Rollie’s latest dark masterpiece, A Person is a House for Blood.
Archive for the ‘Beauty’ Category
Another Dark Masterpiece
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010This Kid’s Got Heart
Friday, April 30th, 2010Lots of heart.
She just came up to me with this and said, “I made this for you, mama.”
Tiller’s Latest Song
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010Rollie likes to invent wind machines to scare people. Tiller likes to make up songs. I am not kidding when I say that my jaw often drops at the inventiveness of her lyrics. This latest song was performed on my patio yesterday afternoon. I missed the first few lines, but todd and I are getting better at catching her songs on the Voice Memo app on our iPhones.
To set the scene, she is standing on the brick wall beside our patio. Dash and I are sitting below, and she has her arms stretched out wide and is making eye contact with us as she belts these out, like she was some banshee Julie Andrews character. When she discusses that she is going to do something, she is referring to jumping off the wall and flying like a bird. The breathless part of it is her jumping off then climbing back up.
This all started when she told me that she had jumped off the wall earlier and she thinks she “might have flown up a little bit.”
These children, so very different, absolutely rock my world. Even Rollie, whom i overheard tell Todd as I was leaving for my run tonight, “I hope she doesn’t come home.” I mean, what an ass – I just finished cooking his dinner and then doing the dishes. And yet i love him anyway.
Yes, my feelings were hurt. Doesn’t happen often, but it happened.
My Niece, Miss Luci
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
Just had to post a picture of my sweet niece, Luci.
I’m always posting pictures of Dash, who I get to see so much more often than my niece. This is Luci. Last time she appeared in a post on my blog, she looked like this. See how that happens? Four or five months and suddenly they look all grown up and like a little lady.
How lucky am I to have a boy and a girl, and a niece and a nephew? The luckiest.
Disjointed Beach Post
Friday, April 2nd, 2010Fair warning: This will be a very disjointed post. I’m all over the place this morning, with lots of little things to say and none of them important. (Self-promotion, you see, is not my strong point.)
We’re at Hilton Head for the weekend. Todd needed a bit of a vacation before he starts the new job in a couple weeks. I’ll hit the high points for you:
It’s supposed to be in the 80s all weekend and no rain.
I bought my first Disney Princess product for Tiller last night. For some reason, the Princess and the Frog seems less Disneyish to me, and really, that’s just because it’s all New Orleans and has an African American princess on it. I am not self-aware enough to know exactly what this says about me. Suffice to say that Tiller has new Disney “fwip fwops.”
Carrie, I passed that gas station where you felt pukey after girl’s weekend and I thought of you.
I had the grouper last night.
I never knew that one condo could contain this many lighthouses.
The buggies at Bi Lo have drink holders in them. Brilliant.
Todd found the Holy Grail at a local restaurant. The cup. The Holy Grail of Au Jus.
I miss my dog. Hilton Head is nice, and I love the paths running all over the island and the drive is much easier, but in Cape San Blas, I can sit on the beach with my best buddy. He is going to the lake with Aunt Lisa for the weekend, so he will be a happy camper and never miss me, but I miss him.
The Pirate Queen, and her Former Associates
Saturday, March 6th, 2010So, I am the Pirate Queen. I know, I know. . . I should have told you all. But we don’t really talk about it.
That’s a lie. Todd finally told the kids about a year ago.
“Your Mother’s The Pirate Queen.”
I was a little miffed that he didn’t tell them i am The Bandit Queen, because i love her, but I guess Pirate Queen is pretty bitchin’ too. The kids were in awe. They scream and get that scared look when I play pirate queen. We even have an old trunk in our bedroom that belonged to my Aunt Lessie. Todd told the kids that they can’t go into the trunk because it contains a skeleton. In reality, it holds:
a couple of tees that belonged to the kids when they were babies
Love letters and crap from a couple of ex-boyfriends (guess i should get rid of them, but i think they are funny)
three old hat boxes
mardi gras beads
college diploma and cap and gown
pennies
photos
God knows what else. (I don’t open it! There’s a skeleton in there!)
So, the other day, Tiller and I were at Jason’s Deli. The cool thing about JD is that they have both ice cream and a salad bar. I can get healthy stuff and tiller can get diabetes. Win win.
So, we are sitting there. Tiller has her ice cream cone in one hand and her potato chip in another, dipping the chips into the ice cream. Her hair makes her look like a mental patient, because she cut it herself that morning with craft scissors. I am on my iPhone, getting my ass kicked in Scrabble by Jerry Kane, which is sad, because i have like a million hours to come up with a play while Tiller, the slowest eater in the East, finishes her Ice Cream Chips.
Tiller whispers, pointing a finger over my head, her eyes HUGE in her face: “Mama.”
Me, distractedly, because how am I going to overcome the damn EIGHTY POINT WORD JERRY KANE JUST LAID ON ME? “Yes, baby?”
Tiller: “Mama, look. It’s a pirate.” Her frightened whisper catches my attention.
Me, pushing her pointing finger down to the tabletop: “Baby, it’s not nice to point.” I look over my right shoulder as a man walks past. I watch him walk to his table, his back to us, then he pulls out a chair, sits down, and his face is revealed to me as he turns to his dining partner.
He’s wearing an eye patch.
The Decemberists’ The Bandit Queen, for reference:
What are you going to be?
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Tiller and I were sitting on the love toilets this afternoon. (That’s what we call our Jack and Jill toilets, right by each other, but separated by a door. You can hold hands while taking a poo. Love toilets.)
Me: “What ya been doing?”
T: “I’m playing doctor with Snoopy.”
Me: “Are you going to be a Doctor when you grow up?”
T: “Maybe.”
Me: “You will have to study hard.”
T: “I will have to go to college.”
Me: “Yes, you will have to go to college and then medical college, too.”
T: “I can be anything I want to be.”
I nod my head, smiling.
Me: “Yes, you can.”
[Tiller sits there thinking, hand on fist, elbow on her knee.]
T: “Mama?”
Me: [wishing I could just read my magazine in peace.] “Yes?”
T: “What are you going to be when you grow up?”
Me: “Gosh, I don’t know. For right now, I am your Mama.”
T: “You can be anything you want to be.”
Me: “Thanks, baby.”
I think I mostly am what I want to be, but it’s nice to have her support. And it is nice that we are doing something right. She has gotten the message: She can be anything she wants to be.
Good Day Sunshine
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Woke up yesterday with a slight headache, but once I had lunch I felt fine. Spent the whole day outside with the family. Todd (finally) put up my Bulldog bird feeder. I moved Eddie Rabbit back to the edge of the treeline in the backyard, so that he will peek out at us on the patio. We cleaned the patio off, and I moved my new planters where I wanted them. We put out more birdfeed. Checked on the hydrangea I put in (it was one of my birthday gifts). Hung some wind chimes. Todd cleared out a huge section of our ivy and some ugly bushes (no idea what they are, but neither of us particularly like them). Talked about ideas for bed plantings in the future. Looked at bulbs starting to poke up through the ground. Oohed and aahhhed over the yellow crocus popping up around my Redbud. Picked up sticks. Poured pea gravel in the walk near the garage where we get a lot of runoff.
All the while, the kiddos ran around doing a “scavenger hunt” in the yard that I set up before we started. Then, Todd showered and we took the kids to St. Bede’s for some bike riding. One thing I hate about my house is that my street is a cut-through and jerks drive over the hill two houses up from me so fast that the kids wouldn’t have time to get out of the way of a car speeding. Our driveway is too steep to really ride. So, we take them to the park, or to the cul-de-sac up the street to ride. St. Bede’s is the best, though. A large, flat, shaded parking lot where the kids can ride in big sweeping circles. Rollie has gotten great at riding without the training wheels and Tiller is a daredevil with her training wheels. She almost flips that bike over three or four times whenever we take her out. It is gut-wrenching and thrilling to watch them.
Came back home, had a beer while grilling chicken and asparagus, and then ate that with scalloped potatoes. Yum.
Good day. My kids watched ZERO television yesterday. I LOVE warm weather.
Rollie Looks Into a Wardrobe (with Lucy, of Course)
Friday, February 19th, 2010Last night, Rollie chose a kids’ version of one of the Narnia Chronicles (the kids’ books are called “World of Narnia”) for Todd to read to him and Tiller. It is called Aslan, and Todd just said that it was “very abridged.”
After school, I let Rollie play some xBox, since it is friday, and he kept his four scoops, and he had no homework. I wanted him to go outside and play, since it is so nice outside, and we agreed that he would play 30 minutes of video games and then go outside.
Well, he got up and turned the tv off by himself. I did not know that kids were capable of this, but i did not show my alarm, but just rolled with it. He then turned to me and said, “Mama, do you care if I don’t play video games, but don’t go outside, and maybe read one of those wardrobe books?”
Um, does the pope wear a funny hat?!
“Of course,” i said, “where did you put your other ones?” I thought that he meant that he had another of the World of Narnia books and wanted to read it.
“No, I mean the ones with the numbers.”
Oh. He means he wants to read THE Narnia Chronicles.
(Side note: Yes, Todd and I are nerds. The series is on our bookshelves. Along with TLOTR, Harry Potter, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. You know, kids books for nerdy kids and their nerdy parents. Commence fun-making.)
Todd and I thought it was so cool he wanted to read the Aslan book last night, and we discussed whether he could read the real books and thought maybe they were too hard for him. But when he asked me i said, “Well, you can try one. Sure. It is a pretty big boy book, but I think you can try it and you let me know if you have questions about it, or don’t know a word, okay?”
Because i didn’t want to tell him that he couldn’t read it, if he wanted to try, but i also didn’t want him to read it and find it hard and then never go back and try to read it again, because let’s be honest, if you never read The Narnia Chronicles, there is a fundamental gaping hole in your childhood reading and, very likely, your soul.
So, here i am, working on some editing, watching him on the couch with a down comforter pulled over his legs, and his head on a pillow, and he is reading the first chapter of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and I am about to die I am so nervous, but he appears to really be reading it, and . . . I think Todd and I could very likely explode at the dinner table tonight if we get to discuss Narnia with Rollie over dinner.
Update: He just asked me what “inquisitive” and “jollification” meant. Love that he is reading stuff that isn’t dumbed down. Makes me feel like we might be doing something right.
At least for today.
The 80’s Comb
Monday, February 15th, 2010You thought this was going to be some fun post about 80s hairstyles [Robin, I’m lookin’ at you], and oh, are you going to be disappointed. It’s a post about a comb. From the 80s. No, I am not kidding you.
See, we were talking about 80s stuff at a girls’ night recently, and somehow Todd’s comb came up.
We're taking it on Antiques Roadshow next time they come around.
I am pretty sure it is the comb that he had in middle school or high school, because I remember people having similar ones, TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO.
What is truly funny about this is that I started dating Todd eleven years ago this week (we met on February the 13th, 1999) and I think i laughed once or twice about this comb, like, “haha, couldn’t afford a new comb, huh?” and then somehow, i just started using the comb when I was spending the night over there, and one day, the comb was not funny to me anymore, and now i use the comb from 1986, and don’t even think twice about it, and that is just sad, and some kind of even sadder comment on what marriage does to a girl.
Like I’m so downtrodden that I can’t even buy my own damn modern day comb. And if i did buy one, it wouldn’t be aqua, white, and pink, that’s for dang sure.