May 31, 2005
It's a tidbit kind of day
I'm tired, so stringing together something thoughtful and pithy probably isn't going to happen. Here's some chunks from my day:
Clara "Ambien" Jane woke up before 7 a.m. this morning. Now, I know those of you with early-rising children are going to hate me for this, and I totally encourage you to hurl heavy items and obscenities at me. But dammit, it's soooooooooo hard when she wakes up that early. She usually sleeps until 8-8:30. I'm spoiled. Slap me.
But the good news: we were able to make our weekly Target pilgrimage early, before all the good parking spaces by the cart corrals were taken. While we were there, we had the type of encounter that leads to me drawing conclusions about the lack of friendliness in this city.
There was another mom that we kept seeing in the store. She had an infant and a little boy, about two years old. Granted, it was before 10 a.m. and she was carting around a couple of kids, which gives her every right to be surly. I would be, too. I smiled every time I saw her, and every time she glared at me.
But her little boy ... oh, he had eyes for Clara Jane. Whenever we'd pass he'd just gaze at her and grin. Around the fifth time we saw them, he paused, smiled, and said hi to her.
Clara Jane looked at him, looked at me, pointed at him and announced, "Mama! He's a baby!" The poor little guy looked absolutely crushed, not realizing that in Clara Jane's vernacular, everyone is a baby. His mother glared at me extra-hard for that one.
Clara Jane asked to take a nap when we got home. Parents with poor sleepers, you're welcome to kick me in the shins and my husband in the groin for that one. If you could see how Clara Jane presses her hand to the side of her face (the sign for "sleep") and sighs, "Seeeeep," you'd probably want to kick her, too. Or maybe just startle her. It's adorable and it makes me absurdly thankful that for the most part, I have the easiest child in the world.
She napped. I knitted. I've finally started working on my first sweater project. It's a darling little pink and pink varigated striped hoodie from the beautiful Nursery Knits. I finished the baby blanket I was knitting; now I just need to learn how to block it.
This afternoon, after making catering deliveries, I sat myself down and watched a rerun of "Oprah" regarding how women should release their inner sexpot. I've got some issues with this. And of course, you're going to hear them:
1. One week, Oprah is whole-heartedly agreeing with Trinny and Susannah that us gals need to give up the flimsy support-nothing underdrawers and go for the supportive granny garments that are ugly on the inside but pretty on the outside. Now Oprah's whole-heartedly agreeing with Kim Catrall that we need to ditch the granny panties and go with the thongs. Which one is it, Oprah? And why are you so interested in my underdrawers, anyway?
2. Don't tell me that I have an inner sexpot who's dying to get out. I had an inner sexpot, once, way back when. I killed her. She was crushed to death under the mounds of belly flab after the support system of my abdominals muscles was destroyed to retrieve the human being that was created by that inner sexpot. Ever see a front porch collapse with a hound dog under it? That's what happened to her. And just to make really sure she's dead, I suffocate her every day with my granny panties.
3. Frumpy, balding men who are still wearing their circa 1983 Member's Only jackets in a non-ironic way who complain that their wives are no longer the slutty little dreamboats who wooed them into marriage need to be crushed under a porch. Or they need to experience first-hand the inner-thigh chafing that happens when you wear a G-string and hump a pole to your Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease DVDs.
I'm not feeling very empowered right now, Oprah.
I'm supposed to go to the zoo tomorrow, but I'm thinking about cancelling. I'm going to call in fat and frumpy. You know you're feeling fat and frumpy when you don't feel glam enough to go to the zoo.
Posted by Robin at 08:15 PM | Comments (8)
May 30, 2005
Confessions of a Non-Native
After being awoken a second time by scavengers ringing the doorbell on Sunday, B. and I decided to take Clara "Opa!" Jane to the St. Louis Greek Festival. Much like her mother, that child can eat her body weight in gyros, souvlaki and tzaziki sauce.
We had planned to visit Purina Farms, but since someone chose to fight her nap (wasn't me; I passed out about a nanosecond before my head hit the pillow), we weren't able to make it out there in time. Thus, my daughter's first lesson in "you fight your nap, you miss cool stuff". I don't think she got it, because gyros really aren't punishment.
Anyway, we were standing in line for food, and Clara "Opa!" Jane was really not so Opa! at the moment. She wanted to be gnawing on a whole lamb shank and the line was moving slowly. Behind us, there was another couple with a daughter slightly older than Clara Jane, who was asking why that baby was being so whiny and obnoxious. Not that she used those words, but her tone implied.
Somehow, this led to me having a conversation with the little girl's parents. We started out talking about kids, and naps. The other mom said that she was so glad when her daughter stopped taking naps. "I'm dreading that!" I said. "When she naps, I work!". Which led to her asking what I do. I dropped the name of the magazine that employs me. They fawned. The usual routine.
The conversation continued and eventually the man asked if we were native St. Louisans. I told them no, and it was almost like a wave of relief washed over all of us. "Neither are we," he said. "We're from New York originally."
"I had a feeling you weren't from here," I said, dropping my voice. "You don't have the local accent and you're both much too friendly." We all snickered and giggled.
We wound up sharing a table with them, but had trouble continuing the conversation. The music was loud, there were kids to be fed, and I got wrapped up in a conversation with the little Greek grandma sitting across from me, who was sweet enough that she might possible have been sculpted out of phyllo dough, nuts and Greek honey. When she asked if I was Greek, I refrained from saying, "No. I just have exceptionally hairy arms for a gal with my British lineage."
I did talk to the male unit of the couple, asking what brought them to St. Louis. A job, of course. B. wound up here for graduate school, and I came here because B. was here.
He mentioned that, although he and his wife have been here for 15 years, the majority of their friends are also transplants, and I nodded along empathetically. With a few exceptions, most of our friends are also transplants, or from the far reaches of the metro area.
"Yeah, apparently there's a law here that you can't be friends with someone unless you went to high school together," he said, rolling his eyes about the local custom/joke. The story goes that, when one St. Louisian is introduced to another, the first question asked is always, "What high school did you go to?. By answering that question, you can tell a person's ethnic heritage, social class, religion immediately.
We snickered a bit about this custom, and how hard it is to make friends as an "outsider" in this city. It's an old city, with many families who have lived in the same neighborhood for generations. It's not an easy place to be new. I've lived here for six years, and I often still feel new.
After we ate, we all went our seperate ways. But before we left, I saw the wife and daughter sitting at a table while the husband was in the baklava line. I fished in my purse for a piece of paper and a pen, since I've gotten out of the habit of carrying my business cards with me. I wrote my name and email address and stopped by their table on our way out.
I have a joke I stole from my friend PKB about how I'm not currently taking applications for new friends; please try again next time I make an open call for applications. I had told B. that I've been in one of those phases of late. And here I go, talking to strangers and handing out my email address. It could have been worse; I could have given her this URL, which probably would have scared her away. I just felt ... compelled.
I wrote most of this last night with a bunch of interuption. This afternoon, no sooner had I typed about how hard it is to be a non-native in this city, B. and I took Clara Jane to the park. After pushing her on the swing, we were slowly walking to our truck, loitering in front of the picnic shelter, where a Memorial Day barbeque was in full swing. The woman at the grill asked if we lived in ________________________ (the neighborhood next to ours, home to the park.). No, I said. We live a few blocks east.
"That's OK. We're having a picnic for __________________________, but you're welcome to join us."
We declined, since we were on our way to get ice cream. But it just figures. I compose a weak-kneed rant about how difficult it is to make friends in this city, and the next thing I know, strangers are inviting us to have some of their bratwursts.
Maybe our new is finally wearing off.
Posted by Robin at 08:04 PM | Comments (11)
I redesigned
Didya notice?
Posted by Robin at 11:36 AM | Comments (13)
May 29, 2005
A message to the scavengers
Dear Scavengers:
When people leave a huge pile of garbage on the curb the day after a rummage sale, you are not required to ring my motherfucking doorbell and ask if you can take my trash.
If you could read, you would understand the big "Free" sign that's attached to said garbage.
It's on the curb. I don't leave things I want on my curb.
Thank you for waking me up not once, but twice on this lovely Sunday - once in the wee morning hours, and again when I was trying to take a nap after waking up in the wee morning hours. Thanks, also, for waking up my child one hour into a hard-fought nap.
I hope you get stuck by a pin as you dig through my garbage. That'll teach you to ask for permission, you stupid dumpster divers.
Posted by Robin at 12:56 PM | Comments (2)
May 28, 2005
Ideas
Good idea: sending my hounds to the groomers during our yard sale because 1) they smell vile and 2) it keeps them from howling at the customers.
Bad idea: stopping at the Taco Bell drive-thru on the way home from picking up the dog at the groomers.
Bad idea: snapping a cameraphone photo of adorable less-vile Basset hound, dozing in the passenger seat while waiting for food, which will certainly arrive mid-photo session.
Bad idea: being a Taco Bell employee who stuffs one too many Club Chalupas into my bag.
Really bad idea: trying to wrangle bag, cameraphone, and purse while pulling away from the drive-thru, causing spare Club Chalupa to fall from the bag onto the driver's side floor, where it will lay open during the entire drive home.
Really bad idea, even for a dog: being such a lazy hound that you can't be bothered to wake up and risk causing a wreck because, good lord, hound, what's with your sense of smell?? - there's a free, open, unattended Club Chalupa on the floor!!! Chicken! Bacon! Taco Bell aura!
Good idea: checking hound's pulse and make sure she's not dead because there's a free Club Chalupa just a few feet from her and she's not responding!!! The dog who once stuck her head in a 35-gallon vat of barbeque beans and ate until several people drug her away!
Good idea, dog groomer's edition: slipping a little Xanax to the dogs as soon as their owner leaves.
Probably not a good idea: since Club Chalupa is lying on its wrapper and not on the truck floor, putting it back together. Nobody will notice, right?
Always a bad idea: Taco Bell
Always a really, really bad idea: even considering eating Taco Bell off the floor after the dog refuses it.
Posted by Robin at 03:41 PM | Comments (3)
Things I Would Have Rather Been Doing Than Tending My Yard Sale
- Eat Greek food at Greek Orthodox Church's annual festival.
- Sleep.
- Unbake the five dozen muffins I baked for the sale that barely sold.
- Reclaim the real estate on my dining room table that's still covered with yard sale crap that never made it outside.
- Bathe.
- Ponder why anyone would want to buy another person's worn shoes, but would walk right by that pile of cute purses.
- Bathe again, then sleep some more.
- Feed crackers to the geese at the park, just so Clara "Fowl Play" Jane will do her hilarious quacking noise.
- Bathe, sleep, and gorge self on muffins.
The sale was a bit of a bust. We didn't get nearly as much traffic from this one as we did the last one, and the traffic we did have didn't find what they were looking for. Most of the people searching for baby clothes needed boy clothes. Women looking for clothes? They were all so skinny I could fit all of them into one pair of my discarded lardass jeans.
But we did clear out a lot of junk and we're about $80 richer. And I got to meet two people I've really been wanting to meet: Jane and her kids who are so cute it made my ovaries hurt. Her son actually shook my hand and told me it was nice doing business with me, which made me want to keep him. We were also visited by Harper Rose, who is so itty bitty and precious and reeking of that wonderful sweet new baby head-smell that one of my ovaries ruptured, leaving a big pile of human ovum in my driveway.
Maybe that's why muffin sales were slow.
I don't even have any good yard sale weirdo stories, which is a shame. Last sale, there was the lady with the detailed dead cat story that kept me in panic attacks for the duration of my pregnancy. This year, all we had was a skinny young man wearing socks and sandals, speaking with druggy slurred speech who didn't buy anything, but talked at length about his daughter, who, it seems, is 100% identical to Clara Jane. Which was enough for me to say, "Sale's over!" and pack it in. Yard sale weirdos: good. Yard sale creepy guys: bad.
Posted by Robin at 02:13 PM | Comments (6)
May 27, 2005
Friday Shuffle - The Get This Crap Out of My House edition
With all the crap I hauled out of my former office and into my current "office" (the dining room) last night, it's a wonder I can shuffle to my desk at all.
1. Happy Valentine's Day - Outkast
2. Willpower - Replacements
3. I Don't Wanna Grow Up - Tom Waits
4. Garmonbozia - Superdrag
5. Sean Flynn - The Clash
6. Come as You Are - Nirvana
7. Try Not to Breathe - REM
8. Radio GaGa - Queen
9. I Won't Dance - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
10. Talk of the Town - The Pretenders
Posted by Robin at 08:35 AM | Comments (2)
May 26, 2005
Monotony so thick you could drown in it
Yet another boring day.
Clara "Fang" Jane is teething once again, which means she's developed teething-related narcolepsy. This child ... this fruit of my loins ... sleeps whens she's hurting. After her nearly-three-hour snoozeathon, we headed to the mall in search of several hard-to-find magazines for this year's freelance writing foray(The Bark, Oxford American and Mothering. Brain, Child was nowhere to be found.) and cheap child t-shirts. And espresso, of course.
Magainzes: located. Cheap child t-shirts: located. Espresso: located. Not like that's hard.
I could tell you what I made for dinner (flank steak with mushrooms in a butter, garlic and wine sauce, baby greens with balsamic vinaigrette, and red potatoes sauted with Vidalia onions), but that is truly, sorrowfully pathetic and I refuse to do that.
I did get nearly nailed twice today by cars running red lights.
But there's interesting stuff on the agenda. Garage sale! Did I mention that I'm having a garage sale? Did I mention that I haven't seen my dining room table in a week because of this damn garage sale? For the past two nights we've eaten dinner on 1/8th of the card table. The remaining 7/8th? Covered with garage sale crap.
I might get busy tonight and make the batter for my garage sale muffins. Mmmmmmm ... garage sale muffins!
I'm going to lunch with Kara tomorrow. There's always blog material there, right?
Do you know what's the worst part about this mundane spell? I'm realizing that these mundane spells are perfect for triggering ye olde panic disorder. I haven't had a panic attack in months, but I've felt on the verge of one for several days. No reason. If there isn't a tiny bit of chaos, my brain creates its own.
On a final, lighter note: Clara Jane laughs to the point of hyperventilation when I shudder and recoil in horror.
Posted by Robin at 07:59 PM | Comments (3)
May 25, 2005
I spy.
My word, this week is going by slowly. I'm stunned that it's only Wednesday. And I hate being so cliched and dull, but Jesus. It's only Wednesday, but it feels like it's been Wednesday for about three days now.
Of course, I could pass the time with our new toy. Binoculars with a digital camera - what a brilliant idea! B.'s employer - a rather large corporation - has an annual "pride day". Not this kind of pride, unfortunately. That would be a lot more fun with much better outfits and lots of Gay Fuel Engergy Drink. But they did get to build a house for Habitat for Humanity, which is super-cool. A part of Pride Day includes a gift from the company. It's usually something pretty useless. This year, it's the binocular camera. If that doesn't have "incriminating photos of the boss" written all over it, nothing does.
It also has "yet another way for me to piss off my neighbors" written on it in slightly smaller letters.
Speaking of neighbors, we're that much closer to garage sale day, where I'll get to see many of them face-to-face. I'm sure I'll have much better things to write about after that.
And speaking of the garage sale, I'm just about ready for it. I've sold an obscene amount of stuff on Amazon already to cover the deposit for our trip to Cabo San Lucas in October. If I manage to sell all of my old purses in the garage sale, that will probably cover the airfare. I've had a serious purse problem in the past. I'm over it, since all of my purses just wind up with spilled milk and Goldfish cracker dust in them these days.
I'm not happy with the "American Idol" results. Not happy at all. I really wanted Bo to win. Not just because I want to do him. Not just because he's amazingly talented and entertaining.But partially because I can totally see him in a few years, standing on a roof at a party and screaming, "I am a golden god! before drunkenly plunging into a swimming pool. Granted, that's still likely to happen, but it would be much funnier if it was done by American Idol Bo Bice. When done by American Idol Runner-Up Bo Bice, it's just sort of sad. Sort of like if Justin Guarini claimed to be bigger than Jesus Christ.
Clara "Band-Aid" Jane and I went to the park today. Played on the swings, made friends with some second-grade girls (who probably cast at least a dozen votes apiece for Carrie last night, since they're out of school for summer with nothing better to do), and watched four newborn Canada goslings. And not once did I threaten those birds. Not once at all.
Last night I spent the evening doing something I do about once a year: I printed a bunch of writer's guidelines for magazines I enjoy with intentions of doing some "serious writing" and trying to sell some of my stuff. This activity is a sure-fire way to suffocate any creative writing skills I have. That's my excuse for tonight's assinine rambling. That, and pent-up goose rage.
Posted by Robin at 09:45 PM | Comments (4)
Why things happen
You know, the only reason why Bo Bice isn't the new American Idol is because 10-year-old girls have entirely too much access to telephones and entirely too much time to call in votes.
Posted by Robin at 09:43 PM | Comments (3)
May 24, 2005
They gamble and eat a lot of soy
I was reading this article, which contains the following:
But despite battling back in his first round tie against Nieminen to lead two sets to one, it proved to be an assignment which left the Las Vegan struggling to keep up with an opponent 12 years his junior.
Las Vegan? Is that really what people from Vegas are called? That seems awfully ... bland.
I mean, you'd think that the people who come from a place with 99 cent shrimp cocktails would have a moniker a bit more meaty.
Is it obvious that I'm running on no sleep? Seriously, you can tell me. I can handle the truth.
Posted by Robin at 08:51 PM | Comments (3)
May 23, 2005
Fashion Advice
The words "wallpaper stripes" should never, ever be used as a selling point for a shirt. Ever. Especially when it's a plus size shirt.
If I wore that, I'd be in perpetual fear that someone might nail a damn Thomas Kincaide print to my broad back.
Posted by Robin at 11:00 PM | Comments (7)
Tag teamed!
Julie and Bridget have both tagged me to do this meme. I did it a few months ago, before the big crash. I was going to be lazy and just repost it once my archives came back. But, since my tech support is super-busy right now, I figure I'll just do it again. Not a bad idea, since I know my answers have changed.
01. Total volume of music files on my computer?
I've got 5231 songs loaded in iTunes. There are more kicking around my hard drive that I haven't had a chance to import yet.
02. The last CD I bought was?
"Devils and Dust" Bruce Springsteen - got it for Mother's Day.
03. Song playing right now:
After all of today's shrieking, I'm enjoying a bit of quiet, save for Clara Jane's lullaby CD, playing a few rooms away.
04. Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me(in no particular order):
1.Totally ripping off Julie's answer, word for word "Thunder Road" (Bruce Springsteen) Still my all-time favorite song
2. "Beautiful Day" (U2), which I explained at length here.
3. "The Man in Black" (Johnny Cash) It's the quintessential Johnny Cash song, and a great message.
4. "Silent All These Years" (Tori Amos) When I first heard this song, I hated it. H-A-T-E-D. That was back in 1992, when I was 19 years old. After a month or two I realized why I hated it - she was hitting a major nerve. It still applies.
5. (tie) "Jambalaya" (Hank Williams) and "You Are My Sunshine" (Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell) - My paternal grandma used to sing the former to me, and my maternal grandmother sang the latter. These were the first two songs that ever meant something to me, launching a lifetime of music obsession. Lots of wonderful memories, too. Odd that both songs have a Louisiana theme, since both sides of my family have been in Missouri for many generations. Who knows? Maybe those songs are the reason why I make exceptionally good gumbo for a midwesterner.
05. Which 5 people are you passing this baton to, and why?
Holley (because I don't think she did it last time.)
Wendy (because I love to make fun of her taste in music)
Dixie (because she jumps when I tag)
Marybeth (just because I like her.)
Beege (because it'll give her a chance to take her mind off her visit with the in-laws)
Posted by Robin at 05:52 PM | Comments (1)
The reason why Trader Joe is my boyfriend
It's a bad day in 15-month-old-childland. Do not be fooled by the angelic photos from last Friday's trip to the zoo. The reason she's wearing my dad's baseball cap in most of the photos is to hide the devil horns that are sprouting from her scalp.
We've hit what experts like to call a "phase". It's the phase that turns all mothers into slobbering foods with Tubby Custard for brains that renders them incapable of ever finding their car keys. It's the shrieking/whining/total-utter-meltdown phase.
Her father isn't helping matters. Like most parents, it hurts his heart to see his little girl upset. So, she shrieks, and he jumps to her command, forgetting that he only has to hear the shrieking on weekends and for a couple of hours each evening while for me, it's a lifestyle.
Today, we had the kind of shrieking that follows a three-day lovefest with her daddy and grandparents, when she realizes she's once again stuck with me - The Mean One, the one person who won't jump and grant her every wish with every shriek. The one who won't carry her through the store, instead of subjecting her to the horrors of riding in the shopping cart. The one who forces her to sit in a chair at a restaurant - who straps her down and imprisions her!!!, instead of taking her on a little constitutional while The Mean One sits alone at the table, waiting for brunch.
And my brain is officially custard.
Shrieking Day is really bad when it happens to coincide with The Mean One's catering day and we have to go get supplies. Clara "Siouxsie Sioux" Jane shrieked through both stores. She shrieked through each leg of the car ride. At one point she became so overcome with anger that she threw her water bottle, her binky, her hat and every book within her reach (she travels with a small personal library). When she had exhausted all of her flinging materials, she did what anyone who is raging against the machine would do - she removed both of her shoes and flung them. She got some of my brain custard on one of them when it whipped past a little too close to my ear.
Thank God one of our stops was Trader Joe's, where the people are nice. Oh so nice. And they never shriek or throw their shoes.
When we arrived at the check-out lane, Siouxsie Sioux was in full Cities in Dust" warbling shrieking meltdown mode. "Sorry," I told the clerk as he gave me a sympathetic look. "We're cranky today. And my 'we' I'm not being cute. I mean, we're both cranky," I said, removing Siouxsie Sioux from the cart before the seat could eat through the flesh of her legs!!! He smiled and continued to look sympathetic as he rang up my purchases.
When he got to my bottle of Three Buck Chuck - if you lived with The Shrieking, you'd thank God for decent cheap wine, too - he asked to see my I.D.
"You're just saying that because I told you I'm cranky and you're trying to put me in a good mood."
He no longer looked friendly and sympathetic. He looked very, very serious. "No, I'm asking for your I.D. because you don't look like you're 21."
I'm 32.5, exhausted, massive dark circles under my six hours of sleep eyes, wearing no makeup aside from a little mascara and tinted lip balm.
You know, he can blow sunshine up my skirt and tell me I don't look like I'm 21 all day, and I won't care because sometimes, that sun feels damn good on my ass.
That's true love, my friend.
Posted by Robin at 05:11 PM | Comments (4)
May 21, 2005
It's rummage sale time. Where are my panties?
Next Saturday I'm holding a rummage sale. Not a garage sale; I don't have a garage. And rummage is the operative word, since my intention is to lay out some plywood slabs on cinderblocks, dump all my useless crap onto them, and have a big rate schedule posted. I'm not spending hours and hours and hours sticking little color-coordinated stickers with initials and prices on crap like I did last time. I spent days doing that last time, and I honestly believe that all those hours, sitting still and quietly working, gave my diseased ovaries time to prepare for battle because during our last Memorial Day Weekend rummage sale, I got knocked up.
As thankful as I am for that, I don't intend to stage a repeat performance and I'm taking all necessary measures: no price tags, no sex, no post-rummage sale celebratory beer and barbeque, followed by sex. I'm not letting anyone else put their crap in with my crap, just in case the fertility fairies stowed away into my house with the crap my friends were selling. I won't be watching Confessions of a Dangerous Mind with B. and stopping halfway through to have sex. Just to be extra-safe, I'm not going to watch anything in the following weeks that features Chuck Barris. That means no Newlywed Game, no Dating Game, and if anyone comes to my sale humming Barris' 1962 hit, Palisades Park, they can surely expect a strong and swift knee to the groin from me, the woman who will not be getting knocked up on rummage sale weekend again.
The last rummage sale was more like a one-house flea market. B. and I had our own collective crap, since we both came into this marriage with our own stuff, and have since gathered our own stuff, making for a grand total of three housesholds worth of stuff for two people. And then we had the crap of his brother. I haven't talked much about M. If you can't say something nice ... M. has lived in various parts of Europe since Oct., 1999, shortly after B. and I bought our house and got married. M. figured that, since we had just purchased a house with a huge basement, we wouldn't mind storing his shit indefinitely.
And when I say shit, I mean shit. Trash. Garbage. Moved into my new home in plastic shopping bags. Shit that included a jar of mayo a year past its expiration date, which was quite young and fresh compared to the bread yeast three years past its expiration date.
"You should be grateful I'm giving you all of my stuff," he said when I suggested that perhaps it would have been easier if he'd, you know, cleaned at some point in the decade prior to his European move.
We had - I am not exaggerating - an entire room in our basement filled with M.'s junk. Books, CDs that only deaf people might appreciate, every note he'd ever taken in every class from kindergarten until he completed his PhD. Not to mention another household worth of stuff. For four years, this crap lurked in my basement. Every now and then B.'s parents would visit, lugging some of it back to Michigan one carload at a time, but it barely felt like it made a dent in the mountain. It wasn't until the '03 rummage sale that M. finally gave us the OK to part with some of his crap.
We also invited several of our friends to include their crap. And did they ever have a lot of crap.
Our driveway bumps up to the walk-out basement door. By the time it was all said and done we had the driveway completely full, along with three rooms of the basement. Three rooms. For two long days, every human being in the St. Louis metro area pilfered through the lower level of my house and asked when we were moving.
This time, I'm not letting anyone in. The sale is one day and it's limited to the driveway. Since we got rid of the worst of the junk two years ago, this time it's mainly going to be clothes, baby stuff, two years worth of books and some of the CDs I've moved to my hard drive. Pretty basic stuff. I'm getting a head start, too. This afternoon I went through the books and CDs and listed them all on Amazon. Quite a bit of the stuff I'm selling is pretty new and in good shape, so it seems a shame to part with it for a quarter when I can make a few bucks.
I listed around 40 items, and within the first four hours I had made nearly $50 for my effort. Not bad for 11 items that were just collecting dust.
Problem is, I have a hard time letting go of my rummage sale mentality. Because with rummage sales, it's not just about getting rid of the crap and making a few bucks. The real fun is in the people-watching and visiting. Because we all know I love to talk to strangers, even the crazy old bat who came to the last sale and spent an hour telling me the details of her cat's death.
Tonight, while packaging my Amazon sales, I kept fighting the urge to communicate with the buyers. Like the one from Boliver, Missouri. That's near where my kin come from! I wonder if they know anyone down in Humansville? Maybe they know my dad's nephew who used to coach basketball at the high school. Or the woman from Menominee, MI, which is an hour away from B.'s hometown. He had to ask what the buyer's last name was. You know, just in case it's someone he knows.
Nevermind the urge to write little notes, telling the buyer how much I enjoyed the particular book or CD, or how the recipe on page 54 sucks balls. Or how "Where Are My Panties" from that Outkast CD seems to be my personal theme song, and maybe now that you own the CD, maybe it'll be your personal theme song, too. We'll be panty twins forever!
Rummage sales just make me feel all friendly and sociable. Sharing my bounty with my fellow humans. Recycling. Joining hands with my neighbors and building a community. Discovering the ties that bind and building bonds with them. Losing my panties and getting busy in a house that no longer has my brother-in-law's model airplanes in it.
Hm. I guess I should vow right now to not be so friendly this time around.
Posted by Robin at 10:30 PM | Comments (5)
Shameless mommy blogging
Clara "Child of a Lesser God" Jane did the cutest damn thing today.
Since she was six months old, we've been half-heartedly teaching her baby sign language. Now that she's really starting to talk, she tends to do her signs while saying the words. She's way into animal names, sounds and signs these days. Especially kitty-cat. Not cat. Kitty-cat. Anytime she sees a cat - including the tigers at the zoo yesterday - she says, "It's a kitty-cat! It's a kitty-cat! Mao! Mao!" (that would be my socialist terrorist influence on her), all while doing the sign for cat, which involves using her fingers to act like she's pulling whiskers on her cheeks. Or the top of her head. Or her nose. Or the back of her head. Or the back of my head. Whatever's in reach.
Today, we were walking across the parking lot at Trader Joe's when she started her, "It's a kitty-cat! Mao!" whisker-pulling frenzy.
She had spotted the hood ornament on a Jaguar.
Posted by Robin at 10:17 PM | Comments (5)
May 20, 2005
It's a damn zoo in here
Because I'm exceptionally bright, I caught myself about to say, "Goddamnit! It's a zoo in here!" this morning while being jostled by the crowds at the penguin house at, ahem, the zoo. And not in an ironic way, either. I meant it in a,"Goddamn, People! Quit acting like a pack of wild dogs fighting for a chunk of freshly killed gazelle! This isn't the zoo! Oh, wait ..."
Clara "Monkey House" Jane finally had her first trip to the zoo. It's a bit embarrassing that she's 15 months old and it's taken us this long to get her to the zoo, considering that:
a)We live just a few miles from the zoo and drive past it almost daily.
b)It's free.
c)It's one of the best zoos in the country
d)It's free.
The excuse: everyone wanted to be there for her first trip to the zoo. Everyone. My parents, B., a few foreign dignitaries. I finally got fed up, because we're quickly entering the time of year when it's going to be too hot to take my translucent blonde child for an outing. So I said, either make arrangements to join us at the zoo today, or shut the hell up.
Arrangements were made and the zoo was visited by Clara Jane, both of her parents, her maternal grandparents, Kofi Annan, REv. Desmond Tutu and Camilla, Dutchess of Cornwall.
The highlight of the day didn't involve any non-human animals. Nope. The highlight was the fact that my child was a walking machine, ladies and gentlemen. A machine, I tell you. Granted, she had to be holding onto something at all times, but still ... she actually requested to be put on the ground so she could walk. There's hope yet that I won't have to carry her to her first day of preschool.
(Bunches of zoo-walking photos have been uploaded to Flckr, if you'd like to take a peek. Just scroll to the bottom of my main blog page.)
Pleasantly uneventful zoo visits are a rarity in my family. When we go to the zoo, there's usually an animal attack of one sort or another. It started when I was 14 at a run-down zoo in Springfield, Missouri. The poor elephants were in a cinderblock building, chained together at the ankles and seperated from the viewing public by only a big chain. People packed into the building to stare at the rather sickly beasts. One in particular looked particularly goopy and horrific. The one standing directly in front of my parents and me. Who stuck his trunk out and blew his nose all over us.
You'd think that alone would keep us out of zoos. I mean, once you've spent an afternoon trying to wipe black elephant snot out of your shirt, you'd think that would be enough zoo to last a lifetime.
Wrong. We're a tenacious bunch, my family. Which is just another way of saying we don't learn too quick.
The next incident happened a few months later. My family, accompanied by my best friend drove to the Grand Canyon, spending a few days in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
At 14, my friends and I weren't exactly girly-girls. Eighth grade turned us into a pack of sailors, and we had taken up habits such as excessive profanity usage and blatant passing of bodily gases. My dad was 40 going on 14 at the time, so we had a lot in common.
When planning the trip I guess my mom didn't take into consideration the overabundance of Tex-Mex cuisine in the region. If Clara Jane goes through this sailor phase - and she will, for she is of my loins - we'll be vacationing somewhere with very, very bland food. Like Upper Michigan, where they have three seasonings: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
After a few days of being trapped in the Fartmobile, my mom made a new rule: if we belched outloud, we had to give her a quarter. Public farts would cost us fifty cents apiece.
The next day, we paid a visit to the Rio Grande Zoo. While standing under a large tree, my mom said, "Is it raining?"
It wasn't.
Well, not in the scientific sense. Moisture was falling from the sky in the form of bird shit. From a bird the size of a condor, perched in the tree directly above my mom's head, which was soon covered in about a pint of fresh bird dookie.
You can only imagine the reaction from The Mighty Fart Brigade on that one.
"Don't worry! It's just a little sap!" an onlooker told my mom as she went into a full-blown palsey of a freak-out attack. Yeah, it's ass-sap!
My mom high-tailed it to the bathroom, where she hoped to regain her composure and take a quick bath in one of the sinks. While she was convulsing and washing her hair, my friend and I took a little potty break, since we were both on the verge of pissing our pants with hysteria.
Mom finished her little clean-up and entered a stall before my friend and I exited our stalls. In her trauma-deminished capacity, my mom hadn't noticed that we had left the stalls and were sitting on the counter ('cause we were cool 14-year-olds), waiting for her. All she knew was there was a someone in the stall next to hers, wearing shoes just like mine, and cutting the most tremendous fart in the history of mankind.
Now, my poor Mom - incapacitated and absolutely furious, did the one thing she could to try to regain control of the day. She pounded on the wall between her stall and the farter and bellowed, "That'll be fifty cents!"
My friend and I didn't even have to say a word to each other; we just knew that it was time to hightail it out of there before we started laughing at my mom yet again.
Mom, with her soaking wet hair dripping down her shirt, came marching out of the bathroom shortly after us, with the farter right behind her. She spotted us under the tree - the same tree, 'cause we were cool 14-year-olds - and turned roughly the shade of a baboon's ass as she realized she had demanded fart money from a stranger.
We didn't go to any zoos for a few years after that. Not until 1991, in Denver.
My extended family used to make an annual trip "Out West" My parents, grandparents, Cuz Wendy, her parents and brother, and Great-Aunt Helen would pack into a van and a truck with more shit than the original pioneers ever thought about cramming into a Conastoga wagon. They'd spend a few days driving, then a week living in the luxury of one RV and one pop-up camper, which is why I refuse to stay anywhere less luxurious than a Holiday Inn these days. I paid my dues the two times I took part in this traveling circus.
Now, I might remind you that my relationship with my dad has a tendency to be a bit on the volatile side. If it's volatile now, when I'm 32 years old and live three hours away from him, can you fathom what it was like when I was 18, after 12 hours driving across Kansas with him, followed by a few days trapped in a half-camper/half-tent hovel-on-wheels in the woods?
At the zoo, Wendy, her brother, my dad and I left the rest of our clan and headed for the polar bear exhibit. As you can see in the link, the bears swim in a glass-sided tank. We approached a section at an area where the water became shallow and the bears could walk up to the glass. In the viewing area, there was a knee-high bar against the glass with messages telling people to stay off the bar and the glass.
Since rules don't apply to my dad, he perched himself on the bar and leaned against the glass.
"Oh, I'm not hurting anything," he said when I pointed out he wasn't supposed to do that.
He started to say something else, but the words never came because, directly behind him, a polar bear took offense at his callous disregard for rules. Unbeknownst to my dad, she swam over, walked out of the water, stood to her full height, and slammed herself into the glass where he learned, roaring like she might take his head off and play a little water polo with it.
Dad screamed like a little girl as he fell from the bar, running and stumbling out of the exhibit, while my cousins and I were doubled over, laughing until we couldn't breathe.
Since then, Dad likes to skip the polar bear exhibits. Not so much because they put the fear in him, but because of the brutalization we put him through. Do you know how many polar bear birthday cards my dad has received since 1991? I don't know either; I've lost count. At least that visit didn't involve bodily fluids.
Not from the animals, anyway.
Posted by Robin at 05:42 PM | Comments (3)
The Friday Shuffle - The Nocturnal Animal Edition
Posting way early, because I'll be frolicking at the zoo in about eight hours.
1. Padam, Padam! - Edith Piaf
2. No Business - Bonnie Raitt
3. Chains - The Beatles
4. Hot Boxin' - The Donnas
5. Your Sweet Voice - Matthew Sweet
6. Here With Me - Dido
7. San Quentin - Johnny Cash
8. Runaway - Bonnie Raitt
9. And Your Bird Can Sing - The Beatles
10. The Commander Thinks Out Loud (Future Mix) - The Long Winters
Posted by Robin at 12:41 AM | Comments (2)
May 19, 2005
Places to not eat.
For the most part my love affair with cooking shows has ended. After spending the better part of two years in culinary school, writing for a food magazine for almost four years, and doing catering-related stuff for three years, watching Food TV feels suspiciously like work. Except for any show featuring Tyler Florence. Watching that boy is never work. Sweaty, yes, but too pleasurable to be work.
That being said, I have a new Food TV show obsession: What's Hot, What's Cool. Pretty self-explanatory: for thirty minutes an overly perky host who looks like she hasn't eaten more than a few dandelion leaves in her adult life sprints viewers through the uber-trendy fads in food. Some of the stuff, fabulous. Much of it, train wreck. That's my definition of television perfection.
Today's show talked about Global Cuisine, an avant garde (translation: really expensive crazy shit) catering company. One of their specialities? Body sushi.
It's sushi, but they've cut a few corners on the serviceware. Instead of using those cute little sushi plates, they lay a naked woman on the table and serve the sushi on her body.
Naked.
That's just not hygenic. Not hygenic at all.
And another thing - where do they put the wasabi? In her belly button? I don't even want to know where they're stashing the pickled ginger. Anything pink and flappy on a naked body shouldn't go anywhere near food. At least, not in a party situation.
They also do chocolate fountains. You know, the big fondue fountains with rivers of flowing, melted chocolate. Who's overseeing the fondue fountain? An entry-level prep cook earning his chops? No ....
How about a naked lady, painted in chocolate? Of course!
It's a good thing they formulated the chocolate into a paint that can withstand being on the human body without melting. Because how unappetizing would it be to see a river of melted chocolate dribbling into the buttcrack of the gal who's handing you a skewered mango? I mean, really. Let's have some dignity and taste!
It takes a lot to shock me. It takes a lot for me to slap my hillbilly hambone thigh and declare, "Well Goddamn! What'll those fools in Ell-Ay spend good money on next?" This, my friends, is one of those things.
I was going to follow this with the story my mom's been telling all week about how she and my dad went to a little barbeque place in my hometown, ordered rib sandwiches, and had a server insist that, since the menu description for the rib sandwich doesn't mention bread, that they don't get bread with their rib sandwiches. But somehow, it's just not raw tuna eaten off a naked lady.
Maki on a naked Tyler Florence, though ... that's not a bad idea at all. He sweats too much for the chocolate body paint, though.
Posted by Robin at 05:51 PM | Comments (3)
Tagged!
Kara's being demanding again.
so, here's the thing: i pick five of these "if i could..." sentences and finish them, then after i'm all done, i tag 3 more people to do it.
The questions:
If I could be a scientist...If I could be a farmer...If I could be a musician...If I could be a doctor...If I could be a painter...If I could be a gardener...If I could be a missionary...If I could be a chef...If I could be an architect...If I could be a linguist...If I could be a psychologist...If I could be a librarian...If I could be an athlete...If I could be a lawyer...If I could be an inn-keeper...If I could be a professor...If I could be a writer...If I could be a llama-rider...If I could be a bonnie pirate...If I could be an astronaut...If I could be a world famous blogger...If I could be a justice on any one court in the world...If I could be married to any current famous political figure...
1. If I could be a llama-rider, I would have a great deal of fun at family get-togethers, since llamas have an affinity for my grandpa, Chuck, and like to touch him in special places.
2.If I could be married to any current famous political figure, I'd fear being covered in santorum.
3. If I could be a librarian, I'd probably get fired for my inability to speak quietly.
4. If I could be a missionary, I'd probably be pretty bad when it comes to the converting soul-saving part, but I'd totally rock at the helping humanity part.
5. If I could be a gardener, I'd still advocate using goats as lawn mowers.
Now you have to do it, Mary Beth, Dixie and Sibeal.
Posted by Robin at 09:13 AM | Comments (2)
May 18, 2005
Steve Alter is a plagiarist!
Check out this post, dated Wednesday, May 18th.
Now check out this one from my pal Beege, dated Sunday, May 15th.
Look familiar?
So, if anyone ever asks you, Steve Alter is a plagiarist.
I mean, really. I'm all for our first amendment rights, seeing as I'm a socialist terrorist and all, but geez. If you don't have anything to say, don't get a damn blog.
But I have to admit, his cut-and-pasting skills are exceptional. He's got that mouse-clicking shit down pat.
Let's repeat once again, for all the Googlers out there:
Steve Alter is a plagiarist.
Thank you.
Posted by Robin at 09:44 PM | Comments (7)
The Mother Jones Playgroup and Liberal Terrorist Cell
Last year's election was the first time I decided to offer my political opinion to anyone who might be stuck behind me in traffic. There's a Kerry-Edwards sticker and a Mothers Opposing Bush one on the back of my truck. Along with my political beliefs, anyone stuck behind me in traffic is also privvy to my favorite Nascar drivers.
I'll admit, I'm a bit lazy when it comes to some things. Like, the bumper stickers on my truck. In the past I've always complained when I see others who, long after the election, still have their campaign stickers. What the hell? You're either bitter because your candidate lost, or gloating because your candidate won. But now I see a third option: lazy. I fall into category three. There's also the lesser category #4 - I leave the stickers on my truck so my friends will recognize it in parking lots.
I guess the point I'm trying to make: I still have two dated political bumper stickers on my car.
Today, Clara "Power to the People" Jane had her 15-month check-up. As I was turning into the hospital's parking lot, I noticed a car in the lane beside me driving very slowly. The driver was holding an 8.5" x 11" piece of white paper against the passenger side window - the window closest to me. There was a rather frantic-looking message, scrawled in thick black marker:
John Kerry: Supported by Socialists, Terrorist, and Some Democrats.
Dude.
What the fuck?
Now, my first reaction was pure, blinding anger. I mean, one of the stickers proclaims that I'm a mother - a mother who happens to be turning her car into the parking lot of a hospital that treats a lot of sick, sick children. Thank God Socialist-approved higher being my child was just going for a routine checkup, but holy fuck. I can just imagine what it would feel like to be a mother with a sick child, in the process of trying to get help for said child, only to have some wing-nut (which, apparently, is Poppy's Word of the Week) tell her she's a terrorist.
Now, I hate to wish ill on anyone. I really do. I honestly believe in my bleeding little heart that all humans are inherantly good. Misguided and deluded, but good. But I've got to say, I really hope the driver of that car was on his way to the proctology wing of the hospital for a round of anal scoping. Not just because he has it coming, but because anyone who feels the need to admonish my political beliefs in such a manner obviously has something wedged in the rectal area that needs removing, stat!
Seriously. Such behavior must have been caused by something very painful and humiliating, like anal fissures.
If you've been reading this blog since it started, you might recall that, during those early months of Clara Jane's life, when my hormones were really out of whack, I used to talk about my strong desire to keep some of her shitty diapers in my truck for the sole purpose of flinging them at drivers who pissed me off. I haven't had that urge in a long time, but by God Heathen Idol, it was there today!
Wouldn't that be a hoot? All the socialist terrorist Democrat mommies like me, flinging poppy diapers at drivers whose politics displease us.
And further, Dude - Kerry lost! I'm over it. You should be, too. Let the anger go. It's just going to make the fissures worse.
Yeah, I know, John Kerry still holds public office, but he's representing people in "Tax"achusettes. We live in Missourah and we're represented by Lee Greenwood and Toby Keith. You can sleep easy at night, knowing that our state is protected from the big, bad liberals by Bluntman and his sidekick Bunny.
I must say, I do hope that the next time he holds up that sign while driving, that his fissures get extra-itchy, distracting him further so he rams that car of his into a tree. I just hope it's not a tree that me or any of my Mother Jones Playgroup and Liberal Terrorist Cell friends happen to be hugging at the time.
As for Clara Jane's appointment, she's astounding. Twenty-seven pounds, 29" tall, and with verbal skills in the 2 - 2.5 year-old range. "Just wait," my mom told me. "She's taking after you. Don't be surprised when she's five years old and you catch her sitting on the curb during a parade, arguing politics with a decrepit little old woman, the way you did."
I'd say she's well on her way.
Posted by Robin at 04:26 PM | Comments (4)
May 17, 2005
Funny thing overheard in my house today
From B.:
"Quick! Where's the camera? '80s Lady is in her backyard! We've got a perfect shot!"
Bad timing, since we have to wait a couple of weeks before we have one of these.
But once we have our digital camera binoculars, I promise you'll be seeing the full spectacle that is '80s Lady.
Thank God our house, with lots of windows, sits at the top of the hill and overlooks the backyards of everyone else on the block. Thank God, indeed.
Posted by Robin at 05:06 PM | Comments (1)
Another magazine without my name on the byline
Comments closed because of motherfucking spammers who are getting around MT Blacklist.
Yeah, I know I said I was going to quit looking for work so I can deal with what I've got on my plate. Shut up. I'm weak and unstable; we established that long, long ago.
Yesterday I was perusing a local website and found a job listing for a writing position with a new local magazine. I won't be mentioning the website, magazine, or publisher by name because quite frankly, I don't want this person Googling all over me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I sent an email reply to the ad. I should have known things weren't quite right when I got a reply around midnight last night from the publisher, asking me to call him today.
Clara "I Woke My Mom Up Before 7 A.M. and She's Too Tired to Think of a Nickname" Jane crashed for her morning nap. Now, I cherish morning naptime. Most days, that's the only solo time I get. Any opportunity for breakfasting, blogging, knitting, reading, work or basic hygiene occurs during that precious time (anywhere from two hours to twenty minutes) when she's sawing baby-logs. I don't part with that time for much, but I thought this magazine position might be worth sacrificing a bit of my "special time".
He answered the phone, and I introduced myself. He asked what I do. I told him that I've been a regular columnist for another local publication for almost four years.
"How much they pay you?" he blurted. "Or do they pay you at all?"
Hm. We're off to a professional start, don't you think?
The publication he's starting sounds all well and good. The copy isn't ad-driven (meaning, the articles aren't just long advertisements pretending to be articles), so that's good. He's focusing on things I think are important, and I definitely think there's a market for his magazine.
"But this isn't my true passion," he told me, just as I was starting to overlook the money question and think this might be a good opportunity. "This magazine will just fund what I really want to write about."
Uh oh.
When someone tells you that they want to write about their passion, and it requires funding, it usually means either one of two things. Either:
1) His passion involves erotica for the karaoke community (or fill in whatever obscure fetish you like).
-or-
2) His passion involves being a wing-nut.
In this case, we're going with option #2.
"Things just aren't right in the world. You got kids?"
"Uh, yeah. A daughter."
"She in school?"
"No. She's only 15 months."
"Did you know anyone can walk into a public school and take your kid?"
"Why no, I didn't know that. I figured the security guards who man the metal detectors at the entrance might stop them. I enjoy my naivity."
(Ok, that's not really what I said. I can't remember what I said. I think I might have just grunted.)
"I got a gun pulled on me a few nights ago. Things aren't right in this city. Things the press won't touch. I'm going to piss people off with the things I've got to say. People are going to be pissed. Jordan, put that down! Jordan! Jordan!!! Leave your brother alone! Sorry. I have four sons. Anyway, I've got things to say that will piss people off, but that's for my next magazine, after I get this one up and running. Can I call you in a few days and we can set up a time to meet?"
Something tells me that I'm not going to be home and my voicemail is going to be on the fritz should he follow through with that plan.
Posted by Robin at 11:55 AM | Comments (3)
May 15, 2005
The Dream Lives
"Where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers" - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Aug. 28, 1963
Overheard at a playground in a city with segregation issues:
The scene: a suburban St. Louis park on a lovely springtime Sunday afternoon. At the swings: a 15-month-old toddler and her eavesdropping parents, a 4-year-old white girl, a 6-year-old black girl, and a middle-aged man. All three children are swinging with much delight and many exclaimation points.
White Girl: This is heaven!!!!!
Black Girl: It's a dream!!!!!!
White Girl: It's a dream come true in heaven!!!!!!
Black Girl: It's a dream come true! Just like Dr. Martin Luther King!!!!!!
White Girl: It's heaven!!!!!
Black Girl: Junior!!!!!! Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior!!!!!!!
White Girl: We're so close to heaven!!!!!!!
Black Girl: It's a dream!!!!!! It's black people, white people!!!!!! (to Middle Age Man) PUSH ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
White Girl: Yeah!!!!!!!!!!! Push me now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Black Girl: It's a dream come true!!!!!!!!! Come true, just like Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
White Girl: It's just like heaven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Middle Age Man: Come on. Get your flip-flops and let's go walk around the lake.
White Girl: You retard.
Free at last, free at last.
Posted by Robin at 05:41 PM | Comments (4)
May 13, 2005
It's about damn time
Clara "I'll Walk When I'm Damn Good and Ready,Bitch" Jane, two days before turning 15 months old, has finally taken her first steps.
The muscles in my arms and back that are sick to death of carrying 25 pounds of non-toddling toddler are weeping with joy.
Posted by Robin at 02:52 PM | Comments (13)
Why I shouldn't watch local morning news shows
This dork was just on the local morning news show. He performs "Hamlet" while doing bad impersonations of characters from "The Simpsons".
Even by my insanely low humor standards, this guy's an obnoxious 'tard, and I say that as someone who just found great humor in her kid nailing the dog in the head with a sippy cup.
Next up: they're letting the pregnant anchorperson handle dangerous reptiles! Oh, the laughter is endless this morning.
Posted by Robin at 08:47 AM | Comments (3)
Friday Shuffle - The Back Home Edition
1. River Euphrates - Pixies
2. No One Knows - Queens of the Stoneage
3. Cinco de Mayo - The Rev. Horton Heat
4. Slip Sliding Away - Paul Simon
5. Cruel to be Kind - Nick Lowe
6. Dosed - Red Hot Chili Peppers
7. Fuck & Run - Liz Phair
8. Hole in My Pocket - Sheryl Crow
9. Graceland - Paul Simon
10. Tupelo Honey - Van Morrison
Posted by Robin at 08:43 AM | Comments (2)
May 12, 2005
Jarts™
Editor's Note: This post mentions Jarts™ because I happened to see some in an antiques store. If I had wanted Jarts™, I would have purchased those Jarts™. So, if you're selling Jarst™, don't try to sell them to me. Also, this isn't ebay. If you want to sell your shit, post about it on ebay, not on my blog.
Last Sunday, while exploring downtown Belleville and plotting which house we're going to invade and take over, we wandered into an antiques store and found a set of lawn darts, still in their original package for $50. Even better, we also found a set of Jarts™, never used (I checked the tips for blood stains and gray matter) for $75.
Today B.'s department had their annual picnic, or as I like to call it, "You'll Have Fun and Team-Build or We'll Fire Your Fucking Ass Day". They played softball. Personally, I think it's cruel to make a bunch of computer geeks who rarely allow sunlight to cast upon their skin to play softball. But I also think it would be really funny to watch, which is precisely why I'm never invited to attend these picnics.
Anyway, at dinner tonight - which wasn't interrupted by any recounts of the latest episode of "Cops" - B. said this to me:
"I was thinking during the picnic that it's too bad I didn't buy those Jarts™. That could have been a lot of fun."
"Until someone put an eye out," I said, filling my mouth with a huge bite of Cobb salad. If there is anything better in this world than bacon and blue cheese in the same dish, I haven't found it yet.
"Well, if you've got a Jart™ in your eye, you shouldn't worry about the eye. You should be much more concerned about keeping the back of your head attached to the skull!"
Or laughing so hard that you choke on a big mouthful of bacon and blue cheese.
Tomorrow's goal: a dinner in which no one gets shot at, gets a Jart™ tunnel through the skull, or chokes to death on bacon and blue cheese. Wish us luck.
Posted by Robin at 07:39 PM | Comments (3)
Where the tall grass grows and the rednecks roam
Ok, so I'm not much into landscaping. I'm completely inept when it comes to gardening. I love flowers, which is why I don't plant them; it makes me sad to bring pain to things I love.
The inside of my house? Cute as a button. B. and I have worked hard to make a lovely little cozy retreat for ourselves, full of comfy furniture, tasteful mid-century furnishings, hardwood floors, and all that crap you see from Martha.
Not so much when it comes to the yard. Our postage stamp front yard sits on a hill. Mercifully, one half of it is covered by English ivy. I love it, but I do sometimes worry about it growing over our house as we sleep, forever trapping us in our house, where we will die horrible deaths with only our Pottery Barn slipcovers to comfort us.
The other half of the yard isn't quite as tasteful. When we first moved in, before I realized that DIY tubal ligations are more fun than gardening, I spent hours trying to make something of the hard-packed clay soil on that hill. I tore out the sod (which was mostly crabgrass), worked in new soil, and filled the hill with bulbs - daffodils, irises, hyacinths, muscari, lilly of the valley. I envisioned a springtime blanket of Easter egg colored flowers in which I would frolic while wearing a sundress and a fancy bonnet with the sun on my face.
I neglected several obvious truths in this plan:
1. I burst into flames when the sun touches me.
2. My exposed arm flab would provide too much shade, thus killing my flowers.
3. Frolic is impossible on a 4' x 5' hill.
4. Spring bulbs only stay in bloom for a short time - in spring. The rest of the time, they look sort of like wild weeds.
5. Bags of soil often contain weed seeds. In fact, they should just lable them "Big Bag of Weed Seeds with a Little Bit of Dirt".
For a week or two every spring, I have a few pretty flowers. The rest of the time, I have a patch of foliage that is not only ugly, but whose only use is providing shelter for wild racoons.
The backyard ... oh, the backyard. The dogs do a good job of keeping the perimeter of the yard free of grass and living things (except dogs). The middle of the yard tends to grow a bit wild, but B. never gives much consideration to my suggestions that a couple of pet goats would do a fine job of keeping it under control.
We could just mow the yard, but B. killed our lawn mower last year. It died from neglect.
So, I wasn't terribly surprised yesterday when I found a yellow ticket taped to our front door from our town's Code Enforcement Officer. The police cars in my township have the motto "Too Much Free Time and Not Enough Crime" painted on their doors. To keep them occupied and out of trouble, one officer spends his days driving through the township, looking for things like too-tall grass. Sometimes he sits in his car and waits for license plates to expire so he can write tickets.
Three years ago I got a ticket for having a derelict vehicle because my soon-to-be-donated l990 Cavalier was sitting in my driveway with expired tags. In my driveway, People! The one we paid for. I could see writing the ticket if we had the derelict vehicle in question parked on the street, or perhaps the sidewalk. But I thought my rights as a homeowner indicated that I could park damn near anything in my driveway. Where else are we going to keep the goat herd in the winter?
And for the record, have they given my neighbor a ticket for having a derelict toilet or for her derelict February Christmas display? I highly doubt it.
Yes, I know. Code Enforcement Officers exist so we can all live in a nice neighborhood. But the thing is, it's a hellhole! Our lawn isn't even the worst one on the block. Hell, it's not even the worst in a four-house radius.
The ticket's no big deal. It's just a warning. As long as we mow by May 16th, all's cool.
You'd think.
Last night, B. and I were eating dinner when the phone rang. When I saw the name on caller i.d., I didn't answer; I just handed the phone directly to B. It was one of our neighbors, the one who rambles at length about every disease known to medical science (she has all of them) and whose house is often on the verge of foreclosure. Talking to her makes my brain hurt, so I always just give her to B., who's much better at smiling, nodding, and not listening to a word she says.
I could tell from B.'s end of the conversation that they, too, had gotten a yellow mow-your-damn-yard-you-hillbilly slip. I could also tell that she was on a full tear about it. "Just mow your damn yard!", I kept thinking. No need to get outraged. We're not being fined. We're not being ousted from society. It's certainly not worth interrupting my dinner so you can rant.
B. eventually hung up. In his glazed-over non-listening, he somehow intuited when the conversation had ended and he could return to his dinner.
Apparently, it wasn't just the yellow slip that has my neighbor up in arms. Seems that there was an incident with the police on Mother's Day.
But isn't there always an incident with the police on Mother's Day? Nothing says "I loves you, Maw!" quite like liquor, guns and ammo.
My neighbor's version: The people who live at the end of the block, the ones with the 24 hour a day emergency dune bug building shop, own the house across the street, which they're renting to their son and his girlfriend, who was due to deliver their child on Mother's Day.
It seems that their Mother's Day festivities were interrupted by "some drunk with a gun". While Baby Daddy confronted the drunken gunslinger, Maw called 911. The cops came, but did nothing about the drunken gunslinger. Instead, they made Baby Daddy and Maw lie down on their bellies with their hands behind their heads in the front yard, while the drunken gunslinger ran wild!
My first thought, "Yeah, with our police force, I can see that happening."
But, considering my neighbor's knack for exaggeration and omission, I do think there's much to the Mother's Day Shoot-Out I don't know about. My neighbor once came to our house at 11:30 p.m., up in arms because Baby Daddy had gotten the shit beat out of him for no reason! But upon doing a little digging, we learned that he had gotten the shit beat out of him for being a little racist thug, which seems like a perfectly good reason to beat the shit out of him, if you ask me.
Regardless, I'm sure that whatever Mother's Day crime spree transpired, the local police will have it under control, just as soon as they make sure we all have our lawns mowed.
Posted by Robin at 11:53 AM | Comments (4)
May 11, 2005
Freedom has a scent like the top of a newborn baby's head
As you regular readers know, I don't really do concert reviews. I'm not a music critic. Other people do a much better job of concert reviews than I do. You can read one of them on Interference.
My post-concert posts have two possible directions: making fun of my fellow concert-goers, or waxing philosophical. Monday night I saw U2 in Chicago. Guess which way the discussion is going.
The set list is available here.In other coolness: this particular show was filmed for their next DVD release, which tickles me to no end.
Of course, there were moments of wit and hilarity. Since our seats were in the nosebleed realm, which is always entertaining when attending a show with Kara, who's afraid of heights.
"Oh, you're not gonna fall!" I told her during her post-Kings of Leon hand-wringing. "Not unless I push you, anyway."
"THAT'S WHAT I'M AFRAID OF!!!!"
Later, Holley nudged me, laughing as she yelled, "We paid $100 each for these seats!" And then we all laughed and laughed and laughed. The laugh of the damned, of course.
A bit later, when Kara went in search of a toilet, Holley suggested that we throw Kara's jacket, just to freak her out. I thought that was a great idea, and that we should leave a note on her seat that said, "You're next!". Unfortunately, I would have had to borrow a pen and paper from Kara (which she had on hand to write a rough draft of the terse letter she's sending to Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, but that's another story).
While we were waiting, four conical, glowing red lights were lowered, one for each member of the band. I tried to tell Holley that they were special U2 heat lamps, specially designed for maximum pop star freshness, but employees are required to dispose of any pop star left under the lamps for more than 15 minutes. I wasn't exactly successful in relaying this info, because I cracked myself the fuck up and couldn't get my entire long-winded fast-food joke out without heaving with laughter.
Obviously, I had a touch of the altitude sickness, coupled with the bad karma that comes from eating a 1/2 pound of pure Chicago beef under an autographed photo of Oprah at the Palace Grill.
Now, before I get into the show itself, let me tell you something. In the big moments of my life, especially over the past four years or so, U2 has always been present. When I know I need to walk out of my house to face something big, and I'm having trouble doing so, "Beautiful Day" appears, and I'm coaxed out of my home and my comfort zone, into new territory. It happened when we were trying to drag ourselves out before the Nov. 2001 U2 show camp-out, and when my friends and I were getting the gumption to hit the road for my 30th birthday road trip to Memphis. It happened the night I went to the hospital to give birth to Clara Jane. After 14 hours of early-stage labor, wondering with each pain how much longer I could stall, "Beautiful Day" appeared on VH1. It was the last song I heard played in my home before it changed forever. It was how I knew it was time to make the most frightening journey of my life.
About a month prior, it was another U2 song that triggered the notion that I was on the verge of something big. I was undergoing some tests to make sure all was well with Clara Jane. One of the tests involved measuring her heart rate and movement to ensure that they corresponded with each other. Just as the nurse started the test, "Where The Streets Have No Name" started playing on the lite-rock station the nurses were listening to. The song starts quiet, with a flutter of melody from The Edge's guitar, building into a racing heartbeat of drums and bass until it explodes with Bono ...
I want to run
I want to hide
I want to tear down these walls that hold me inside.
And as the music built, my baby began to wiggle, then tumble. By the time Bono's voice burst through, I could feel my child in every square inch of my body. She gyrated, kicked and twisted. Her little heart thundered in jagged lines on the fetal monitor. For five and a half minutes I was more aware than ever of the human being inside me, seperate from me.
The song ended, her movements returned to normal, her heart rate slowed. It was just a momentary burst of interuterine excitement, the fetal equivilent of stopping your daily routine, cranking up your favorite song and pogoing around the living room to blow off a little steam.
In the eight months I had carried her, she never seemed real. I felt her movements, but the concept of carrying another human being just felt completely abstract. She was never as real to me as she was in those five and a half minutes. Music could move her, just as it has always moved me.
My daughter and I had found our first common interest.
Why do humans dance? Why do we bob our heads to a tune? Because we're wired to do so. It's in us before we exit the womb.
Can you hear me when I sing...
You're the reason I sing
You're the reason why the opera is in me
Bono wrote those words in a song for his deceased father. I was dreading hearing those words in concert, in the aftermath of the most recent blow-out with my own father. But it barely fazed me on Monday night, when I expected it to lead to a blubbering breakdown. My heart seems to have decided on its own volition to no longer dwell on every single way I have failed him in my life. I can't feel bad about that anymore, because it's damn near destroyed me, these feelings of never being adequate, of knowing that the only person I ever wanted to please still sees me as being little more than a lazy smart ass.
Can you see the beauty inside of me?
What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?
I'm trying to reclaim it. I can see it. It's there. I can almost touch it, if I reach.
In all of the glitz and rock star spectacle, beyond the screaming crowd and filming, it came down to two songs for me. Two songs that turned me inward and left me tear-streaked and shaking, reminders of what this life of mine is supposed to be about.
"Beautiful Day", six songs into the show:
Touch me
Take me to that other place
Teach me
I know I'm not a hopeless case
Words I've heard so many times over the past four and a half years. Words that have always given me a little push when I needed it. But they didn't push this time. They pulled me back.
As much as Kara fears falling from the nosebleed seats, I have feared falling of late. In the worst moments of the past 15 months, when I've felt inadequate at best, and like a whirling sandstorm set to destroy everything I love and myself at worst, I have felt myself falling. It would be so easy to fall, so easy to just let go of this life and be done with the pain. A few times my fingertips have relaxed and I've just about let go. Said my goodbyes, made my peace, and waited to drop.
I know I'm not a hopeless case. I know I'm not a hopeless case. I know I'm not a hopeless case. Sometimes, I need Bono to remind me of that in person, in the presence of 30,000 other people.
And in that moment on Monday, I felt something shift. A question answered. A flutter followed by a gyration that makes life real. Real and good.
Nine songs later, "Where the Streets Have No Name", and all I could think of was that little girl at home, the one who came to life for me during that song, the one I'm going to hang on for.
And once again, I walked out at the end of a U2 show completely shaken to my core, and reminded of what it means to be alive, what it means to be human, and what power there is in surrendering to something much larger than myself and having faith that I'll be caught should I lose my grip.
Today, Clara Jane and I were back to reality. Groggy breakfast. Swollen baby gums with teeth gleeming just under transluscent skin. Frantically rushing to take care of my basic hygeine and the bills while she napped. Grocery store and Target in the sweltering heat and humidity.
I was listening to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb as we ran our errands. While I've enjoyed it, it hasn't touched me like other U2 albums. But then again, Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and All That You Can't Leave Behind didn't reach me at first. It took time.
Pulling into the Target parking lot, it suddenly meant something to me as I looked in the rearview mirror into those smiling blue eyes, the child giggling as she pulled her big toe to her mouth just because she knows it makes me laugh:
Baby slow down
The end is not as fun as the start
Please stay a child somewhere in your heart
I'll give you everything you want
Except the thing that you want
You are the first one of your kind
And you feel like no one before
You steal right under my door
I kneel 'cause I want you some more
I want the lot of what you got
And I want nothing that you're not
Everywhere you go you shout it
You don't have to be shy about it
And I cried as I pulled into my parking space. I cried as I laughed at the giggling girl in the backseat with both of her bare big toes in her mouth without shyness, without fear and with nothing but love and joy.
Posted by Robin at 12:03 PM | Comments (5)
May 10, 2005
Testing ... testing
Hey! Yeah, I'm talking to you. Over there. Have you been looking for me?
Well, we've had a change in hosts, and things didn't go exactly as planned. But with the help of the Cuz, things are just about back to normal.
Hopefully in the next few days my archives will be back, and I'll have a brand new design ... as long as I get some inspiration and a few minutes to be creative. In the meantime, in case you haven't found my emergency back-up blog, shimmy on over there and see what I've been up to for the past week. The antics include:
Gone Country, a night of sobbing country debauchery at an Alan Jackson concert with Holley.
Damn Kids, in which Clara "Barefoot Hillbilly" Jane and I have a run-in with an overpriviledged brat.
Mother's Day: Pros and Cons highlights the good of the holiday, the bad, and a possible move to Belleville, Illinois, where they sell large restored Victorian houses for 50 cents apiece.
And finally,
Home, which I posted this evening after coming home from a 24-hour trip to Chicago. Since I'm too tired and lazy to give you the details of last night's U2 show, I just threw out something I wrote after seeing them in November, 2001. Epiphanies. Oh, there are epiphanies in that one.
Posted by Robin at 11:08 PM | Comments (9)