy and cobbled together. But it might encourage somebody else to use some of their front sunshiney lawn for something a little more useful (I'm not a lawn hater! Everything I ever had as child was a direct result of lawns! My dad was/is a sod farmer!). And it will certainly give us some food (which is important!), and a shared activity, more pleasure in our own space.

Here are our front beds 3 months ago:

And a picture from today:

warts and all

I'm sure you love me just the way I am. I, however, have been less than fond of the pesky lump on my wrist for some time. Now it's small, nothing anyone would probably notice. But it would itch sometimes and I'd see it and feel chagrined. Stupid wart, killing my chances as a wristwatch model. What to do? (this is so simple and unbelievable and effective and simple it's going to blow your mind a little).

Don't worry, while this is a home remedy anyone can do, this is not the wart removal technique I heard growing up. My great-grandmother legendarily instructed the afflicted individual to take a kernel of corn, rub it on the wart, look out into the yard and mentally choose a chicken, toss the corn into the yard, and if the chosen chicken ate the corn - voila! Bob's your uncle, the wart is gone!

But say you're low on chickens or superstitions? Then what?

You pluck a dandelion. Squeeze the stem. Spread the milky juice on your wart. Okay, wait. Back up. It helps to have a cute little fella in overalls and rainboots pick your dandelion.

This is what my wrist looked like before I smeared any dandelion milk on it at all. It's a little red and, though the picture isn't wonderfully clear, definitely raised.

My intent was to take a picture every day, but I forgot and that's kind of boring anyway. A picture of my wrist every day? hah-shoo, hah-shoo. Also, I neglected to apply the dandelion milk again for a few days. After the first application, the wart skin got dark and scabby. I really should have taken a picture of that, but it's probably for the better that I didn't. For your sake, anyway. And then the scabby came off in a shower and the area was no longer raised. I have only bothered to put the dandelion milk on one more time.

And now it looks like this:

There's a shiny dot of fresh, happy skin now! Could anything be cheaper, easier, less invasive?!

I can't remember where I picked this up, but I do remember it's something we did to effectively remove a wart on the husband's hand years ago and I remember taking family walks and the girl would pluck dandelions and rub them on her hand, too, just like her dad. She was about 2 then, so I guess this has been in our home remedy arsenal since then, 8 years or so. We've used it numerous times.

Not that we're a particularly warty bunch.

it is what it is

Monday night at my house = soup, stew or chili night. More or less. My menu ideas are always so broad, the esoteric details not typically revealed until right at prep time. If I know, vaguely, what sort of thing to make, I work from that point and use what I've got. Am I doing a casserole? A stir-fry? Pasta? Each category gives me a good beginning direction and I take what's in my pantry, my fridge, and go from there. I can follow recipes but it's more comfortable for me to throw things together, some of this. . . a little of that. . . the way my boy does in the backyard. Holly berries, dry leaves and dog water? No problem. I got chili simmering (my old 3 bean + quinoa standard) early enough today -before lunch even!- and had visions of an early dinner and an early bedtime (for the children, anyway; more light means they stay up so late and the husband and i zonk out soon after and lose out on any grown-up teevee watching time) but an unplanned late nap and all the other things that come to a head in the late afternoon happened and here it is now: just after six and I'm my second jam jar into a bottle of cheap pink wine and the cornbread's still in the oven.

just going through the motions

There was something both complete hilarious and utterly grotesque about listening to a few backlogged episodes of James Howard Kunstler podcasts while painting my half bath yellow. (psst! If you're not listening to JHK's Kunstlercast, I guess I don't know why, maybe because you didn't know about it? Well, hey! Now you do!). It's not that I am a big fan of climate change and the end of cheap oil and drastic transitions. It's that I think they're all inevitable -sooner than we think even!- and I'd rather know what I'm up against than be caught with my head in a vat of air conditioned petroleum when the stuff hits the fan, you know.

So while my head was thinking about this stuff, my hands were so frivolously changing the color of a bathroom that is mostly used by guests (when I remember to tell guests it's there, so hidden it is around the corner where no one notices, and when we have guests at all, not so often, really). And it seemed like a foolish sort of task.

Life in the Bleak House here (really, we could take a number because our plight is not unique, but it's hard to always keep that perspective) has been full up with foolishness. I'd like to stand tall and declare how everything we do is purposeful, useful, good. But our home improvement projects (and there have been many!) are mostly for our own pleasure. I'm indescribably pleased about the new kitchen floor. I'm delighted every time I walk into my cheerfully blue laundry room. I cross my fingers that if, as we suspect, we might have to put this home we love on the chopping block real estate market sooner than later, the improvements will make all the difference.

But we're still totally protected by the comfort of cheap(ish) oil. We still have the luxury of doing fluffy things, frivolous things, things that will matter less when life is leaner and our collective amusement ranks lower.

However, tonight's Sunday and I made pizza, like I do, and now, because I swear I haven't forgotten, I will share a song, and that's amusing.

I find myself humming this song all the time. It's used as the opening song for the kunstlercast and it stuck in my head so much that I had to look it up and download it for my very own. And then! When looking for a decent quality version to embed here, I found this little gem, the only non-live copy on youtube and it made me smile. (I am a responsible adult who does her own dishes! Ha! Yes!)

do you believe in magic?

We have, right now as I type, several polaroid pictures of my girl, my big ten and a half yr old girl, from her littler days tacked up on the corkboard in my kitchen. I love a polaroid picture. I've had a camera for years, but all the moves (and then, all the moves) have made a lot of non-essentials difficult to pin down and find. We came across it just the last week or so (with a packet of unopened film in the case, even!) and so, when we packed for a cabin camping trip with some local homeschooling friends, I knew I had to bring it along.

I haven't much written about the H word here. Homeschooling. And I don't plan to write much about it. On one hand, it adds such bright gladness to our days, is such a perfect extension of the way we respect and trust and live, that it deserves not one entry, but many, a whole dedicated blog of entries. But there are plenty of homeschooling blogs out there. Just like there are plenty of baby blogs and mommy blogs and vegetarian blogs and sustainable blogs and other such blogs of various passion. And so any curious party could click and find exuberant defense of this alternative-to-the-mainstream lifestyle choice. I don't need to expound on it here. I wouldn't get it right, anyway. So, on the other hand: it's too true and personal, too beyond scrutiny and defense. It's funny, the way some people immediately launch into why they "could/would never. . . " homeschool when they discover that I do. Because truthfully? I don't care. I do what works best for my little family and I trust that you do, too. What Works Best. I think that's the essence. And I can be very rational and serious and ramble on about reading comprehension and self-esteem and understanding of chronological history and long division, and the "working best" might fit under any standardized government expectation. But the best really lives in a place you can't so much measure: in the way we get along, in my kid's resilience in all the change we've thrust upon her, in my children's sweet sibling relationship, despite their 7 year age gap. So many other things. It's not my job to make other people comfortable with my choices and so with this one, especially, when the stakes are so high and egos so fragile, I remain mostly disengaged. My kid doesn't go to school. Never has. Who knows what the future holds? Ask about Socialization at your own risk (I'm pretty far past any teeth-kicking instinct, but eye-rolling is still fair game).

ANYWAY (consider the previous paragraph one giant parenthetical aside, minus the visible parentheses). I don't care if your kids have video games (mine don't.) or cable (nope.) or some kind of crazy, innovative l.e.d. light flashing interactive toilet (uhhhh. . , i was drawing a blank on examples), no modern child is too jaded to be fascinated by the polaroid.

The technology of Polaroid is timeless, in that it's as absolutely fascinating to children now as it was to children in the seventies, the eighties. The surprise when the camera spits out the print -even though it's expected, it's a little wonderful and surprising every time-is the same. The innate urge to grab it and whap it gently around in the air remains. The thrill of watching the picture emerge, shapes like ghosts forming on the film, is just as thrilling!

It was such fun to break it out with a bunch of children around. (also, camping with a bunch of children = a good time. we almost always camp with just our little family and it was a special sort of lovely to have kids romping around together in the woods like that). The polaroid is the magic pipe and the children follow. I was disappointed to find out that the film was expired and while it still worked somewhat, the colors were wavy and yellowed. I need to get some more film soon.

Any photograph snaps a moment, the seen and unseen of one quick second, but a polaroid maybe captures something more. You push the button and *just like that* you go from looking at the moment, being in the moment, to holding the moment. And sure, I use a digital camera almost exclusively. Digital photography gratifies instantly, as well. But it's not the same. I love my little Canon Rebel, and I'm quite fond of a lot of pictures I take, but digital photos are a little, to me, like looking at a picture of a picture of a picture. Even when the quality is brilliant and the colors vibrant and beautiful, the emotion feels less authentic to me. Polaroids produce a poorer quality print, but capture emotion like no other camera can. So says me.

I'm thinking of a polaroid art project that would be fun to execute. Actually, I'm thinking of dental emergencies and joblessness and unpaid bills and this house of cards we all live in, but I'd like to be thinking of taking instant pictures and leaving them around town. I'd like forget my worries for a moment and maybe help other people forget theirs, too. Something like that.

nobody gives a damn

So. Maybe you noticed I missed last Sunday. I missed all last week, actually. A week ago the kids and I took a 5-hr drive up to visit friends. Upon our return home, we had one crazy busy day sandwiched in-between that trip and a two day camping trip with our local homeschool group. All the while our major appliances were living in the living room while the husband replaced our troublesome kitchen floor. We finally, yesterday, moved the washer and dryer back into the laundry room -the clean clothes situation was at red alert- even though the laundry room floor is only primed and not at all finished. You do what you have to do and I can't do a week plus without doing laundry.

The ten day forecast expects sun, sun, sun. While the end of May, the beginning of June, can be unpredictable, a curious weather crapshoot, we seem to have reached that "all danger of frost has passed" point. Lows in the high thirties, the forties, the fifties, ahead. I spent the day beefing up our herb garden (really, my daughter's little plot of land, but I jump in and plant a little there, too), with seeds that have been waiting, waiting. Maybe I'm too much of a worrywart and I've missed maximizing our growing season by waiting so long to sow seeds outside. We'll see. The vegetable beds are filling in nicely. My kale! I want to pluck the leaves, big as my thumb now, and eat them up, but I will hold off, and hope they keep growing.

With such bright skies, and laundry on the line, and iced pink wine in my tumbler, it feels like the start of summer. It feels like the beginning of bare shoulders and bare feet and grass stains. And when I'm feeling particularly summery, I want summery music and I'll tell you that there's something about Wolf Parade's 05 Apologies to the Queen Mary album that makes me want to crank up the volume and open the windows and throw a garden party or something. (not that I've ever thrown a garden party, I just feel like it. I'm not really the party throwing type, if I don't throw parties I don't have to worry that no one will come!)

Youtube usually delivers, but tonight I couldn't find a good quality recording of my first choice, so I'm sharing my number two. I really love this one, as well, though. But I urge you to splurge on the .99 (if you don't have it already!) it will cost to get You Are A Runner And I Am My Father's Son and then you'll really know what it sounds like in my head today.

lalalala library

I had such love for my library the other night, I wanted to kiss everybody there. (do you know me? I'm not the kissy sort). First of all, I noticed that one of the summer selections for the library book club is none other than The Grapes of Wrath. (and in my head I'm adding in an enthusiastic, well-placed 'mother-effing' and some serious air fist-pumps: excited!). Surely I've blabbed about my trite but true love of Steinbeck's rambly california prose. Surely you know that I consider TGOW my favorite favorite novel of all (making a rare exception to the 'if it's popular, i don't like it' tendency I brazenly exhibit). Surely you can imagine how glad I am that, maybe, other people who might have read it in high school (the cliff notes?), can probably catch the some of the related references (the Joad's loaded down hoopty) could be digging into it afresh. I would like to know who, at the library, was responsible for choosing it (midst a lot of contemporary books), because I would love to say Thanks and give a little positive feedback. But I'm such a book nerd that my 'thanks' might be something more of a verbal full-on running start piggyback. They wouldn't know what hit them. Better I keep quiet. Maybe I'll even write down the book club date and attend!

So I was all floating happy about that and then I checked out not one but *TWO* children's books illustrated by Jen Corace: Hansel & Gretel and Little Hoot. You might not know who Corace is, but if you do, then you know why that would please me so. My library is small but I am constantly surprised by how much it offers (I am also, to be fair and honest, often frustrated at the lack of certain materials, what with me being a city mouse and accustomed to big city libraries and all, but today it's all good). I brought home, for my boy (for me), the new Cynthia Rylant/Jen Corace Hansel and Gretel. I'd read this one at bookstores, thought of buying it, really really wanted to buy it, held off. I will still buy this one, but full-price new books are not in the budget right now but I can always afford a trip to the library! (Well, usually. I'm in the habit of going so often these days, three times a week at least, that I have kept my fines down, but I have racked up some doozies in the past). I did a little happy happy dance and told the children's librarian how delighted I was that they had that book. She looked at me oddly. Maybe because I really did say Delighted and maybe because I was not accompanied by any children. Fruitcake. Yes. Cynthia Rylant is one of my favorite current children's writers (oh! did I ever tell you that my friend Laurie challenged me to come up with 85 recent children's books that I love, because I tend to be something of an old book snob? I could easily fill up half the list with Rylant books. I haven't actually made the list yet. My ardor for old books is a wee bit subdued as the insane cpsia -consumer product safety improvement act- bullcrap that had a lot of secondhand stores pulling and destroying pre-1985 printed kid books from the shelves hasn't yet affected my local stores and, I confess, I've been lazy and complacent about it). This book is worth doing a happy dance about. Beautiful writing, beautiful pictures, beautiful.

And then, as the girl and I headed to the check-out, our arms at max capacity, I was so surprised when the clerk had, waiting for me, the second flipping season of Dexter!! Yahoo! I had just been telling the husband, literally the very last thing I said to him before I walked to the library, that when I got back one of us should run to the movie store for the first disc of Dexter season 2, because I was jonesing bad. (okay, I did actually say all of that, except that last part. I might really air fist-pump -and air quotes, too, but that's another story- all the real life time, but I don't really say 'jonesing' and if it ever fell out of my mouth accidentally and you had to hear it, I'm sorry, because I bet it sounded ridiculous). I had put a hold on it the week prior and estimated that it would be weeks or longer before it came in. The hold was so newly returned and ready for me that I hadn't gotten the email notification yet and I wasn't even expecting it. I didn't jump up on the counter and I didn't do somersaults but that's what I was feeling: happy! I love being in the honeymoon stage of a new show and right now, I'm all about Dexter. I was willing to go to the movie rental place (not a problem, really, because we have, in our little town, the best little movie store I've ever been to anywhere) but the thing with renting television shows is that you just get a disc at a time. At the library? They lend the whole season! Yes! So while I really have a lot of other more pressing things I ought to be doing tonight, I'm going to tuck my kids in and dig into that whole world of blood splatter and Miami murders. Even the library clerk and I had a little chat about how great the show is, even though, we both admitted to each other, we're not typically the serial killer show watching types.

(psst. . . really, this post should have been written three days ago, but I wanted to take a picture of our library haul, or maybe our library shelf -actually, two shelves, dedicated, for library books in the living room, not counting the ones at bedsides, in bags, on the floor of the car- but i kept procrastinating and then not writing because i didn't have any pictures, not even one, to accompany the words, and i've let myself grow this very silly Why Bother? attitude when it comes to posting without a picture -i think they call that 'perfectionism'- and i have to try very hard to just do it anyway, picture or no. so hi. this is me. who even fails at perfectionism!)

mild synaesthetic thinks too much

I'm thinking of the way so many things sneak up on you, the way every moment is your first moment, your last moment, and how the weight of the importance and the insignificance of everything teeters: important, not important, important, not important. And we never really know which was which was which until we look back, remember. Even then, how can we know? Maybe something that looks so innocuous, so simple and forgettable, was the most significant action yet.

I'm thinking of the way camping sounds like zippers. Tent, sleeping bag, backpack. The way the whole house smells a little like campfire even days after we come home. The way home sounds like overall buckles clanging in the dryer.

I'm thinking of the way I am better at burning bridges than building them, waiting for the mud to dry out instead of trudging my way through. Being good at waiting is like being good at bending your own thumb backwards to touch your own wrist, just because you can do it, doesn't mean it feels good. And overextending those joints when you're young makes for problems later and then nothing feels so painful as being patient. Wait and see.

I'm thinking of the way loud sounds flash colors when I'm tired. The dog barks Blue and the crack of our cheap ikea bed frame is White. I'm thinking of the way I know too much about everyone, the way people don't know their words drip with color and shape, the way I collect every tiny piece and clue, without meaning to, and they knit a brilliant map, so revealing I can't always make eye contact, it feels too raw and personal.

I'm thinking of the way I'm still wondering what I'll be when I grow up. And realizing that this might be it. I'm thinking how watching Dexter makes me wish I'd gone into Forensics. Imagine getting paid to think about things and put them together!

I'm thinking of the way I want to be right here as much as I want to go back to simpler days as much as I want to skip ahead to stability. But solid ground can be misleading, soil shifts and feet slip and -just like that- perspective changes and we see the whole world differently.

treat her right

I did not, I don't know how, realize that today is the day for Mothers until, I'm pretty sure, my girl woke me up, sometime in the 8 hour (sleeping in!), bearing a little bouquet of flowers from our own yard and, also, a lovely picture she drew (first thing! waking up early, even!) just for me. Happy Mother's Day!

Remember when radio stations and roller skating rinks took dedications? Maybe they still do that, what do I know? Anyway, this one's going out from me (Sunday Song Share! I've been spearheading the sunday night pizza gig for long enough, who knows what new tradition I can get going?!) to you, because if you're not a mama, then you have one. And who doesn't like a good excuse to see Mister T rockin' the camo short shorts? Ha!

a good sport

I don't know why I hesitated. Now that I have a fat old school canvas and flannel sleeping bag (no more of this light-as-air slicky slippy nylon nonsense I've been enduring all these years), camping is cake. And it shouldn't have given me pause when the husband and daughter declared that the next camping trip would be off grid. I grew up wilderness camping with my grandparents. So why have I done so little of it with my own little family? Maybe it's just the spooky What Ifs and such. Because, really, if you don't mind some sap on your pants and flippy morning hair that sticks around all day, it's a sweet way to spend a couple of days.

I was inexplicably reluctant (it had been so wet and muddy here last week, maybe that's it, or maybe I've just been something of a stick-in-the, rain or no.) but I'm not too prideful to turn around and admit that we had a really great time.

Even as I talked up my self-appointed A.F.T.R. (along. for. the. ride.) position (as opposed to, say, the husband's P.I.C. -person in charge- role, which, conveniently, let me off the hook for decisions like what to eat and gave me ample sit-and-read time) I was really, truthfully (shh! maybe this is better kept secret!) there for my own self and had fun. I know my way around a squat, though I prefer, and always look for, a private tree. So that's no problem there. (and, we all know what a lot of campground bathrooms are like, it's usually an in and out affair as it is, no loss there). I spend most of my time in campgrounds snarking about the other people in campgrounds. So not only did we not see *anyone* else (or hear anyone, save for a few distant vehicle drones) for two days, but no one had to hear us either. No quieting the children. Which is such a grumble of mine anyway. Camping kids should be loud kids, if ever ther was a reason for kids to be loud. And, yet, when we've had camping "neighbors" twenty feet away, I find myself shushing the children and reminding them that we're not alone. But, my friends, we were alone. The dog could bark. Though, she didn't. She can be barky at campgrounds, but no wonder, what with the leash and all the other dogs and all. But off leash in the mountains for two days? My old dog didn't bark once. She ran herself into the ground, though, and kept up on all of our hikes and now, I suspect, won't move again for three days.

I admit to having a hard time getting to sleep: all that quiet. I found myself on the first night restlessly tossing in the tent, midst three snoring Timmy Willys, the lone Johnny Town Mouse in the bunch. We were camped next to what is called a Creek but runs like a small river, deep and swift. During the day, with our busyness as distraction, the stream was faint background noise -is that water rushing? can you hear? But sometime between the last birdsongs and the rising moon, those very dark and bottomless hours, the water sound amplified and, I swear, became mechanical and supernaturally spooky. Maybe that's just me. Good thing I brought along my ipod. No joke.

Not any of us would have wanted to, not really, meet up with a bear, but we did find fresh bear scat not fifty yards from our pillows. And non-campground camping insists, says the ten year old resident Tom Brown, that words like "poop" stay home. She takes her words and her knives very seriously.

My girl (the P.I.C.I.T., she's not in charge yet, but she'll get there) whittled the bark off of a thick birch branch for me, a staff in waiting for our next trip. She's already growing handier with a blade than her mama is, and can ID more plants than most people I know. It was just the sort of little trip a girl like mine can dig into and adore and, well, that sort of thrill and gladness spreads around.

We finished up on the way home with a hike to a hidden waterfall. We parked our car down in a mucky gully off the side of the road, hopefully unnoticed while we hiked. It was obvious, as we walked, that the trails had been usurped by off-road trucks. We said we hoped some halfwit mudboggers wouldn't charge around the corner and mow us all down. The trail to the falls sharply declines and narrows, it's hard for single file people to traverse it, let alone 4x4s. We made our way down and sat in the waterfall spray and under the haze of this sweet family time. We climbed (and I mean climb, hand over hand with a rope someone smartly, generously, left behind) up and out and started back down the muddy hill to our car. And we were nearly ran over! By halfwit mudboggers! Plowing around the corner! It seems while we were having our lovely waterfall experience, the mountain above had been overtaken with so many trucks. We walked down the road (the only way to walk down) and they had to stop their mud splashing and nature destroying for us. I heard someone mumble, "where did *they* come from?" and I noticed others, watching, incredulously, at our little family scene, dad, mama, daughter, son, dog. But not incredulously, no. That conjures up a certain righteous tsk-tsking and I mean to paint something more pissed-off punk in a pick-up truck. So maybe a synonym a little more on the slackjawed side. Anyway, we walked right down through the middle of them, a whole lot of them ten or so mudcaked trucks and a slew of muddy young men, and down into our little gully, down to where we'd parked way out of the way, out of site. And can you picture how funny it was to me (but not to them, surely.) when we roared up out of that gully and onto the road in our growly, old Range Rover?! Rawr! I laughed and laughed.

the clouds'll clear the sky

If I do something twice, it might stick and become tradition. Last week I shared a song and since I'm low on anything worthwhile to write about (or at least, low on motivation in pulling the worthy out of my brain and tamping it down in a pattern that makes sense to anyone else), let's call this Song Sunday and do it again, why don't we?

A few years ago, a friend gave me this song on a mix-cd. It was a peppy mix anyhow, but when the first notes of this one came through my speakers, I stopped. And listened. And then I danced. I couldn't help it.

Life felt bleak, then. We had to, due to circumstances much bigger than ourselves, move from one temporary place to another, shortly after our huge relocation to Arizona. Our transient existence elbowed a dark and painful infertility situation for the number one biggest problem position. I felt put on pause in so many ways.

I'm not so glib that a snappy tune can lift all fog, but this was like an instant aural anti-depressant. Just a sweet gladness that came from nowhere else. And while I'm not all for helping out big businesses, it's beyond me why pharmaceutical companies haven't gotten permission to use this song in a television spot. You hear that, Eli Lilly? My freelance marketing consultant fees are chump change, email me and we'll get it all straightened out.

I've been pulling this one out again recently. Maybe you need it, too.

lentils & rice

With our economy in the crapper, and so many feeling the crunch, some for the first time ever, of course we are all interested in saving some bucks. My own household has zero income (save for the husband's unemployment benefits) currently and so one might think that we're making drastic changes to our lifestyle. Only, well, no, we're not. The changes are small, things you wouldn't notice, and mostly reside in the realm of psychological distress (the insomnia and wrenched guts of wondering how long we can stave off foreclosure, you know, gripping subjects like that). I'm doing less thrift store therapy, our bills are not as cut and dried and tidy anymore, and we have to say No to the children more often. But other things, like what we eat, remain exactly the same (uh, cross fingers, knock on wood, say your prayers, because who knows how long we'll tread water like this??).

According to so many stories I've heard on the radio (before potential pandemic usurped economic downturn, anyhow) eating for less is the new five star restaurant. I heard some silly chef challenge on All Things Considered recently that had famous names (not so famous that I knew who they were, but whatever.) in food attempting to make a tasty meal for a family of four on a budget of ten dollars. And I nearly switched the station because, seriously? This is news?

But then I had to step back and remind myself that not every person responsible for feeding a family has the same good fortune I have to both a) not ever had much money to start with and b) a formative young adult introduction to being healthy and being cheap.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that it was the cheap that beget the healthy, even if, over the years, the subjects morphed into a symbiotic jumble of mindful living. But I might not ever have made it to where I am now had I not read The Tightwad Gazette in the first year of my marriage.

I didn't catch on to Amy Dacyzyn's compendium of frugal living tips in its newsletter days, no, I checked out the books from the library (but years afterward, the three volumes were published together in one fat edition). And I ate them up entirely. It's been a long time since I've read them, I bet the references are dated and maybe a little hokey, but the suggestions, I'm sure, are still sound.

Suddenly I'm doubting the veracity of one of my family's longstanding menu staples, ye olde Lentils and Rice, and whether it's a Tightwad inspired dish or not. It doesn't matter. It's cheap. It's easy. It's delicious. It's good for you. We eat it every week.

We've also been a vegetarian family for over ten years now, so it's not a lightbulb moment at this point to realize that meatless meals cost less. In fact, though I'm really saving this subject for a post all its own, I must briefly mention that if you're eating meat at every meal, you're probably contributing to all manner of societal ills and atrocities because there's no way in heck this planet can support animal consumption at the rate our country has expected it for so long. Okay.

And if you're not a vegetarian (really, I have no problem with omnivores, it's the factory farming and culture of excess and draining resources and animal cruelty, among other things, that irks me) you should still be eating a lot of bean based meals. I'm glad that pinched pocketbooks are finally compelling some people to make this a priority, better now than never I guess. Though I admit that it truly does surprise me that something as simple as Beans (or Lentils) and rice can be regarded as revolutionary.

So this is a favorite meal of mine because, first of all, everybody eats it. It cooks up long and slow so unless I'm running late, I get it going early and dinner happens smoothly, without any of that last minute Witching Hour Hungry Kids rush. So, all that PLUS it's the perfect dish for using up whatever's languishing in the not-so-crisper drawer in your fridge.

Here's the gist (per my transcribed scrawl in the little spiral notebook that's lived in the silverware drawer of every house I've ever lived in as a married lady): in a 9 x 13 casserole, dump together 3/4 C rice, 1/2 C lentils, chopped veggies, 2 1/2 C water or stock. salt/spices/seasonings to taste. Cover. Bake 325 for 90 min.

That's the basic idea, but I usually double it and make the rice to lentil ratio heavier on the lentil side. I use brown basmati and, also, some sort of tomato, canned diced or tomato sauce. The picture above is prior to adding the (self-picked and canned w/ a friend last late summer) tomatoes, but after I grated in a few stringy carrots and chopped up some salad greens that were starting to head south. I had just picked up our first CSA share of the season and needed to out-with-the-old in our refrigerator to make room-for-the-new.

We have eaten this in so many (many many!) configurations, but last week I served it alongside a carmelized leek and rapini frittata. The leeks and rapini were also part of our CSA share from of our favorite local farmers (who also happen to be friends, making the whole 'do you know where your food comes from?' question so much more personal and true). Leftovers are great to throw into a tortilla for a fast lunch. At our house we always say "lentilsnrice" all smashed together in one fast word like that. Lentilsnrice. Not just for tightwads!

before i met you

This is the time of day when it's harder to finish the things I wanted to finish but easier not to think about it. This is the time of day after the boy has gone to sleep, so the house is quieter (missing his clatter and, also, that somebody-in-the-house-is-sleeping hush that softens our activity just a bit, an invisible sustaining pedal), but still busy. In a few minutes, the husband will read to the girl (because in our house you're never too old for a read aloud; they finished Watership Down -oh! rabbits!- yesterday and will jump into something new/old tonight) and I will have to finish the last chores of the day so that I can sit, later, and watch something (we have Dexter on borrow from the library. I'm not sure about it yet.) without guilt, without *too much* guilt. Which is why I'm here, ostensibly, refreshing my stale ipod so I can push through by listening to something interesting. But I'm not doing that at all. No I'm listening to this song on repeat. Again, again. Thanks to a friend who mailed me a copy, I have it in my itunes now, but a couple of weeks ago, when I first discovered this song, I listened to it over and over again on youtube (and shared it with you on facebook, depending). I'm sure there are more compelling topics for a barely read blog, but my current favorite song seems as fit as anything else. Okay, one more time. And then, I mean it. Dishes. Laundry. Sweep. And see if you don't play it a few times in a row yourself. So sweet and infectious, simple and profound. We all of us, don't we, have these other people, whether romantic involvements or not, maybe past versions of our own selves, or even, dreams and plans and hopes, that we lug around with us, haunting our present.

the company you keep

My son is playing on the floor with his dump truck, his recycling truck, and a pile of blocks. I walk by and say, just for passing by conversation-sake, "hey, did ever notice that there's an armadillo on your shirt today?"

boy: (looks down, sighs) Yes, I did.

mama: You sound glum about it. Don't you like armadillos?

boy: No. I do not.

mama: Why is that?

boy: They play with bears.

mama: I'm not sure about that. But if it is actually true, why would that be a problem for you?

boy: (sighs, annoyed, that mother of his, always asking dumb questions) They might eat me.

mama: Armadillos don't eat people!

boy: No. Bears. Bears eat people.

mama: But I don't even think bears and armadillos have anything to do with each other anyway.

boy: (getting exasperated) They do! And if bears get really, really hungry, they could eat little boys. So that's why I don't like armadillos. See?!

impermanence

It's been quiet here. And by here I don't mean my blog. That's a given. Or my neighborhood. WHAT? SPEAK UP! I can't hear a word you're saying over the incessant whine of a stupid 2 stroke dirt bike motor, that keeps circling my block. I'm pretty sure boys my daughter's age, without helmets, stacked 2 deep, should not be riding a dirt bike around the hood. Oh, wait, dirt bikes aren't even street legal. I'm all for city noise (in fact, I miss the hum of a more populated place, for sure) but keep your stinkin dirt bikes far away from me. Like in a museum of stupid things people invented that kill people and ruin delicate ecosystems.

It's been quiet at old blogger. Seems like so many people are leaving (have left), for greener self hosted pastures or wordpress or some other better platform. I don't know. I guess I'm feeling the urge to move, too.

You know what happens when you move 13 times in 13 years? (keep in mind, I've lived in a few places for several years at a time. . .) You get accustomed to change. You might not like change. You might dread change and transition slowly to change. But you expect it and when it's not happening, you feel jumpy, because, judging from history, it should. And you just want to get it over with already.

I don't know that I could do the one two switcheroo trick with whatever ill-favored Fate seems to have been hanging over me for so long by simply moving blogs instead of abodes, but it's tempting to try it.

On the other hand, I grew up in the desert and I find tumbleweeds blowing by incredibly nostalgic. (No, really. When I was about five I had a tumbleweed "collection". I was partial to the ones taller than myself). What's it to me if everybody else is packing up and heading out? I barely visit this space, so it should not actually matter if it's passe, played out, sub-par.

But, still. Change. I itch.

You know what's funny? We can think we have a good thing going anyway, we can intend to stay the course indefinitely, to plug straight along with no thought of veering, and -wham!- life can up and have a different idea.

So I guess we take what we've got. When we've got it. We hold the things that bring us comfort and gladness and belonging, and when they change, we hold their stories.

who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?

Last weekend I made chocolate chip cookies: a right gesture of love for the family, considering that I'm fairly much take-em-or-leave-em. Chocolate isn't my thing. I know, I know, I risk betraying some stereotypical code of my gender by daring to admit such deviance. I mean, it's okay, sometimes. I eat it if it's there, if offered. But let's say Life had 2 doors and I had to choose Chocolate Cake or Peach Cobbler, I'd run through the fruit pie portal. No question. Of course, I don't know what I'd find on the other side. Life is a series of choices (and happenstance and, maybe, I waver, a divine sort of Plan) but so often we see the choices in hindsight. But what if they were more obvious? Arches clearly labeled? Pie or Cake? I'd live the pie life.

And I didn't mean to be punny (I groan at wordplay, but maybe, secretly, I kind of love it), just like I didn't mean to eat so many cookies and like I don't mean to grind my teeth every night while I'm sleeping. Regarding the first point, I can't help it and wouldn't if I could because words hang out and do fun things in my head. On the second point, it's easy, another weekend, another batch of cookies, even if it means springing for another bag of choco chips. I tell myself it's not quite pie season yet. (I'm not going through the door, I'm just sticking my head in through the window. what?) But that third item's pure trouble.

I fell asleep listening to the most recent This American Life the other night, I only heard the first intro story. Did you hear it, too? Business sucks for everybody right now but there's a surprising upswing in dentistry. Repair dentistry. Because guess what? Stressed out people break teeth (let's see. . . stress? check! broken teeth? check!) and grind their teeth (check plus!) and apparently there are enough of them walking the line between stressed out enough to have dental problems but not so stressed out to be so broke they can't afford repairs that dentists are seeing increasing numbers.

I have no future toothpaste commercial aspirations, oh no quite the opposite. Let's say I'm totally down with normal wear and tear. What I'm NOT down with is jaw pain and a mouthful of nubbins. But since I won't be contributing to any dental boon, and shoving the bedsheet into my mouth isn't cutting it (cloth in the mouth is right up there with very high buildings on my list of things I don't like to experience) I am going to see if a diy mouth guard will help.

If the habit persists, though, and chewing anything becomes a chore, I won't be eating any sort of cookies at all. Cake would be difficult. But I think I could still manage pie. It's really the cooked fruit I'm after, anyhow, and that should be easy enough to swallow.

haphazard

Everything is topsy-turvy right now. A sudden jostle could knock the whole thing flat. The husband's several weeks now into full fledged unemployment and we have less structure to our lives than ever. I'm all for free spirit flexibility, but we've become so fluid we spill all over everywhere. It's a weird time. I've never craved stability so much.

It's still Sunday. And I'm still making pizza. And our days are anchored by little things, weak ties attached to small silly routines I make up out of nothing. Something more, some sort of bigger picture involvement with expectations and obligations beyond my own brain, would be nice. But this is what we've got right now. We're just trying to hold it steady.