Sunday

I am hanging my head in shame:

I just discovered that it's been *six whole days* since my last blog!
But I have to tell ya, it's all the fault of that dang job of mine.
I discovered at a wee young age that employment interferes with all sorts of fun, blogging among them. I worked a whole heap o days last week, all of them crazy hectic psychotic days, the ones where you get home and either crawl on the couch for the duration of the evening and begin drinking heavily, or jump on the bike and squeeze a ride in before the lethargy hits you.

Mostly, I jumped on the bike.

It's wonderful to be a working stiff when the kids are away, as very little time needs to be spent on feeding people... one night I brought Jake home some drug rep luncheon leftovers (that had been sitting out for 4 hours, shhhhh...), and another I left him to fend for himself while I scarfed down a handful of nuts and called it a day (only a smidgen simpler than my personal favorite-- "peanut butter on a stick"-- single girl dinner of old).

Since I started adding more carbs to my diet, the "I'm never hungry" thing went away, and I'm hungry pretty much all the time again, but ohwell. The same will power that keeps me from running away to join the circus every time the children or my husband drives me crazy will have to suffice to keep me from stuffing my face at every waking moment, and so far, so good... I don't look like a supermodel or even like a refugee from a work camp just yet, but I'll keep plugging away at it until my diet goals are met;-)

On a whole different note, I was freakishly attacked yesterday by our rescue kitty: the little snot faced monster latched his razor sharp claws deep into the flesh of my neck and then proceeded to claw his way down my back. I look like a slasher victim...
Someone seriously needs to take this cat off our hands, as I'm starting to have "squish like bug" fantasies involving cute little kitties. Mr. Charlie cat would like his ass on a platter as well; I thought the boys would be getting along by now, but no deal, and he's made it clear that it's going to have to be him, or the kitty-- Charlie's already made a little place for himself out by the chicken coop in the tall garden flowers that he hides in during the day to get away from his nemesis. Poor guy...and since Charlie has never gone Ginsu on my tender parts, there's no contest as to who will be evicted.

So things are finally starting to get back to normal after the "great life assessment and 20 year reunion" upheaval.
In the aftermath, and much to my pleasure, I've been left with a nifty bike riding obsession (great time to think *and* abuse your body at the same time, both useful for catharsis) and the jump start of an awesome weight loss plan (I had no appetite for weeks as I was pondering all manner of weighty, existential issues, or at least the very best ones I could manufacture...). Now, weeks later, I've emerged on the other side, thinner, more muscular, and sporting a new sense of self. Not a bad experience overall.

In another embarassing move, I did something kindof funny today. Whilst on the bike trail this morning, I took every opportunity to make comments to each and every meatball who had their LARGE, mostly uncooperative dogs off leash. How irritating... the trails are all clearly marked "keep your dogs leashed", but obviously that doesn't apply to the people who own unruly, oversized animals. It's people like that that make it very difficult for people like me to walk my smaller, well behaved dog on the trail, as being confronted by bigger, unleashed dogs makes her very tweaky (especially since being bitten). My most recent combination of vitamins and new found sense of self must be making me BOLD, lol! It felt good to be so sassy, RARRRRRRRRRR!

So much more to say, so little time left in my last remaining day of freedom before the work week starts anew.... maybe I can continue this later when the sun goes down and I don't feel so bad for blogging while it's so nice outside.

Later: even though I am clueless about all things mechanical, I have developed a freakish mind-meld connection with my bike. As I was riding it the other day, it felt strange-- and altho I couldn't see anything wrong with it (see "clueless" statement above), I knew something was wrong... subtle, but wrong.
Sure enough, pedaling even on the easy stretches got harder and harder, and while I wanted to chalk at least some of it up to out of shape slugginess, knew that it wasn't just me.
I got home, and noticed that the rear tire now had visible damage, and was splitting at the rim.
So off to the bike shop I went, and not only did I get my tire replaced on my very own like a Big Girl, but I broke down and got a brand, spankin new saddle that is booty-lectable and hopefully won't make me quite as sore as my old one.
and P.S.:

Can you tell that I've been listening to the dance club channel (#36 on Sirius Satellite Radio) all week now? Loooooooove it!
Tell me, what does this video make you want to do?
I'll let 'cha think about it...

Light Blogging Day:

Today, while Grace and I were in the car, this *brilliant* song came on the radio. It's quite possibly my favorite forgotten song in the world, which speaks a volume or two about me...
And these are totally my people, my tribe--where o where can they be?

I would love nothing more than to wear a patterened body suit and platform heels and rock out on a spiral platform, if only it wouldn't traumatize my children;-0

The only bad thing is that I'm sure to have a tiny, disembodied head singing backup vocals in my brain all day tomorrow...

Best iPhone video ever, too.

oooHlaLAALALlalalalala!

Viva la Hangover!

Long overdue chats with old friends + bottle of wine= feeling like death the next day, oy! (ok, it was 1/2 bottle, I've become a major lightweight...)

But it's worth the occasional hangover to be able to connect and reminisce, figure things out, offer apologies for things said and done when we were new and just starting to build the pathologies that were to become the foundation of our adult selves.

How can you adequately apologize for being an alcohol sodden idiot, for mistakes made 20 years ago, for things you did/things that were done to you that weren't intentional (see "alcohol sodden idiot" admission above)?

You can't.

Given the right collection of circumstances, anyone can be a fuck up-- especially when the whole world is before you and you're still clueless as to how it all comes together. Throw in some alcohol, and there's no telling what you can destroy; friendships being the first among the casualties, self worth a close second.

And how easy it is to forgive yourself when you barely remember the details-- drinking is fairly insidious that way-- but one day, even if it's many years later, you'll learn that not everyone forgets...

Is there ever forgiveness? A pseudo-resolution that doesn't involve deeply buried anger disguised as forgiveness? Dunno.
I've forgiven all sorts of stuff over the years, mostly 'cause it required too much energy to remember, to continue being angry, and because I sometimes can distance myself from the offending party (even moving away forever, but I'm discovering lately that this has it's own repercussions...).

Well, my old friend: the world has chewed us both up and spit us out, strangely in close proximity to each other once again... please accept my apology for being young and stupid, for hurting you. I didn't mean it.
And please accept my apology for not remembering, perhaps the shittiest thing of all.

Cry For You:

Tres 80's, no?

I have a new found obsession with this song, if only for today (fickle girl!)... the lyrics are a wee bit sad, tho:-(
This was our Zumba warmup song, which is probably a subliminal indication that I need to get back to class. I <3 heart Zumba, the most fun you can have with your clothes on, hands down.
I have to tell ya, tho: the song really kept my wheels turning tonight when I was too sore to keep going... I think my thighs and all their connected parts need a break for a couple days before I start riding to work each day.
Bike riding trivia:
I think I really like to ride my bike because--every so often--I catch a whiff of something that reminds me of my childhood. You never get more than one inhalation of whatever it is before it's gone, but being transported to places, albeit briefly, is pretty magical and well worth the sore spots.

Oh good lord, Grace just turned on "Titanic"; not 100% sure if I can watch it, too many angsty sort of issues contained therein: wealth vs character, freedom vs the expectations and limits that privilege brings... the painful dance. Me? I'd rather be the self made gal who has the option to thumb her nose at the status quo and slum it up in steerage, always the better party. The option is the key, though.
And should our gal have married the rich, snooty dude and skipped hanging with the cute, poor guy? Meh. Not sure. Pretty much everyone died afterwards, so she might as well...obviously, the girl got one good roll in the hay she would never forget, always a useful thing when you're old and reminiscing... interesting times, to be sure. I recently read the book: "Devil in the White City", absolutely fascinating recount of the era just prior to the Titanic.

Happy Happpy Joy Joy (but dangit, does my back hurt...)

Marital satisfaction ratings are quite high today, as husband gave me the nod to do one my very favorite somethings...

wreck stuff!

Yeeeeeeee-ha!

There's only one thing that I dislike in a household more than whiny children and stinky catboxes, and that's

CARPETING.

Ewwwwww, hate it!

Look at that gray stuff in the picture above... it's a thick pile of dirt that's been living under the carpet that I was only too glad to vacuum up FOR-EVAaaAhhhhhhHhhhhhh!

I think carpeting's vile, a permanent receptacle to hold all manner of gross stuff you THINK is getting vacuumed and shampooed up, but never really does: puppy pee/vomit, spilled things, and all that nasty shit you bring in the house on your shoes. Bleck.

Well, no more- now we just have to find and install some flooring, hopefully something fairly renewable (I put my foot down at laminate, WTF is that stuff, anyway? A photocopy of wood and a boatload of chemicals to hold it in place, lame!).

Jake and Jacob are being their own industrious selves, making good progress on the treehouse outside (photos fothcoming). Such a brilliant move to marry the handy guy, who not only can build a variety of things, but is more than happy to let me tear things up in a useful way (and itsn't too hard on the ole eyes, either;-)

wheeeee!

p.s. meeting with Hans was *most excellent* yesterday. I was having such a good time talking with him that I forgot to listen to the jazz! Hooray for old friends, it's been great to reconnect after all these years:-)

Work:

I decided to do a trial run on my bike to the hospital tonight, and sure enough, it took 28 minutes to get there, for a total of 5.1 miles.
It was a great ride there, practically all downhill (of a sort..), but then the ride home was more challenging: wind in the face, uphill, and tired from the first 5.1 miles rode at full tilt.
Whew!
I got some news yesterday I've decided I'm going to let roll: that I wasn't going to be offered a permanent position after all.
My boss also made it plain that it would be very unlikely that she would *ever* be able to offer me one, due to the mo-fo union and their system that gives anyone in the hospital first choice of positions over me whether they're the most qualified or not... boo.
But maybe it's a blessing as disguise... and I'll treat it as such, until I have any tangible reason to get worried. I still make quite a bit more $$ as a pool staff (at the top of my pay scale) which is a nice perk... and not having to do call hours is sweeeeeeeeeeet!
So sometimes being rejected is a good thing, and when I show up to work hot, sweaty, and tired next week I won't have the slightest bit o guilt about it, neither (bwahahahahaaaaa!)

New Infatuation, So Sweet...

I've discovered a new love of my life, and it is my delightful iPhone:


I have had many conversations over the past few weeks with fellow iPhone-iacs, from the staff at work who texts me to the super cool pediatrician gal I met last week who secretly texts the cute coach of her kid's t-ball team, while her husband sits nearby (purely platonic, she assures me).
With my phone, I'm able to do things I never could otherwise: chat with people on the sly (I've had more conversations with my daughter lately with the unlimited texting than I've had since the onset of adolescence, esp since she's been holed up at camp for 2 weeks and unable to call), send emails any time of the day (I was sending and reading emails over lunch today while I was chatting with my co-workers, yay!), a well as putting the world at my fingertips, any waking moment of the day. It's been tremendous fun.
Falling in love has been an interesting process, fairly uncontrollable, and hard to determine if it's just lust or the novelty of new features, the titillation of trying new things like texting while listening to iTunes, while receiving a call, while reading my favorite blogs-- all at the same, fabulous time.
So functional! So flexible! And I hear there's DOZENS of optional applications I can peruse to make my phone even more splendid:
http://iphoneapplicationlist.com/
http://www.apple.com/webapps/

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, thinking about all the things I can do with my beloved phone, and I look forward to all the fun it can offer me;-)

So in homage to my new obsession, I include here a montage of my other favorite Apple (Fiona-- whose CD I found the other day while cleaning out the car. I forgot what a complicated, beautiful voice she has, lovely!):

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

My body feels different...

It must be all the bike riding. My legs feel more toned, my arms leaner... my ass perpetually sore.
I'm hoping to be able to ride my bike to work tomorrow and each work day over the next two weeks when Jacob is away at camp. It's only 4.5 miles and should take 20-30 minutes, and hopefully won't make me too nasty sweaty for my patients.

Tonight we took a quick ride up to Uncle Harry's for ice cream in an effort to lure Jacob off the computer, and it ended up getting dark much earlier than we anticipated, so we rode home in the pitch black night-- cool!
The darkness of the wooded bike trail was lit up with the occasional flicker of lightning bugs, and it was eerie silent except for the crickets and the sound of our tires on the pavement. And other than the swarms of bugs that went up our noses and in our eyes, it was a great ride (and no, I didn't have any ice cream, but my unsweetened cranberry water was quite lovely, tyvm).

Dinner tonight (minus the bread, I'm going low carb):

Today:

Was a strange one; Jake had his colonscopy and was by far the LOOPIEST patient I've ever worked with. He was like his own intoxicated one man show: slurring his words, repeating himself like 100 times, telling strange tales about hallucinating dogs and whatnot... I saw a new side of him and wonder where that guy lives most of the time 'cause he was reeaally funny.
For a while he was quite insistent on having his picture taken with strange facial expressions, and I couldn't get him to stop fixating on it; I'll post those in a bit.
I don't think Jake and I have ever joked around and laughed like that in all the years we've been together, but it didn't stop us from having one of our classic, old school arguments later in the day, but I'm sure he won't even remember:-)

And today I was able to not only put on my "too tight" shorts, but do yoga in them (because I was too lazy to take them off, mostly)! Ah... starvation, exercise, and the resolution of old teenage angst, always good for the waistline... still 100% glad to have the reunion behind me, fo shizzle.

I promise it'll end soon:

My goal was to get at least 30 miles in today, but as usual, I fell short by the *slightest* margin (28.9 miles, boo), leaving me wanting a little bit more. Story of my life.

Kenosha was quite lovely, as always:

After a very nice segueway, we headed east.

It seems like every trip to Kenosha I take, I have to hit at least two spots: the lake and the cemetery. Odd.
The lure is very pervasive, and I can barely resist...it's almost as if I left pieces of myself behind in my hometown that I keep trying to find. That, and my memory doesn't seem to work the way most people's does: instead of having the ability to sit and recall events, I can only catch snippets of the past, usually through alternative means; smells, sounds, randomly seeing something that triggers a memory, or if someone sits me down and helps me put it together. Thus my past is a disjointed collection of songs, feelings, and mystery odors with the occasional dash of solid reality thrown in (usually by someone else).

The lake is easy enough to figure out, no great mystery there:
Once upon a time, the memories were all happy ones and associated mainly with solitude and friends. I have many fond memories of playing on the rocks, sitting, smoking, contemplating...looking out at the water and feeling the weight of the world, as long as I could stand it.
That, and riding in cars and getting chased, fireworks, moonlit walks on the beach, finding places to make out... and then, later:
The store I opened, that guy I met, the ill advised events that occurred afterwards.
I've come to realize lately that it was these events that led me to leave my hometown, even though I can barely remember them any more. But for years I couldn't go to the lakefront without feeling the weight of bad decisions-- lurking in shadows--revealing to me that your world can change in an instant and take a lifetime to repair.
These days, the ghosts rarely appear and I'm finally able to go back in furtive search of those things I lost.

The cemetery is a quite a bit more complicated... so I'll have to finish this thought a little later.

Tomorrow:

Well, I got gypped out of 4 miles (only got in 16 instead of 20), so I'm hoping to compensate by heading to the Racine/Kenosha bike trail tomorrow and take it as far as I can.

I'm not 100% sure what I got done today, but it sure didn't include any laundry... and I wonder if today will be the day for the poor neglected clothes.



Try this: wear your ipod to your local WalMart and walk around; it's like the soundtrack to the carnival, very surreal.

Tomorrow:

Today was one of those days when nothing flowed, so if I don't get at least 20 miles and three loads of laundry under my belt tomorrow I may very well lose my mind.

Is tomorrow a north day, or a south day? ... decisions, decisions.

I'm looking forward to getting back to normal, catharsis firmly behind me.
All I can say is, it felt really good to get back home tonight after the reunion. Damn good.

Class of '88:

Blog, or ride my bike? Blog, or clean the house?
Hmmmmmm...
I'll try and do them all, but hopefully not at once:

Words can't adequately express how peculiar it was to be in a room filled with familiar strangers; all hopeful, smiling, looking to make a connection with someone else who remembers them as they were in ways they probably can't any longer.

At first I felt somewhat paralyzed with the same fear that's kept me on the periphery all these years, until I found my own personal social butterfly to help me work the crowd....
And you know what?

People remembered me.
Seriously, PEOPLE REMEMBERED ME, and they didn't run screaming in the other direction.

Let me preface that statement for a moment, to explain that I was a most complicated critter back in the day, waaaaay more than I needed to be. And it was a stumbling block, much as it is now.
Being shy takes on many forms: we had our fair share of mousy girls who hid themselves thru conventional means, but I took the alternate approach, shrouding myself under a facade that was in-your-face and faintly whispered "leave me the @#$% alone".
Sad to say, it worked.

So again, the experience of being there last night, opening up to the people, putting myself out there, was exciting and interesting yet made me SAD.

Sad because they were wonderful, because they had so many things to share:
Families; tales of lives off and away, here and there; things they're doing; hopes for the future, who they were in the past.
And sad because I missed so much when I had the opportunity to know them, and didn't.
It was great to see that there was something to like in each and every one of them, as if sufficient years have passed to erase those school day boundaries and we could all just be... people.

Yet I also felt hopeful, since throughout the evening I was struck with a singular thought: we have so much life left and so much more to look forward to, because no matter where we are, it's all still a new beginning.
To a cynical old girl like myself, it's a breath of fresh air and something I'm going to hold fast to over the next few years as I work to take my life in new directions.

I'm really glad I went.

Lyrics

don't pity me...

Overheard while working in the recovery room today:

Patient (whispering): "Wow, who on earth would ever want to work here? The same thing over and over again--hohum--and all the farting..."

Patient's husband: "Well, at least there's all the soda, juice, and water you can drink..."

Snort! Too funny... I love this job:-)

Getting paid to mess around with impaired farting people all day: it's like a *dream* come true:

To each his own, I guess;-)

On a completely unrelated note, I have a social function to attend tomorrow for which I have serious fashion reservations. True, I could save myself the stress and dress in my usual repertoire:

But most of my nursing scrubs and band shirts are in the wash and all my sweatpants are filthy from the last time I cleaned out the chicken coop. (and no, I'm only kidding: I don't own any sweatpants or a *single* band shirt... I'm evolving into quite the girly girl; I must own 50 pairs of shoes and 20 handbags, most of which I never wear. Egads! I barely recognize myself these days...getting old is hell).

This evening, Jake and I went shopping, which is one of the "true signs of marital compatibility" between us that I haven't often perused (the other was his readiness to hang in the bars at Walker's Point and not get huffy when the boys wanted to make nice. Not sure how that factored in, marriage wise, I just really liked that one).

I was starving and a wee bit testy, which aren't the best circumstances for shopping, which I hate (gar!), but I still came home with an interesting outfit, kindof cute, and fairly *screams* "Kenosha" (how'd that happen when I went shopping in Muskego? no clue. I think I also heard it screaming "go on a diet" but the hunger pains made the message less clear).

My new/old friend Mr T and I were planning on wearing coordinating girdles, but were unable to connect to really verify (which is why I prefer the PHONE over e-mail. Far more direct, especially in a fashion emergency: Methinks my friend has a phone phobia. Personally, I can talk much faster than I can type,with no need for spellcheck-- and it's easier to get the ideas out before they dissappate into thin air. Besides, I'm still not 100% convinced that after all these years he isn't a figment of my imagination and would prefer an actual confirmation that he does, in fact, exist.)

I'm sure the experience will warrant much reflection and hours and hours of blogging, so I should rest up. Grace wants pictures, we'll see.

Wish me luck, my social skills are quite rusty:-)

Catharsis:

There is something profound and necessary in a catharsis, however infrequent. Paths taken, paths not taken; it's fascinating to see where the world can lead and where it hasn't, the benefits of certain choices over others.


It's interesting to consider: am I the same person now as I was waaaaay back then, when I was making the decisions that led me to where I am today?


And the surprising answer is:


Yes, absolutely.


How cool is that?



It's great to know that you're not a victim of circumstance, tra la la.

So where the wind and my nature conspires to send me next is anybody's guess, but I am certain that it will be fully in my control and uniquely mine. Wheeeeeeeee....

itchy scratchy

The dang dog must have opened the door in the night; for here I sit, at 5 am, covered in leetle, tiny skeeter bites.

More, later: after some scrounging around, it has come to light that there has been a serious security breach involving the liquor cabinet...
children and vodka, an excellent mix (altho I do remember a certain school field trip involving vodka, orange juice, and some unfortunate printing presses, none of which mix very well either. Oh, and Chichi's-- vodka and mexican food. *So* not compatible... )

And: Maggie's staples came out this morning, and I noticed that she's developed quite the large seroma, bleck. Either it's going to go away on its own, or she's going to have to be knocked out and a have a penrose drain installed. Double bleck.

Ah! Sweet Tuesday, how I love thee...

Bad.

I just did a reallllly baaaad thing, and I feel confident that, since my husband never reads this, I can confess and perhaps not only feel better but totally not get busted.
We'll see:
Husband wants to take a cross country trip on his motorcycle sometime soon, despite my many protestations. I guess working in the field of healthcare has made it abundantly clear that travelling by motorcycle can be hazardous to the integrity of your skull... after all, who will help raise the children, maintain the property, etc and etc when he's a vegetable (or worse? but maybe that's the WORSE). ANyhoo.
Hubby has an old friend whose kids are grown, life settled down etc and etc, who called this evening to set up plans for their ride (to the Smokies?! Are you f'in kidding me?).
Hubby's not here, so I tell the guy: "Jake has a young family and probably shouldn't go on a cross country ride. Your kids are grown, but mine need their dad for a few years yet. Call back then."
Ack.
Another black stain on the soul of the Very Bad Wife. I'm sure it will come back to bite me in the butt someday, but I still don't feel too bad about it... tee hee. Just naughty and meddlesome.
UPDATE: I couldn't keep my mouth shut and blabbed my dirty little secret to my guy. He didn't care, and assured me that he has no plans to kill or otherwise maim himself anytime soon:-)

Tiiiiiirrrrred....

I am in desperate need of a nap, for my past came flooding back to me unexpectedly last night and kept me up to the wee hours... thank goodness for late afternoon lattes, which are always ill advised and are sure to keep me up loooong past my bedtime (happy coincidence?).

It's good to be reminded at least once every 16 years or so that even tho I have no tangible evidence of my lives prior to now, someone SOMEWHERE remembers; that life years ago was more than just a few photographs in a box somewhere deep in the nasty basement, covered with spiders (a major deterrent to reminiscing...).

It's easy to pack up and move on, reinventing yourself every so often and putting time and space between the people you knew, who you were. But you can never fully distance yourself from who you are as a result of knowing them, and the absence will always register as a loss, a hole, unfinished business. It must violate too many laws of the universe to never see the people who helped form you, especially when they're still roaming the earth. How lucky it is that we're all still alive (most of us, anyway) and in a position to connect; but why can't it be easier?
Was there something about our generation, a restlessness perhaps, that kept us moving forward and rarely looking back?

Well, we're all long overdue.
I am so grateful that someone was finally able to make the connection, and a little sad for all the years lost, for all of us.

mon cher vieil ami, c'est pour vous :


and just to mix things up a bit, from the original era:


even tho this version is better (cause all things get better with age, n'est pas?):

Best.Mom.Ever.

Take a looky-see at what I bought my girl today:


A REALLY CHEAP car!

(actually, it's a 1999 Saturn S-Series, woo hoo!)


She's a little rough around the edges, looks like she's been in a few scrapes, but under a fine layer of grime is seriously a *really nice* car.
There's nothing wrong with it that a few visits to ebay won't fix (it needs a new passenger side mirror and some lenses on each side), and the interior is just about perfect (once you washed the yuck out of the cup holders and took a nail file to the scum in the grooves--yecccccccch--it was gorgeous).
Really and truly, it's nicer than the last couple cars I've owned, tee hee, and about $2500 cheaper than most cars in it's class. And I genuinely like that it comes with a few practice scrapes, so the ones our brand new driver applies her ownself won't be as dramatic and/or noticable. Yeah.

OOoooooOOooh! I loves me a bargain, which makes me love this car almost as much as Gracy pants does:-) And of course gives me what every parent dreams of: serious leverage.
Word.

Quote of the Day (but only just today...):

(and I'm not sayin' it has ANYTHING to do with me, I swear...)

Read on a blog today:

"Choice" is overrated. The less wise you are, the more choices you think you have, since you don't know yourself, your gifts, or vocation.
Who had more choices, Hugh Hefner or Tim Russert? When you die, who would you rather be thought of as more like?
Narcissus is a jealous god.

Yee-Ha!

First of all, I'm so buzzed from my 1/2-caff-grande-sugar free-latte-on ice that I can hardly move, which makes me wonder if the nice barista-girl full-caffed me by mistake...
It was my celebratory gift to my Girl, who passed her driver's test to-day (wheeeeeeeee), which is of course cause for celebration... da-da-da-daaaaaa!~
But since she's taken the keys and ventured off on her first solo trip I've felt the earth shift and am now *doubly* paranoid about firey crashes, et al.
Hubby and I were just a wee, little bit hoping that she'd not pass, so we wouldn't have to worry about unleashing her into the world, but that's selfish, I know... you just wanna keep them little and safe I guess, in a world that's much too big and scary (at least to parents).

Anyhoo. She has made a 360 degree turnaround since coming home from Lifest; she's all excited about the great projects they were promoting, hanging out with bandmembers, etc and etc. It's fantastic to see her enthusiastic about all things positive for a change, and I hope it lasts and lasts. She even wants to go to youth group again, yee-ha!
Scoff all you like at religion, my kid is 850,000 times happier, more hopefilled, and more contented with her SELF when she has an active relationship with God and church. That, and she's not a flaming, raging, angry force to contend with all the time, which vastly improves her relationships with all the other people in the household...
Happy days!
p.s. 24 some odd mile bike trip yesterday with Jacob and Connor (my nephew). Fantastic ride down by the lake in Kenosha--it was drop-dead gorgeous. I'm going to try and squeeze aother ride in this afternoon...

Flaming Eyeball!

Well, the cake (and the party) was a roaring success! I eneded up making a red velvet cake in a bundt pan, filling the center with cherry pie filling and dark chocolate ganache; I frosted the cake with whipped stabilized ganache buttercream and covered the mostrocity with rolled fondant. Now, while this sounds like a simple enterprize, keep in mind that I had no idea what I was planning, and the humidity was AWFUL! I had to keep putting the cake in the freezer to allow the fillings and frostings to play nice (as they would have on a less beastly day). That, and my new silicone bundt pan made the outside of the cake taste like plastic (at least it seemed like it did when it came out of the pan-- it didn't when we ate it), hence the pie cherries-- I figured if I filled the center with tangy fruit and brushed the cake with the cherry juice, it would diminish the bad taste (mustof worked...). And then my large pastry bag broke, making frosting a glazed cake more difficult, and I couldn't find my spatulas, etc and etc.

It all came together in the end, thank goodness... my only regret is that I couldn't locate any of my pastry brushes, either (the kids have been getting into my stuff, gah!), so the brushstrokes on the eyeball were primitive looking, and I didn't bother brushing any color on the iris to make it look more realistic as I had planned. I would have liked to have colored the pupil better as well, but had conerns that if the paint/coloring had solvent in it, it would have burned a little too much (it's hard to tell, but the pupil was flaming). The goop around the cake was jello powder mixed with baking soda and leftover pie filling gel; I sprinkled a little extra baking soda on it and drizzled lemon juice around the fondant right before lighting the cake, and it oozed and bubbled... wheee! So Jacob got the flaming, oozing cake he requested, minus a few details I would have like to have added if I had more time, a cooler kitchen, and an actual plan;-) I felt like I was on one of those Food Network cake challenges... and the cake was AMAZINGLY tasty, btw.
So the cake was cool, and suprisingly edible (once you peeled off the nasty fondant with the bubbly gook on it-- some kids ate it just to be gross, go figure...)

Jake planned some fantastic games for the kids, too: we had a whipped cream pie eating contest; water balloon launching and toss; a relay race involving a hula hoop, blowing bubbles, chewing gum, and a slip n slide; a balloon busting thingey; silly string war; and a PINATA, wheeeee!
...And then of course, a game of my very own creation, in which the children had to see how much garbage they could collect in the yard, tee hee (where ALL were winners, especially ME-- bwahahaaaaaaaa).
It was the quintessential "All American Birthday", and it was awesome!

Thank god the kids were finally old enough, such that there were no meltdowns, no kids asking to go home, crying about which piece of cake they got, etc and etc, yay:-)

Hooray!!!

Vacation Week!

It's been a lovely week of vacation, plus or minus a few minor mishaps... the week started off sloooooowly, and while hubby and the children had no problem with doing nothing, it was driving me CRAZY.

Grace had her Lifest trip to look forward to (and all she wanted to do was hang with her friends anyway...) and Jacob was more than happy to while away hour after mindless hour playing Super Smash Brothers: alone, with friends, with different friends, till late into the nght if we let him. Eventually it got to be near impossible to get him off the dang thing, and he got downright snarly after being pried from the thing, his little fists cramped into claws around the controllers... so the computer's now locked (for the same reason) and the Wii is put away, only to come out when guests arrive (and only if they actually want to play the thing-- since of course Jacob might force them, addict that he's become) or when the first snow falls. Frightening to see you kid become a slave to something, and not so fun to deal with the horrific withdrawal they have.

It's been 2 days, and he's finally finding other things to do without moping and wailing, sigh!

Monday I had to wait for Maggie to get released from the vet; Tuesday we just sort of hung out and went tubing with the kids later in the evening (even Grace cracked a smile-- a gigantic, wet one... which was the biggest smile I've seen on her face in looooooong time).

Jacob started out with the boat going as slooooow as possible, puttering around the lake like it was the slow boat to China, but after seeing his sister get whipped around he finally got brave and let us kick up the speed a few knots.

Good, good times!

Wednesday was spent primarily getting Grace ready for her trip, yawn! I'm just hoping that she remembers who she is this week, and comes home with a different heart.

Thursday was fantastic; we put the bikes on the car and zoomed up to Milwaukee. On our pit stop up at Wheel and Sprocket I almost make a gigantic impulse buy; a shiny new bike I don't really need but completely wanted:

A Townie Commuter

ooooooooooooooooo... ain't she purty:-)

But at almost $600, and almost exactly like the bike I already own (except mine isn't candy apple red, doesn't have color matching fenders or a bike generated light, oh, and the step through, foot forward design is fantastic...) I couldn't justify the purchase, boo.

Sooo practical, and completely no fun, that's me! But when I got to thinking about how much the pretty bike would get dinged up from the bike rack, etc, I couldn't do it. So really, I let the bike go out of consideration for the BIKE, awwwwww. And so true to my cheap self, I think I'd like to find a vintage step thru off Craigslist and fix er up, something simple yet cool for the trails at home.

After a sushi lunch at Whole Foods (which wasn't so great, btw), we parked at Bradford Beach and rode the trails south-- gorgeous! We made a few scenic stops along the way, checking out the new Children's Museum and the Dennis Sullivan (tall ship).

Somehow we ended up in the 3rd Ward, which is just as lovely as I've heard it was: awash in culture, cool restaurants, and fantastic shops... while we were trying to orient ourselves, a very nice bike cop stopped and gave Jacob a free sundae certificate for wearing his helmet, and told us how to get to Bastilles Day without getting ourselves killed (he told us we could ride on the sidewalks to avoid certain death, praise sweet Jesus... he said it wasn't kosher per se, but better than getting flattened by the crazy Milwaukee traffic). Bastilles day was nearly empty, so we got to take full, unfettered advantage of all the offerings minus the crazy crowds. Jacob did some goofy activity and got the photos to prove it:

that kid does a great "running" simulation

He also got to try out the Wii fit, which was silly (and I'm not sure worth the $100 price tag...), and then the dude won a prize for climbing a silk rope a la Cirque Du Soleil... the performer asked for volunteers, and since my guy is completely shy and didn't get the lady's attention, he took it upon himself to mosey under the performer's barricade and climb her rope while she wasn't looking (after all the other kids gave it a go).

It was surprising, yet very exciting to see him being so bold!

He won $3 in "Bastilles Bucks" which he spent on a rosewater lemonade from Aladdin, where we got the BEST EVER chicken plate with garbanzo beans and rice, crazy good! We'll have to figure out where it is and go back for more...

We got utterly lost on the bike ride back to the car, and ended up cruising down a gigantic hill at breakneck speed, hoping to make it back before the storm began. And here's me, having heart failure thinking Jacob was going to lose his balance down the hill and go speeding into traffic.... but he did great.

We got the bikes on the car, pointed ourselves in the right direction (which was harder than it sounds...), upon which time the skies opened up and it POURED, the whole way home.

Yesterday it took a while to get going, mostly because it stormed all morning, and because Jacob was enjoying his lethargy a leeeetle bit too much... getting him motivated was pretty painful for all of us, but when we finally we got a break in the clouds we threw the bikes on the car and headed towards Racine for our last bike trip.

For the most part the trip wasn't too exciting: we got lunch at Shogun, where we were treated to a really cool show by the hibachi chef. The salad dressing was tasty (like a wasabi/rice viniagrette), and the food was pretty good (it was also incredibly $$$ for a little lunch snack, so we probably won't head out there again any time soon).

We checked out the new art installation, the "orbs" or some such thing, got some gelato and then headed back on the new leg of the bike trail, north past the zoo. It was super hilly but scenic, and well worth the huffing and puffing... but we had to head back so we could shop for Jacob's last minute birthday party and pick up his birthday present: a unicycle (cool!).

SO here I am, trying to simultaneously bake/create a cake for the little dude. I have no idea exactly what I'm going to do... I know he wants something that will erupt and/or light on fire... with a request not to replicate the awesome exploding volcano cake from a few years ago (it was pretty kick ass...) while also filling up water balloons, planning an obstacle course, the menu, and doing a couple loads of laundry (and blogging...), whew! Here's to hoping we can pull it off:-)

I think eventually, tho, I need to put some clothes on-- guests are arriving soon, ack!

Bad Day:-(

I am having a *very bad* day and am completely bummed...

(Chicago this weekend was amazing and I'll post some pics later when I'm feeling less dreary.)

I did something stupid this weekend, knew it was a bad idea even, and shore 'nuff, did it anyway. It's another shining example of how fortunate I am to have survived to the ripe old age of 38 with all my parts intact.

Here goes:
Instead of taking my beloved demon pup to the kennel which she hates but is not a bad place altogether, I left her with a co worker, who offered to have Maggie stay for the night. I figured since she has some property, a fenced in kennel and a couple dogs and it was only for one night, Maggie would be happier there than holed up in the smelly old kennel.
When we dropped her off, we were initially freaked out by her gigantic dog, who was acting pretty aggressive towards Ms Maggie, but we had to get going to catch the train and didn't have much time to quibble.
When we went to pick the girl up, she had what appeared to be a cut on her leg-- co worker has no clue how it got there, no big deal--we'll get Maggie home and check it out, clean it, etc.
When I start to clear away the hair, turns out it was a *giant* laceration, about 2 inches long, and deep-- and then I notice that there's more small lacerations on her hips and belly, which start to look an awful lot like a bite pattern. So then it hits me: Maggie was almost eaten by a St Bernard! ACK! Soon after, we notice that she's crying and limping... and I'm freaking out-- she cried throughout the night and wasn't walking well this morning. Sure enough, I get her to the vet and he tells me it's bad, and already infected. She'll need to be sedated and have stitches, antibiotics, etc and etc... poor thing.
And it looked like they were shooting tons of fireworks off while she was there, too, which she's deathly afraid of-- so now, in my lazy ass effort to save a few bucks we have a gun dog who is very likely going to be gun shy, might have a raging deep wound infection, and a gigantic vet bill.
@#$%ing idiot! So here I sit, holed up on a vacation day waiting for the vet to call so I can pick her up, pondering how to approach the co worker: is her dog up to date with his shots? How could she not know he was aggressive and would bite a puppy? (she's having a baby and should probably be a litte worried... esp if she didn't know that the cut was actually a bite). Anyhoo.
It's a wonder my kids are still alive...

That, and we got a notice in the mail that the priest wants to build a 3000 square foot DAYCARE center behind our property. He is not legally within his rights to do so, but since he's richer than anyone on the town board, he's been cleared to break all sorts of rules throughout the years, some of which have become a problem for us. We have incredible drainage and flooding problems due to the GIGANTIC nun mansion he built a couple years ago and paved (which he wasn't supposed to do, because of our water problems, but whoopsie!)-- and where the hell would he put his sign? Right on/adjacent to our property, that's where, with all sorts of people driving up and down that stupid service road all day long (which is not actually a road, and thus has no drainage ditch, etc). Good god, it's depressing. And in light of all the recent media coverage, why anyone would allow priests access to their children is beyond me, seriously.
I need a cocktail, and it's only noon. Boo.

p.s. Ms Maggie, after 20 some staples and $200. Crap.

Best.Bread.Ever. (Strawberry Rhubarb Bread)

Makes one loaf (I doubled it and made TWO):

3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon rum
1 cup flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour (I used all wholegrain white, worked great)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sour cream (used yogurt)
1/2 cup diced rhubarb
1/2 cup sliced strawberries
1/4 cup chopped pecans

Topping:
1 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 to 3 1/2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Beat together the brown sugar, vegetable oil, egg, vanilla and rum. Combine the flours, salt and baking soda; stir. Add dry ingredients to first mixture with the sour cream. Stir in strawberries, rhubarb and pecans.
Spread into a greased 9×5-inch loaf pan — the batter will be very thick. Combine topping ingredients except the pecans, they should be thick and clumpy; add the pecans last and sprinkle over the loaf.
Bake at 350° for about 55 to 65 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool at least 10 minutes on rack before removing the bread from the pans.

End your season of strawberry picking with a slice of bread and a strawberry dacquiri, and you'll (almost) forget what a pain it was;-) Sadly, we only got about 7-8# of berries in the freezer (vs 15# from last year), but they were worth every mosquito bite! I'll just have to ration myself...

(My compliments to Smitten Kitchen for the recipe)

20th Reunion

It's been 20 years (well, a little bit more than 20 years since I graduated early...) since I left high school, and who'd a thunk?
It went by quickly, and mercifully so, as it was far from the highlight of my younger years.
And I barely have an inkling to go to the reunion, since I recognize almost none of the names; and those I *do* recognize I can't remember exactly why... so going and standing in a room of strangers would be the equivalent of spending $$ and time to have a random night out, only with greater expectations that I'd see someone vaguely familiar yet still wouldn't have much to say to them (...and I've had enough of those experiences to know that they aren't terribly satisfactory; tous les dimanches, peut-être?)

The people I *really* want to connect with from school days gone by wouldn't be there-- they'd be the kids who dragged my butt all over Chicago, and the one kid I spent most of my time with-- and where the heck are THEY? No clue.


I get the impression after talking with a long lost relative that this is a time when we begin to take an accounting for our lives, probably the first in a long line of many that are to come as we get older. It's as if the milestone not only bears enough significance in our own minds to warrant an inventory, but is spectacle enough such that we feel the pressure to present what we've created for ourselves in these 20 years to the world for review.

We're 38 now: have we gotten married? Divorced? Remarried? Are our children the same age we were when the stories of our high school lives were written-- or are we struggling our way thru the toddler years, or with the notion that it's almost too late to have children at all anymore?
Did we go to college, take up employment in our field of study, or are we changing careers (this seems common for many)? Does it matter if we stayed at home when our kids were born or if we blazed on thru to continue building our careers as we were encouraged to do as part of our generation?
And what defines us as people: what we studied, where we work, our income? Is who we are made more important by who we married, our children, or where we live?
I dunno.
Is my life more or less important because I decided to skip med school and travel in favor of a family and a life with too many hobbies?
I guess this is my own life's question, and what I have to present to the world:

Dumb Head

Dodododododododododo....
I am waaaaaay too easily entertained! Between the "dododo's" and the weird organ thang that's going on, I could listen to this song over and over with a giant smile on my face, tee hee.
"Dumb Head", bwahaaahahahaaa!

Dumb_Head___The_Sharades.mp3

I have sooooo been enjoying the brief stint I've had pretending my children are at some Swiss boarding school for the summer (instead of Grandma's for the past 2 days...), and am trying to squeeze as much enjoyment of my alone time as I can until they return in an hour or so (and so what am I doing with my precious and rare chunk of ME time? Blogging... der).

In the meantime, here are some very cute pics of Ms Maggie pants, who isn't nearly as cute in person once you factor in the puppy spazticity (she opened the back room door last night with her schnozzle, a new trick, and let in about 80 gagillion mosquitoes-- I spent the better part of 30 minutes squashing them and pretty much freaking out at the sight of them, knowing they'd be keeping me up all night... that, and she ate a brand spankin new eyeshadow I splurged on- dangit! How does a dog eat eyeshadow? And why?)awwwww..... cute little demon puppy:-)

Still no ideas for the vacation we're taking next week. I figured we could load up the bikes and take a new bike trail each day and check out the cool stuff each town has to offer (Monday, Madison bike trail; Tuesday, Racine; Wed, drop Grace off for 5 days at Lifest and go camping at Point State Beach for more bike riding; Friday, Milwaukee). I've gotten no raves from the children (except Grace, who is only eagerly anticipating the 5 days of non stop concerts and general mayhem until 2 am-- better her than me, is all I gots to say about it...)

I figure that since we're not spending any big $$ on hotel rooms or kennel costs, we can really splurge on museum entry, trying different restaurants, renting kayaks, taking a boat tour, etc and etc, but *meh*-- nobody is all that interested but me.

On a side note, I discovered there's a great vegetarian restaurant in Brookfield I'd like to check out: Cafe Manna and Dandelion in Madison-- personally, I could spend the whole week biking to great restaurants and pigging out, but that's just me:-)

And HEY! I paid off my car loan to-day, tra la la!

Nothing is more lame than owing someone $$, so my life is a little less lame than it was yesterday, a vast improvement in my eyes.

And not only that, but it's a shortie week and we're closer to the weekend than usual:

wheeeeeeeee!

Arhg!

First the rains came, then the lands became inundated with flocks and evil swarms of bloodthirsty zombie spawn-- so freaking many that I've taken to dressing in head to toe coverings, like a FLDS-slash-headscarf wearing muslim in my attempts to keep them from biting me, some 100+ at a time.
When I was picking strawberries this afternoon, I could run my hand along my headscarf and crush whole hand fulls of them at a time, while dozens dive bombed for my eyeballs. Ewwwwwwww!
It's not bad enough that the strawberries, instead of the golf ball sized ones I had last year, are now quarter sized and smaller due to the flooding-- but I'm being eaten alive and left itching in my attempts to get them off the plants and into the freezer. Boo.
So far, I have 2 large ziploc bags, with probably a couple more to go before they're done. And while they're sad little strawberries, only a shadow of their former selves, they'll taste just fine in their next lives as strawberry margaritas and strawberry rhubarb pies... and I honestly should be grateful that the plants didn't just up and die having been under water for the better part of a couple weeks.
Sigh! I also got about 2 large bags of chopped rhubarb in the freezer, also not happy that it was temporarily an aquatic plant for a spell...

So I'm trying to plan a vacation for a chunk of time I've had reserved for over a month-- and I have absolutely NO idea what to do. None. Nada. Zilch. We're going to Chicago to see Cirque Du Soleil over the 4th of July weekend, but there's no holiday festivities going on (go figure...), and other than wandering around in Grant Park, Millennium Park, etc, I have no clue what to do in the Windy City. I'd like to check out Old Town/Greek Town, maybe China Town and a Japanese grocery (the kids love Japanese candy a la Woodmans), and maaaaaaaayybe take the kids to see Blue Man Group. But then after we return home, what to do for the remaining 5+ days?

I was thinking about going the tourist route and heading to the Wisconsin Dells-- we've never been there during the summer and might like the Mt Olympus theme park, Wisconsin Ducks, Wizard Quest, etc, and oogle the "waaaaaaay worse than dinky strawberries" outcome of the flooding in the area... do that for a couple days, hike at Devil's Lake/Parfrey's Glen for a few hours and then head back home to rescue the chickens. After that, we can do a day trip to Milwaukee (art museum, ride bikes by the lake, drool over the mansions of the rich and fabulous, take a class at Whole Foods, etc and etc), ride the Glacial Drumlin Trail and then wind up the week with a big nerd-a-lee trip to the Renaissance Faire, childhood workplace of old (and thus a nemesis-- I kindof reached my saturation point for that place years and years ago... but the kids like it).

I'm also trying to plan a trip to Peninsula State Park for the end of August-- love their bike trails, and both kids know how to sail so maybe we can rent a sailboat for the day, etc....
There's so little time available to take actual vacations, thus it's just so much easier to travel to familiar places vs head to parts unknown. That, and the kids aren't exactly gung ho travellers, making it hard to navigate uncharted waters with two boat anchors in tow, if ya know what I mean (one heavy object being a teenager who is horrified she can't get a signal to text her friends or find an outlet to plug in her straightener, and the other would rather be home playing on his computer) Sheesh! Kids these days...:-)

I'm hoping to head to the Craftacular that's happening this Saturday up in Madison, wheeeeeee! If anyone is up for a roadtrip, lemme know-- fun times and good food await us in Madison:

hey dere

Blogging from camp this week; I can't tell you how excited this makes me, compliments of my handy new iphone. Technology for me is like a warm, fuzzy blanket, one that makes me feel that the world is far more safe and orderly than it probably is, especially since I'm holed up and responsible for the health and well being of 100-some kids in the woods and all....
This is such a great time to relax and catch up on reading and other stuff I've put off, all those magazines I've let sit, some from early 2007.I'm eyeballing a book on beekeeping and one on Quebec, both I'd like to explore in the near future. I've tried to be more contemplative in my stretches of free moments, but invariably, if my thoughts aren't interrupted by the occasional head injury, my ADHD riddled brain changes channels before too many solid thoughts can form-- typical!
The latest quandary du jour is whether to send the boy child to a different school, a Montessori program that would hopefully lead him to his tribe of creative thinkers vs the typical rough and tumble kids he doesn't jibe with in his current school. He doesn't want to go, of course, but when your lil dude says it's cause the kids will hate him at the new school as much as the old one, makes you think the kid needs a change even more than you thought, n'est pas?
School sucks major ass, that's all I can say; from the hellacious days I was forced to endure my ownself to struggling daily alongside the kids-- the asscrap never ends.
Enough about that...
I'm still figuring out how to blog from the phone; Ill try and post photos of camp if it's possible.

Blue Girl Group?

I'm watching a documentary on PBS, and I've discovered a new occupational goal:
I want to work with Blue Man Group.
Because while I find working in the grown up world slightly fascinating (only because it doesn't make a whole lot o sense to me), my personality is still too much on the "mucho grande" side for many in the workplace (altho GI has been awesome! Some very cool ladies and docs there...).
I seem to have a limited shelf life for a lot of places; I've seen too much of the world, my perspectives are different, and my filters don't always work the way they should (probably moreso the last one than the rest, tee hee).

But anyhoo, I miss art. I miss interacting with the world in an interesting way... cause there's only so much fun I can whip up in these parts without being irreparably branded in the Burlington Circles (not that I wouldn't eventually find that entertaining, in retrospect).

If I wasn't so afraid of injury and my parts weren't already cranky, it would be way fun to start a Roller Derby team: I prefer to skate on ice, but the local roller rink is a nice substitute-- and how much fun would it be to kick some girlie ass after an exasperating day fighting the man AND evil girl children (not that the boy child isn't becoming a stinky teenie weiner his own self)?

And if I wasn't such a lazy, fearful slug I'd be well on my way to SOMETHING more than working and fruitless cleaning o the Casa K (a nod to: http://thekaetlancaresnot.blogspot.com/ I have a "Casa K" of my very own, so I'm not a big fat copycatter, I swear).

...Working, cleaning, and feeding the next generation of slugs-- that's quite a legacy there.
But I know if I wasn't always stuck in the "Go--See--Do" pattern that keeps me spinning in circles yet never really getting anywhere, I might actually be able to pinpoint a goal, a destination, something I'd like to accomplish before my attention wavers and I'm off to the next flight of ideas--- wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

What's another thing I'd like to do??

Oh yeah! I'd like to start having house concerts in the back part of the property; rent a port-a-wizmo ('cause I don't want strangers fingering my oddities in the domicile), build a little stage, and have folks over for a concert. There was a cool guy who was having some house concerts for a while, but I think his white carpets and overloaded potty eventuallybecame a deterrent for having strangers over. Nice guy... living his dream of doing something cool-- and a local guy, too.

When we were in Austin (story coming soon, I promise), we stumbled upon a fantastic little store in the barrio where I used to live in an Airstream trailer (best living space ever!).
When we checked it out, as I am a huge suck for vintage clothing and such, it turned out that the owner was having a little party in the back-- complete with bands and authentic Texas Bar-B-Que.
Within a few minutes, she knew our life history, we knew hers, and she was hooking us up with some Lone Stars, offering us some weed (totally legal in Austin, I swear...), and shoving us in the direction of the food-- all while sporting the most delightful southern drawwwlllllllllll.

Ah! Southern hospitality, only to be found in glorious Texas. But how fun is that, to have your yard full of people, having a good time (and with no Martha Stewart Maneuvers? That's my special little problem... "hardcore hostess syndrome", SO not a good thing). I'd move back to Austin in a heartbeat-- too bad it isn't going to happen anytime soon, boo.
To be continued...

Home Again:

Our trip to the Motherlands was very nice; the weather was beautiful and I tried to cram as much into our short afternoon as I could:

Burgers at the Spot ($20 for 4 burgers and 3 root beer whirls! ...and no-- they were NOT all for me-- I had 3 hungry adolescents and their raging hormones to feed. Boy howdy! It's expensive to eat junk...).

Surprise, surprise: turns out the kids didn't want to hang with me (snif!), and once I was able to contain my sadness, Maggie and I headed off to the lake for a walk.

She was AWFUL, btw:

She's a larger girl, so people don't think she's a still a puppy, and since she's a country dog, she's never seen so many people, animals, or citified (aka "not afraid") birds in her life... thus she was fairly HYSTERICAL the whole time trying to jump on, lunge at, and otherwise freak out every living creature who happened to be near us. Argh! Needless to say, my hands are raw from trying to hold her leash, and 1/2 of Kenosha thinks I'm a psycho "Dog Whisperer" wanna be, as I expected her to heel and not wander aimlessly on her leash as most pet owners allow their dogs to do.

Funny, tho-- there seem to be only two types of dogs who live in the city: little tiny pipsqueak/floofey dogs who pull on their leashes, dragging their (completely ridiculous looking) owners around, and scary looking pitbulls. Thank goodness, the pitbulls were far and above the best behaved; perhaps because their brains are larger than a co-co puff and no small children were in range for dining upon.

But where are the other kinds of dogs? The medium sized, Maggie sort-of *useful* pups (i.e. hunting dogs, etc)? Do you think there's an "ankle biters and children eaters only" ordinance on the city books?

Hmmmmmmm...maybe THAT'S why the nice city folks were looking at Maggie and I so strangely....yeah, that's probably it.

Other Kenosha highlights:

The kids and I drove around my favorite cemetery, and checked out the beautiful old tombstones and Dad's gravesite:

This one's my all time favorite:

We also made a visit to Isetts Park, playground of old:

Check out these AMAZING old pieces of playground equipment, upon which I learned at a wee age that metal is an excellent conductor of heat and gets booty blistering hot:

See the painful, sharp edges, perfect for slicing open your scalp? They just don't make 'em like they used to..

And the harsh laws of gravity, as in "when you suspend yourself from the monkey bars upside down and slip, you will not fly upwards like a fairy, but come crashing down on your silly head and see stars":

p.s. once upon a time, I remember my butt fitting into those *leeeetle tiiiiny* bebbe seats and screaming: UUUUUUUUUUNDERDAWG!!!

We also made a poorly advised trip to Woodman's, beloved Grocery Store of Bargains. They have the best organic produce/natural foods selection, and at super prices. Sad to say, tho, it was a fairly sucky trip for two reasons:

#1, the place was a mob scene; it was nearly impossible to get around without running someone over

and #2, grocery prices really HAVE gone up, boo! (somehow I thought this was some urban legend I would manage to escape; guess not)

The kids and I then picked up some food at "Pacific Wok", which was quite lovely. Their sushi was tasty, altho not nearly as bodacious as what we attempt to make at home (ours is always SUPERSIZED, prolly cause we don't really know how to make it civilized like you should), and the teriyaki steak was tasty. I would have liked more veggies, but I'm surely in the minority with that one... I would totally go again (but skip the "steamroller", that was yuckky times 1,000,000).

Ok... one more photo:

This sweet little girl had her rear leg AMPUTATED yesterday (the day before this photo was taken). Insane, truly. She's hopping around like nothing ever happened, trying to keep up with Maggie and just generally being the same happy go getter she was when she had all four appendages. Really, a huge testament to the indefatigable nature of dogs. Lovelovelove this girl!

Today...

I did a leeeeettle bit of something and a whooooole lot of nothing...

Since the MACRO portions of the gardens are complete, it was finally time to focus on the micro, as these are the last few details I need to complete before the weather gets hotter and I lose interest in all things garden-ey.

I planted a few sedums, sempervivium (hens and chicks), and creeping thyme in the chicken coop walkway (that was the little bit, as the plants are *teeny tiny*):

Lookin' gooooood

I also raked as much of the nepeta out of the much neglected front gardens as I could (they're the oldest and most well established, and always seem to be overlooked. Must be because there's a swamp up there, complete with scads of mosquitoes, which dims my enthusiasm a wee little bit...).

And so LORRY BE, HALLELUJAH-- stick a fork in me, I think I'm done!

The boys are sleeping in the tipi tonight, hope the skeeters don't drain em dry by morning:

And here's a little something, just for funs:

Ride 'em, CharlieCat! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee

p.s. all trips for the weekend are OFF, boo. But it looks like dd is trying to wrangle me into a trip to the motherland (Kenosha) to visit her friend. It sounds like she lives in the vicinity of the finest dining in K-Town, the Spot (!), where greazy cheezeburgers with extra pickles and grilled onions await us. The neighborhood around the Spot is fantastic, too, so between the historic downtown area with it's amazing architecture and the gigantic cemetary, I'm hoping we can get some walking in, and maybe with Ms Maggie, who could use a little city walking for a change. I hear that the Farmer's Market is up and running, so I might just get my market fix, after all:-)

Grandmere asked a few weeks ago, too, if I could take some photos of the tree planted in Isetts Park when my Grandfather died, so that'll be a nice segueway as well; I don't think Grace has been to her VERY OWN park before (we used to tell kids that it was our park when we were little-- what a bunch of snot faces we were!) I myself haven't been there in manymany years, I probably won't even recognize it.

And if we stay long enough, it would be nice to score a patio spot at Villa D Carlo's and do some quality people watching. We had a great time riding our motorcycles there about this time last year; probably one of the best family trips of the year, and by far the simplest:-)

Sooooooooo, if you see a wistful mom roaming the streets of Kenosha with an unruly puppy and three teenagers doing their best to look disaffected and bored, wave hello; as a country girl lost in the city, I'll try my very hardest not to look too wierded out-- I promise.

Madison?

OhhhhhKayyyyyyy... who wants to go to Madison with me tomorrow? I have a hankerin' not only to visit this super cool store I've been blog stalking for over a year:
http://glitterworkshop.com/dish/

but to stuff myself on fantastic foreign foods (Thai on Willy St, Nepalese on State St, that African joint by the capital, French food, rah rah rah!). I also like Frieda's on State, but their food is only so-so-- but any place that paints larger than life reproductions of Frieda Kahlo paintings on the walls is my kind of spot, I just won't delve much further than their extensive margarita and tequila menu... wheeeeeeeeee!

I'm feeling antsy and a need to wander; must be my sassy new haircut that the sweet young girl tried to talk me out of... even Ms. Gracy pant's friends were like, "what's up with your HAIR, Grace's mommy?".
Well, truth be told, girlies, Grace's mommy needs to get her groove on, so get used to it, 'cause she's about ready to jump out her very own skin with Spring Fever and is in search of some adventure, even if it is only of the shopping and eating kind (must be why I'm broke and FAT, according to my "Health Risk Assessment" I had to do at work yesterday. Broke I can deal with, but FAT?! Egads-- nothing I can't fix, tho, with the help of my friend Ann Louise Gittleman). Maybe if I took a lovely stroll or ride on the Madison bike trail after my snacking, I'd be less likely to be a pudgy liability to my employer, tee hee).
Anyhoodle.

If ya'll are up for a trip, let me know-- I'll drive and EVERYTHING... but with the Farmer's Market being open these days, mebbe Saturday would be better anyhow.
Either way-- fun people who can actually get together and do stuff, where are youuuuuuuuuuu?
This is sortof my new 'do; dark brown with bright red streaks. Fiesty!

Viva La Menstruacion!

Ok, just when you think the world is altogether too dull, you stumble upon something really entertaining:
www.vivalamenstruacion.com/
And I am sooooo bummed, 'cause the one I want is all sold out:-(

On a side note, I have been researching tattoo artists, not necessarily because I want one, just 'cause I apparenty have little else of substance to do since I haven't been able to sleep lately.

I've noticed that there is a distinct difference between the work that's done in Austin and what we have going on here in the Midwest. I'd say that down south the quality of art is much better, with much less dark lines and more complex use of colors. Here, most of what I've seen are traditional, old style stuff you'd expect to see on a sailor or a scary drunken biker/satan worshipper type.

Here's a wee sample of what I like:

http://www.southsidetattoos.com/Noska.htm
http://www.reztattoo.com/tina.html
http://tattooedladyhistory.vox.com/

This one is actually from the midwest; too bad I can't see it better:-)

Today We Planted:

Elliot, brigatta, spartan blueberries (early, midseason, and late berries; hope they pollinate ok~).
Bok Choi, napa cabbage, chiogga beets. Lavender (two varieties), tarragon, sage, transplanted a stella d oro daylily, more garlic, some runner beans to climb on the chicken coop, datura (two varities), eight arbor vitae, 2 black spruce, and 3 dogwoods.
On Saturday, we tilled the chicken coop pen/yard, and spent the day broadcasting mounds of rich compost all over the property, which was stinky but oddly satisfying...
And then we planted:
squashes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, chard (the rainbow variety) some stargazer lilies that were on clearance (my favorite), a couple specimen lilies for fun (arum corunatum and ismene hymenocallis), thyme, majoram, rosemary, and a few other things... I also finally got around to digging up the bee balm out of my coop garden and got it all planted out in the prairie where it belongs.

I'm sore, and sunburned, and couldn't be happier with how everything looks.
Spring! I hope it lasts and lasts...