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August 30, 2006

Absence. Heart. Fonder. And All That Crap

You know the old cliche. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Best as I can tell, that's usually because it's easier to forget the bad and irritating crap when that person's far, far away. But I digress, as this is about Clara Jane and you know that she's never bad and/or irritating. Well, that's not entirely true. She's hit the stage where she talks from the moment she wakes up until the moment she collapses in an exhausted, scratchy-throated heap, completely spent from the 12 hours of talking. That can get a wee bit tiring at times. I've been told the constant talking is my karma for having done the same to my own mother. Oh, she's laughing now. Not that I can hear her laughter, what with all the blood trickling out of my ears.

Being with my kid nearly all day, just about every day, it's easy to take for granted how fast she's growing and developing. It's far too simple to get so wrapped up in the constant talking that I don't step back and say, "Holy crap! At this time three years ago, I couldn't even feel this little person kicking inside me, and now she's telling me every single thing about the world around her and that's amazing!" But with her visiting my parents, I get the daily updates of her antics and let me tell you, they're cracking me up. And now I'm going to force you to read about them.

1. Clara Jane never answers when anyone asks how old she is. The ten times a day strangers ask her how old she is, I have to answer for her. So, I figured she just hadn't picked up on how old she is.

I have a cousin who's a social worker with a program that works with developmentally disadvantaged kids. She was hanging out at my parents' house tonight, and she told my mom about one of her clients. "She's two, like Clara Jane," my cousin said. To which Clara Jane interjected, "I'm two and a half."

2. My grandfather underwent an outpatient hernia procedure Tuesday morning. Upon arriving at the hospital, Clara Jane told my mom, "I'm glad we're at the hospital. I have a broken leg!".

Actually, she just had a broken toenail, which my mom fixed in the waiting room.

3. Speakinig of my grandfather, Clara Jane is helping him heal by reminding him, "Old Grandpa's wearing pajamas. He's got stripey pajamas."

4. For the past few weeks, Clara Jane has been attempting a bathing strike. Normal, I suppose. Most kids seem to suddenly go from loving bathtime to acting like they're being dipped in batter in preparation for a dunk in some 300-degree lard. She seems to have realized that regardless of how big a fit she throws, I'm still going to put her in the bathtub and *gasp* let soap touch her skin. Not the case where her grandmother is concerned. After an evening of rolling in the dirt, when my mom informed Clara Jane that it was bathtime, she replied, "I don't need to take a bath, Mimi. I'm all nice and clean."

Ah, the cuteness. I miss her. I could really use a snuggle. Or a wrestling match to get her into the bathtub. I've managed to get some stuff done in her absence, though:

1. I've watched B. finish laying the subflooring, and then I watched him fill in the cracks with liquid concrete. Then I watched him sand the excess concrete. And finally, I watched him call Murphy a "knob" when he caught her licking up the liquid concrete.

2. I took a leisurely stroll through the most insanely massive fabric store I've ever seen. I didn't buy anything, but I did rub against some gorgeous Amy Butler loveliness.

3. I not only won Brainbuster Trivia, but I got the highest score of the past six weeks.

4. I was able to drop everything (and by "everything" I mean, I got out of my pajamas and put on real clothes) to go have lunch with my pal PKB.

5. I made plans to accompany a minor to a tattoo parlor.

6. And, of course, I canned shit.


Here's some more white peach jam in the early stages.
Peach jam, before

And here's what I mangled it into.
Peach jam, after

How about some salsa in its infancy?
Salsa, before

Here's what hours and hours of chopping has wrought:
Salsa, after

Tomorrow's agenda: there isn't one.

Posted by Robin at 10:21 PM | Comments (6)

August 28, 2006

Grape Jelly of Wrath

The farmwife conversion continues...

It was a busy weekend, what with the house makeover and such. The unfinished house makeover, but you don't hear me complaining. Not even slightly. I finally have a ceiling in my back room. My kitchen and dining room are pretty much covered with new subflooring. Just got a few cracks to fill before the new floor can be put in place and I can commence my underwear-dancing. Oh yeah!

Clara Jane hitched a ride home with my parents yesterday, allowing me to continue my slide into housemarmhood unencumbered. Although I suppose it's not a true slide into housemarmhood if I don't have a marm attached to my hip. Regardless, I still did plenty of damage.

White Peach Jam

This is jam made from delectable Missouri white peaches, a rare gem that's only available for a week or two at the end of summer. You want this. Trust me, you do. It tastes like the end of Summer Malaise.

This, you don't want. This doesn't even deserve to be placed in front of a window, where the sunlight won't penetrate the black evil inside the jars.
Horrible Awful Grape Jelly

This is the revamped version of last weeks grape jelly abomination. Today, I pried off all the lids and scraped the rubbery grape juice into a big pot. In the process I managed to fling the rubbery grape juice all over my new subflooring. I hope the new flooring will stick extra-well in that spot, just so that all my effort won't be wasted.

Some of the jelly landed between my big and second toes. I've washed them repeatedly, but they're still sticky. Brings all new meaning to the words "toe jam", doesn't it?

I put the jelly on the stove and brought it to a boil. Just like last week, it went from lukewarm to "Hey! Look at me! I'm rubbery grape juice and I'm a lava flow overtaking your entire kitchen!"

For two hours, I cooked this shit at a simmer, watching it like a hoodlum child who might dare to chase his errant frisbee onto my yard, thus forcing me to go all housemarm on his ass. That's the next step in my farmwife/housemarm conversion: screaming at neighborhood children to keep off my lawn and confiscating their toys.

I added more pectin. To the jelly, not the neighborhood children. They don't require pectin to make them gelatinously delicious. I added sugar. I stirred. I hovered. I wrung my hands. I sweated a lot.

And still the goddamn mess refused to gel!

At this point I've lost count of how many hours of my life I've wasted on these three and a half pounds of grapes. I removed them from the heat and came upon the next problem destined to suck up more precious hours of my life: it's too liquid to put in the trashcan, and yet too rubbery to pour down the drain. Attempts to pour it down the drain would most likely lead to the rubbery juice bouncing off the sink, hitting the ceiling, where it would then land on my head, creating an air-tight seal and suffocating me, just for wrath. Heh. Get it? Grape Jelly of Wrath.

Anyway, I let it sit on the stove for an hour while I pouted. When I returned to the stove, lo and behold, it gelled! Somewhat. Well, at least it wasn't completely liquid anymore. And even though it tastes scorched and is as black as my soul, you know what I did?

Well, of course you know what I did. You saw the photos. I put that sticky, charred black shit into jars.

Now, the next delimma: I have intensions of using the products of my recent canning frenzy as holiday gifts. My first instinct is to give the horrible burnt grape jelly to people I dislike. But I can't really do that. If I dislike someone, I have the overwhelming desire to make them think that I am far superior and can do no wrong. Give bad jelly to someone I dislike, just so they can say, "Yeah, that Robin, thinks she's such a fucking big shot in the kitchen. Taste this garbage. It tastes like the stuff I used to patch my roof last summer!" No. I won't be doing that.

I can give it to people who love me. They'll understand why people I hate are eating the good stuff while my loved ones are eating crap.

Regardless of who gets the Grape Jelly of Wrath, I'm changing the name. Since it's scorched and tastes as such, I'm going to call it "Caramelized Grape Jelly". You see, if I learned anything when I was in culinary school, I learned that marketing is everything. Burnt is bad. Caramelized is fancy. Therefore, you'll eat it and you'll love it, even though it tastes faintly of motor oil.

All joking aside, while I worked on my jam and jelly today, I spent a lot of time thinking about things that happened a year ago. How different everthing is now than it was a year ago. And yet, a year ago yesterday, I bought my first two skeins of sock yarn. And I'm still trying to knit a damn sock out of it. What does this mean? I have no idea. Maybe it means the reason I can't knit socks is because sock-knitting will always be connected to a time of fear, tragedy and loss. Or maybe it means that even when it feels like the whole world's going down the crapper, it's the fundamental things that pull us out of it. Or that hope springs eternal and life goes on. It's a different life, but it goes on and it's still good. Just in a different, more bittersweet and better-appreciate manner.

And speaking of good, my friend Janna's doing some good. Let me tell you about Janna. She evacuated from New Orleans before Katrina with her 2-year-old son and a daughter who was less than a week old. They were fine, and their house was fine, but they spent several months away from home. They spent a lot of time seperated from her husband, who's a college football coach. He had his hands full with a team full of freshman who were either dealing with their own familial loses on the Gulf Coast, or kids who'd just moved to New Orleans for school, only to be faced with this.

Janna and her family have been through it. So, when Janna says she's going to help those in her city who went through it, you'd better join in. On Tuesday, her company, Muffin Tuckers, will be donating 100% of the profits from any New Orleans-related items to Tipitina's Foundation. Tipitina's Foundation is working to help New Orleans musicians and school music programs recover from the devastation. I think Clara Jane needs this shirt, being a Mardi Gras baby and all. So, go help. Get something cute. Tell 'em Poppy sent you, and I promise you won't get a jar of Grape Jelly of Wrath come Christmas.

Posted by Robin at 03:50 PM | Comments (11)

August 25, 2006

Friday Shuffle - The Shuffling Across My New Floor all the Way to Latrobe, PA Edition

Oh, I had hoped to write this much earlier today, but things are nuts at Chezy Poppy. I was going to write this thought-provoking piece about beauty standards and self-esteem, complete with photos of my formerly death-defying '80s hair. But life, and by life I mean an absent-minded husband and a child gripped with the mental illness colloquially known as "being two years old" have intervened. So this might be briefer than I had anticipated, which is probably for the best.

The short version: I've been feeling hideiously ugly all summer.

Now, for the most part, I'm pretty proud of myself for not being a slave to the previously-mentioned beauty standards. I am who I am, so be it. I do occasionally wear make-up, but I've never been one of those gals who'd rather remove a finger than walk out the door without a full painted face, or even one key cosmetic item. I view make-up as a toy, something fun to play with when the mood strikes me. I've always been rather fond of nail polish and lipstick, preferably in red and in the presence of a wiggly bootlegged Elvis-like toy while driving through Memphis, Tennesse:

tiny_elvis


Same goes with hair color. I started going grey about a week after I hit puberty. This has never bothered me much; I expected it to happen, since my mom also went grey fairly early. So you would think she would know better than to shriek, "My God, Robin! You're as grey as an old mule!" upon seeing my neglected roots a week after my 27th birthday. Nonetheless, I've colored my hair since I was 18. And like with makeup, the hair-coloring was always more about creativity and fun than some misguided thought that I must look a certain way or I'm somehow less of a person.

To quote india.arie, which I'd rather not do but I will: "Sometimes I shave my legs and sometimes I don't." You get the picture. I also have a condition that lends itself to pear-shaped obese bodies, facial hair, skin tags, zits, oily skin, dandruff, male-pattern baldness, and/or black and/or brown spots not dissimilar than the ones sported by my hound dogs. Pretty!

I generally look like crap by our current beauty standards, but for the most part it doesn't bother me. This summer has been particularly bad but in light of everything else that's gone wrong this summer, my looks haven't registered on my radar. The last time I wore makeup? The night of Summer's birthday party nearly two months ago. Last time I colored my hair? December. Last time I shaved my legs? Day before yesterday. It's cooler that way. Last time I cut my hair? The night of the "American Idol" finale. The last time I trimmed my bangs with a pair of scrapbooking scissors? About a week ago, and they're almost as straight as my friend Big Daddy B, who offered to wear a pink prom dress when he served as "maid" of honor at my wedding. Last time I painted my nails? The night before I flew to Vegas for U2 in November. Last time I plucked my chin? Yesterday. If I don't stay on that job daily, I'll trip on my Rip Van Winklesque beard.

It's been an ugly, ugly summer. I just gave up sometime around Independence Day, and I've been cool with that. I've been up against a lot. The blistering heat this summer makes everyone unattractive, so why waste energy fighting it? But I've had two things making this even more difficult: 1) The night of that last professional haircut, I thought it wise to get bangs. I was thinking only of cuteness, and not the fact that I would be stuck in 100+ degree heat with bangs I wouldn't be able to pull away from my face, which brings us to 2) With the onset of the crazies I experienced in June, my doctor put me on Wellbutrin XR, with side effects that Crazy Meds describes as such:

Strange body odor, sweating, nervousness and tremor. Basically Wellbutrin could make you look like the guilty party, so you better have a damn good alibi at all times in case some big, unsolved crime goes down.

Awesome! That means I got to spend my summer with a haircut that prevents sweat from escaping while taking a drug that produces even more sweat. With the humidity sending my thick, curly hair into afroesque proportions and my sweaty, oily, down-right slippery, scrapbooking-scissor-trimmed uneven bangs, I'm quite a sight.

And you know you wanna get wit' me. You do. H. O. T. That's me. I've got the sweat to prove it.

I've learned something this summer: it's easy to not fall into the trappings of "the standard of beauty" when you feel pretty good about yourself. When you feel like everything about your appearance is going haywire all at once, and you're chasing a two-year-old and barely have time to shower, much less partake in any extraneous beauty care, it suddenly becomes really, really easy to slip into the trappings of those standards. All that sweat makes for a slippery slope.

How bad did it get? About two weeks ago I was meeting a friend for dinner, sans kids and spouses. I had a rare few hours to myself before meeting her, and what did I do? I freaked out about the fact that I had absolutely no clothes that suit me. Nothing in my closet could magically undo my sweatiness, my fatness, my skin tagginess, my stubbliness, my sallowness, my eye-baggedness, and my all-around ugliness. I spent those few hours browsing clothes stores in hopes of finding something that magically made me look lovely, something I could wear out of the dressing room.

Now, I don't put much stock into daily horoscopes. While I think there might be some truth in real astrology, I know that those daily horoscopes are most often written by bored interns, pulling predictions out of their asses. But this was my horoscope a few days ago:

There isn't a need to try to make yourself look any better than you are, for others will perceive you correctly. Although this may surprise you, you are quite extraordinary.

And with that, I suddenly snapped back into my right mind. Why am I freaking out over my not-so-smooth skin, grey roots, flab rolls, sweat-shiny face, askewed bangs, and the weird things suddenly growing on my neck? Well, okay, maybe I should freak out about those weird things growing on my neck. I may be pretty well-adjusted, and I think that avoiding a trip to Goiterville might help me stay that way. But otherwise, I know I could show up to dinner in my raggedy pajamas with a goiter the size of my dog, and my friend - any of my friends, for that matter - wouldn't be bothered one bit at all. My friends aren't friends with me for my looks. But that's how far I let it go, wasting my time and energy getting all worked up because my God, if I have to wear a t-shirt and jeans one more time I'm going to be thrown into Ugly People Jail!

It didn't occur to me until the next day that the horoscope might have intended for the word "look" to be more figurative and less literal than I was taking it. No matter. It's made up anyway, so I can take it however it best suits me. The point is, I can't remember the last time anyone said anything negative to me about the way I look. And so what if they did? I rarely feel like I'm treated poorly based on my looks. And so what if I am? Why am I wasting my time and energy worrying about it? No more.

The angst hasn't been limited to my appearance and wardrobe. I've been feeling this way about my house, too. Things have been in bad shape around here. A few months ago, we removed two layers of ugly vinyl flooring from our kitchen with intensions of laying new, less ugly vinyl. Nothing fancy, since we're not planning to stay here much longer, God willing. Just spiffying it up to make it a bit more pleasant for us, and more appealing to any potential buyers.

Of course, we hit some obstacles along the way, mainly in terms of a leaky dishwasher. Then we had the blackout. Instead of laying the new flooring when we planned to do it, we were busy being evacuees.

And let's talk about the room in the back of our house. You know, the room that made me want to buy this house in the first place. It used to be a back porch, but the previous owners enclosed it. I envisioned it as being a lovely sitting room when we moved in, and it was for awhile. Eventually I moved my computer back there, and it was my office for several years. During that time, B. was patching a leaky spot in the roof one day when he took a little trip through the ceiling. Fell right through it. So, no more ceiling for my office. For a little over five years, the "ceiling" has consisted of exposed fiberglass insulation. At one point, there was even a bird's nest in it.

Two years ago, for Clara Jane's sake, we moved my office set-up out of the back room and into the main part of the house. Since then, the ceilingless back room has been a dumping ground for anything in the house that didn't have a proper place.

So, here we are with ugly exposed subflooring and a ceilingless room filled with heaps of junk. Add that to my lack of time and energy, and I've felt like frantically running around town in search of the housing equivilent of new clothes before anyone lays eyes on my house's hideousness.

Well, things are turning around. My parents are visiting this weekend. For our anniversary, they've gone above and beyond by purchasing proper subflooring for our kitchen and dining room so we can finally get the flooring we purchased in April in place. They also bought carpet and the materials to replace the ceiling in the backroom. They're here this weekend to help us get it all installed. My house will be cute again! And when it is, I might even share photos of its cuteness with you. Oh, what the hell - c'mon over! All of ya! We'll have ourselves a party.

And I'm going to be cute again, too. For starters, my doctor took my Wellbutrin away. The only thing it was doing to me was making me even more anxious and sweatier. Within a day of my last pill, the sweating had gone away. The end to the heat's also in sight. Clara Jane's supposed to visit my parents next week, which will leave me time for some beauty fun n' games, like coloring my hair a brand new color it's never been before, and maybe buying some new lipstick to replace all the crappy stuff I bought last year that makes my lips feel like they belong on a corpse. I don't do beauty crap that makes me feel bad in any way, shape or form. I'm looking forward to new slates all around.

Hell, I even have painted toenails right now. Today, while Clara Jane sat on the toilet and sobbed because her grandpa is here, and how dare he love her with all his heart! The audacity of that man! She sobbed, leaning against me while I sat on the edge of the bathtub. My mom grabbed a bottle of rather whorish red nail polish to paint Clara Jane's toenails. It's a little thing they do. After getting one footful of toes painted, Clara Jane had had enough, so my mom instructed me to give her my foot. And she painted my toenails, without me even asking.

I feel a little more like myself now.

And I'm also looking forward to maybe getting back on the fun horse once again and doing something a little nuts. You know I adore Wilco, right? They're playing in Latrobe, PA, two days before my birthday. Why does this excite me? Because Exena lives not-too-far from Latrobe. She loves Wilco. Hey! Let's go see Wilco for my birthday! Another bonus: a new exhibit about The Clash at the nearby Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I priced airfare today. It's cheap. I think I need to take my chocolate-brown hair, red lips, and painted toes, bid adieu to my cute house, and have a few days of fun.

If Wilco's in the shuffle, I swear to God, I'll put on my socks, strip down to my underwear, and slide Tom Cruise-style across my new floor with glee. Pretty!

1. I'll Be Faithful - Dusty Springfield
2. Ordinary Pain - Stevie Wonder
3. Nothing Lasts - Matthew Sweet
4. Little Babies - Sleater-Kinney
5. A Change Would Do You Good - Sheryl Crow (Hallelujah, yes!)
6. In the Dark - Nina Simone
7. Crazy - Willie Nelson
8. Workout Plan - Kanye West
9. Your Most Valuable Possesion - Ben Folds Five
10. Emit Remmus - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Aw, what the hell? Regardless of the lack of Wilco, you know I'll strip and slide anyway. I'm still slippery enough to really go flying across the room

Posted by Robin at 07:52 PM | Comments (15)

August 21, 2006

In Which I Continue My Transformation Into a Farmwife, Circa 1932

I've been a busy girl while ignoring my blog and email recently. You might recall a few weeks ago when I went on a jam-making frenzy. Well, the frenzy has continued. Look, please and see how I'm turning from this:

to this:

Granny Viv.

First, let's talk about quilts, shall we? Because I've been up to my armpits in quilts lately. It all started nearly a year ago, and you can see how it transpired here in the comments of my blog. I'm guessing my granny never formed a quilting bee via the internet. I haven't gone completely Steinbeckian, not yet. The abbreviated version: Allison had recently found my blog because I'd mentioned her snazzy quilted potholders. She Googled, she found, she read, she emailed. And in the face of tragedy, she taught me to quilt. I love the internet! See? That's a totally non-Steinbeckian attitude.

So, Allison taught me how to make simple patchwork quilts, held together with tied string/yarn/ribbon, which are actually my favorite kinds of quilts. My enthusiasm lasted exactly 23 days. How do I know this? Because I blogged it all. See? I'm still modern and relevent. Why did my enthusiasm wane?

Let me show you what I use for "sewing":

The antique on which I vainly attempt to sew.

Now, I adore just about anything that came from the years 1930-1963, but this is ridiculous.

This sewing machine first belonged to my mom. Then my grandma. And then I think it went back to my mom, probably with a verbal exchange that went:

"You take it."

"I don't want it. You take it."

"It's yours. You should have it. Please, rent a forklift and take this 374-pound atrocity that doesn't maintain thread tension and haul it back to your barn."

"No! Hey, wait - I have an idea! Let's give it to Robin. Surely this will get her over the misguided notion that she should spend time sewing. That awful home ec teacher who nearly flunked her freshman year hasn't deterred her, but maybe this will."

It hasn't.

After several autumn days of happily sewing strips of donated fabric into my very first quilt, I finally got sick of fighting with the sewing machine's tension problems and gave up. Which is ironic, seeing as I have my own tension problems and you'd think I'd be more understanding with my tension-impaired elder, but I wasn't.

Two weeks ago, Allison came over with the 263 quilt tops she has finished since last September so we could start tying them. I showed her my 11/12ths-of-the-way-finished quilt top with much shame. Enough shame for me to spend the whalloping 20 minutes required to finish it.

And here it is!

My first quilt

First quilt, up close

Lovely, no? I spent a lot of time thinking about the Katrina evacuee who might be given this quilt, and how maybe the images of palm trees and fishies might soothe some of the pangs for home. Or maybe they'd make them worse, I don't know. But I thought about it a lot.

But now, nearly a year later, we all know that everything's all better on the gulf coast. Right? Right? Oh, wait ... I guess not. I emailed the woman who organized the quilt drive that got Allison and me quilting in the first place, but never heard back. So, we're going to keep our efforts a little closer to home. I'm a fan of Haven of Grace, and I'd like them to benefit from my 11 months of grueling hard work angsty teeth-gnashing over my non-perfect quilting skills.

Either way, I've got to release this quilt into the world, where it'll find someone who truly needs it, because I'm convinced that terrible mojo has been visited upon me for keeping these donated fabrics crumpled in my closet for the past 11 months.

Let's all hope it doesn't take me another 11 months to conquer my fear of learning how to bind the quilt's edges.

Allison and I collaborated on another quilt. Here's what she did:

Quilt I helped with.

And here's the part I did:

The extent of my helpage

I can tie like a vandal, yo.

But every little bit of help should be acknowledged and praised, right? In that spirit, I offer acknowledgement and praise to my special little Murphy, who helped with my first quilt:

Quilting, Murphy-style.

She helped by sticking her head under the quilt and remaining lost and tangled for over three hours, offering me ample distraction and laughter while I finished all those ties.

Now that I think about it, I think Allison's responsible for my march toward Depression-era spinsterhood. We met up at the farmer's market on Saturday, where all the Depression-era spinsters hang out and look for kicks. In exchange for two jars of jam, she gave me yet another metric ton of her home-grown basil, which I have since converted into frozen pesto:

Pesto!

When I was making this on Saturday, I can promise you that, despite the presence of two smelly dogs, a stinky cat, and a potty-training toddler, my house definitely smelled better than yours. Basil abounded, and we were all heady with its aroma.

So plentiful was the basil, I decided to completely lose my Amish mind and make some basil jelly.

Oh, shut up. I don't see you slaving over a hot-water canner. When you start making some damn jelly, then you can have a say over what the damn jelly's made from.

It's lovely, no?

Basil jelly

Don't be fooled, though. It's an enhanced loveliness, doctored with a smidge of food coloring, as natural-colored basil jelly is an unappetizing shade of gray. And believe me, when basil jelly's concerned, you want to pull out all the stops to make it as appetizing as possible.

(Actually, I kid. The basil jelly's yummy. I don't care that B.'s first reaction upon tasting it was, "Hm. That's ...weird." What the hell does he know? He's from a part of the country that has four legal food seasonings: salt, pepper, ketchup and canned chicken gravy. When he starts slaving over a hot-water canner, then he can have a say over what the jelly's made from.)

I also bought four pounds of grapes from a guy at the market who hauled a truckload of dubiously-named "Arkansas table grapes" to St. Louis from, you guessed it Smartypants, Arkansas. They need a better name, like "sumptuous little bursts of sour-sweet joy grapes". And what did I do with the grapes? Why, I made a much more orthodox and socially-acceptable form of jelly:

Oh, but don't be fooled by its purple-flavored beauty. All is not well inside those half-pints. Not well at all.

You see, my jelly isn't very jelly-y. It's more like slightly rubbery juice.

Upon looking at the recipe (and oh, how I love that the recipe is listed as a "side dish". "I'll have the pork tenderloin, a spinach salad, and a side of slightly rubbery grape juice, please."), I realized I made what must be a fatal mistake: I accidentally used powdered pectin instead of liquid pectin.

I went in search of information on what this might mean for my rubbery grape juice. "Powdered pectin and liquid pectin aren't the same! Don't interchange them! The sky will fall if you do!" was all I could find. Surprisingly, jelly-making experts are few and far between on the internet. And the ones who are online are surprisingly fatalistic. Nevermind that I found several recipes identical to what I made, with the exception that the recipe-writer had swapped liquid for powdered and last I checked, the sky was still firmly in place, probably glued to the top of the world with rubbery grape juice.

But still, my rubbery juice remained and in a full-blown tizz, I called my granny, the woman who could probably make tasty jelly from, I don't know, pencil shavings and dog hair. She's also the gal in that b&w picture above.

"Grandma," I said when she picked up the phone. "I'm having a jelly emergency!"

Those are words I never, ever thought I'd moan to my sweet, sweet grandma. She's led a rough life. That's the last thing she needed to hear.

She assured me that my jelly would be fine, but I'd probably have to completely do it all over again.

*sigh*

Being Amish is hard work.

Want some bouncyjuice? Or an unbound quilt? Perhaps some herby jelly? 'Cause I've got a glut of it all. Take that 3,492-pound sewing machine with you, too.

Posted by Robin at 01:10 PM | Comments (19)

August 18, 2006

Friday Shuffle - The Don't You Have Something Better to Read Edition

I'll be completely honest - I'm going through a bit of disillusion. If I were to dig through my archives, which I won't, I'd probably find that similar disillusions have happened at the end of August every year. That's when I always develop The Late-Summer World-Hating Malaise, a condition that leaves me making such ridiculous remarks as, "Good grief, can't you people comment? *snort* Voyeurs."

By then end of summer, I'm always a tad bit edgy, and really not fit for human interaction or consumption. I'll be fine by mid-September, but for now, be warned: I might greet you with a friendly wave. I might burst into tears. Or I might throw a rock at you. None of these actions are rooted in how I feel about you as a human being. It's simply an artifact of me being perpetually tired, irritated, and fed the hell up.

That's the case during a normal summer. This has not been a normal summer. This has been the Heat Wave Summer. The Anxiety Attack Summer. The Blackout Summer. The Terrible Twos Summer. Considering that, you'd probably be best to assume that the friendly wave isn't my greeting of choice these days.

I'm also prone to incoherant rambling best suited for manifestos written in wooded shacks, but I think you've probably realized that by now.

Every time I've sat down with intentions of blogging this week, all that's come to mind is a long-winded list titled Crap I Currently Hate. Trust me, you don't want to read about how much I hate stupid raging ego t-shirts, triple-digit heat indeses, and Moveable Type eating a blog entry written completely in the style of Alyssa Capucilli's Biscuit books.

So, I'm going the opposite direction. I'm going to blog about something I love. I'm going to blog about reading.

My parents are neighbors with a retired couple who are two of the most voracious readers I've ever met. And that's saying something, because I know a lot of voracious readers. While they're very budget-minded, they do have one extravagance: magazines. The wife confessed to my mom that they spend over $1000 a year in magazine subscriptions. Can you imagine?

Lucky for us, they share the wealth, always passing on the magazines when they're finished. They regularly show up with big boxes of current magazines for my mom. She reads what she wants, then passes the boxes along to me.

Anyone need some magazines? No, seriously. I've got about 948 magazines on my dining room table.

I used to be a magazine junkie, back in high school when I intended to pursue a career in magazine journalism. I've gotten over that over the years, seeing magazines as little more than wastes of paper covered with advertisements. Like, the proliferation of magazines about shopping? What the hell? Isn't that like spending $5 for nothing but advertisements? I don't get that at all.

Thanks to the neighbor, I'm becoming a junkie again. At least I'm recycling, though. Southern Living! Midwest Living! Cottage Living! Country Living! This is living! I'm reading them all, along with whatever else I dig out of the box. I even read an issue of that new Rachael Ray magazine, and I hate Rachael Ray.

My favorite, I almost hate to admit, is the Oprah magazine. It's surprisingly good with a lot of well-written essays. This week I read an interview with Paul Rusesabagina that had me sobbing. I'm currently reading the July issue, which was all about reading. That's the issue with the ballyhoo'd Harper Lee letter.

I'm getting a lot of magazine-reading time these days, because Clara Jane's potty training. And by "potty training" I mean "sitting on the toilet for three one-hour sessions every day". She doesn't have much use for me, as this is what she's doing during these sessions:

Read faster, Clara Jane.

Obviously, I can't leave her alone, because she needs someone to hand the books to her every five minutes when they slide off her lap. But she's so engrossed in her reading that she doesn't care to converse with me. So, I sit on the step-stool she uses to reach the sink, and I plow through the boxes of magazines.

I started the reading issue of the Oprah magazine on Wednesday, when Clara Jane was balancing that entire library on her lap. The timing couldn't be better. I was reading a piece titled "Shelf Awareness", which asked several well-known writers how they manage their book collections.

I'm not a book collector. As much as I love to read, I can't concentrate if I feel like I'm drowning in clutter. More books equals more clutter equals less reading, for me. I rarely even buy books anymore. I stopped because we have access to two excellent library systems. If I'm not dishing out money for books, I can be more free with what I read, more apt to venture into books that go beyond the stuff I know I'll like. But in my book-buying days, I rarely held on to books. I'm a book-lender, and I never expect to see my books again. I don't want to see them again. I like the feeling of setting them free.

The article mentioned that Steve Almond was the only author interviewed who still uses the library. "The important thing is to keep the book in your mind, not on your property." I like that. And even though it cuts into his bottom-line, I hope he doesn't mind that I borrowed Candyfreak and My Life in Heavy Metal from the library when I read them last year.

As a writer, it's probably really bad financial karma for me to either buy all of my books used, or borrow them from the library. Answer me this: in these days of the music and movie industries losing their shit over file-sharing, why is it still not only okay, but accepted for written arts to be borrowed? And not just borrowed, but borrowed from institutions that are taxpayer-funded? Not that I have a problem with this, obviously. It just strikes me as odd.

Anyway, I was reading this article, thinking about my book-keeping habits. And then I looked at my daughter with nine books piled on her tiny lap, and another in her hands. For well over half an hour, she kept her little legs stretched with her feet up to keep them balanced, whining when any of them slid to the floor.

It seems that while my daughter is following in my book lust footsteps, our storage styles are going to be vastly different. She has a new bookcase in her room. A few weeks ago I gathered the piles and piles of her books from around the house and arranged them in the case. I threw some big, comfy pillows on the floor, thinking that she'd love to have her own little reading nook. And she does love it - she loves to sit there and admire the spines of her books, but she won't remove them from the case.

Not only have I created a book-reader, I think I've created a book-hoarder.

Clara Jane begs to go to the library. Not that she has to beg too hard; I take her twice a week at the bare minimum. B. often takes her in the evenings, too. We have two branches we go to so often that most of the librarians know us by name. They also turn a blind eye to our fines and overdue books, and we love them for that. We go to storytime at least once a week. The other trips are just for browsing. She has her routine: she browses the shelves on her eye level and brings books to me one at a time. I'll read the book to her, then she places it on the cart to be reshelved. Repeat. She could do this all day, every day. I can't recall a single instance where Clara Jane asked to leave the library. More often than not, we have to drag her out. Crying is often involved.

She's getting selective about what books she checks out. On Monday, we made a quick stop at the library, only long enough to read four books. When it was time to leave, she pulled one book from the pile we'd read to take home. I didn't have to suggest, ask, or insist. She knew which one she wanted.

For the record, it was "Otto Goes to School" by Todd Parr. Not that this surprised me. When we arrived at the library she told me, "I want to read an Otto book". And who could blame her? The Otto books are great stuff. This one made me cry when we read it at the library a few weeks ago.

Clara Jane's love of books and reading makes me so proud and happy. I may lack a lot of things as a mother. I may let her watch a little too much TV and eat a few too many tortilla chips. I may be a bit too impatient with her, especially as we enter the second hour of Pottyrama. But if I've done anything right, it's that I seem to be doing a good job of raising a reader.

The entire Harper Lee letter should be read by every reader, but there was one part that really struck me:

Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cellphones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it.

Maybe that's the real reason why I've been unmotivated to blog, or even read anyone else's blog this week. It's too easy and therefore not as fulfilling as, say, plodding through 528 pages of The Whole World Over. Right now, I'm craving that fulfillment.

But that doesn't mean that I'm throwing the iPod away. I'll shuffle between chapters and potty breaks.

1. Hello Mr. Heartache - Dixie Chicks
2. Loose Translation - The New Pornographers
3. Linstead Market - Dan Zanes
4. I Got Love if You Want It - Slim Harpo
5. This Love Affair - Rufus Wainwright
6. The Swimmer - Sleater-Kinney (which has shuffled up roughly 26 times this week; must be time for a reset)
7. I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl - Nina Simone
8. Supposed to Be - Jack Johnson
9. It Ain't Supposed to Be - Exene Cervenka & the Original Sinners (For the record, I'd pay good money to see Exene and Jack in a cage match, fighting over whether it's supposed to be or not supposed to be. My money's on Exene smashing a surfboard over his head.)
10. Disco Blackout - ControllerController

Posted by Robin at 04:01 PM | Comments (7)

August 13, 2006

The Friday Shuffle: Alas for You, Boobie Scarves. You're Done. Edition

In less than a week The Cuz will be walking 60 miles in three days for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. And for six months, I have knit nothing but boobies to help her raise money for her walk. There have been pink boobies, green tweedy boobies, rosy pink and green boobies, and flaming sunset-orange boobies. Well, I also knit a baby sweater and hat, but boobies are involved there, you know.

And thanks to lovely readers of this blog like Jodi, Suzy, Roni, Debbie, and all the generous bidders who drove up the price, we've raised $235, which is awesome! But, Wendy (The Cuz) is still $215 shy of her $3000 fundraising goal. Let's help push her over the top, shall we?

Midnight Boobies

This is it: the fifth and final auction for a boobie scarf, knit by me with a pattern by Jillian Moreno. Now that I'm finally done with these damn scarves, maybe I can finally knit something from her not-quite-so-new book, Big Girl Knits, which has been collecting dust on my desk while I knit boobs until my fingers bled.

Here's how it works: The auction starts immediately (Sunday, August 13th at 11:00 PM Central Daylight Time). Since this is the last auction, I'm going to run it a little longer. You have until Tuesday, August 15 at 12 noon Central Standard Time to place your bids. Bidding will start at $30. To place your bid, just post your amount in the comments. Bidding wars are highly encouraged.

The winner of the auction will donate the winning bid amount through Wendy's 3-Day donation page. Totally safe and secure - neither of us will see your payment info. Once you've donated, I'll send the scarf to you at my expense. 100% of your purchase goes to the Komen foundation.

Now, the details of this, the final scarf: It's 44" long and 4" wide, knit from Elsebeth Lavold Chunky AL yarn in "Midnight Sky". The yarn's 50% alpaca and 50% Peruvian wool. This is some soft, soft yarn. In fact, so soft that I had a hard time keeping it from sliding off my needles, making this, without question, the most annoying boobie scarf of all.

Unfortunately, because of the super-dark shade of blue, this is a particularly difficult scarf to capture in photos. Trust me, it looks just like the previous boobie scarves, only blue. Really dark blue. You can see all of the scarves right here.

Boobies love to shuffle two days late. Alas, no "My Humps". Or "Milkshake".

1. Train - Uncle Tupelo
2. 9 to 5 - Dolly Parton (Because it just wouldn't be a boobie scarf shuffle without her.)
3. Concrete and Barbed Wire - Lucinda Williams
4. Ain't Got No/I Got Life - Nina Simone (Although while listing all the body parts she's got, Nina doesn't mention her boobies. Win this auction, and you can sing this song and ad-lib because lemme tell you, you'll have 38 boobies in additon to however many you already have.)
5. A Long Walk - Jill Scott
6. English Civil War - The Clash
7. Just Friends - Charlie Parker
8. We are Underused - Pavement
9. Play the Music Toronados - The TSU Tornados
10. This Time - John Mellencamp

Posted by Robin at 10:23 PM | Comments (9)

August 10, 2006

Dots of Weirdness

There is weird business afloat around here these days. Well, not really that weird, but it beats the whole lotta nothing that's also going on around here.

Posted by Robin at 01:30 PM | Comments (5)

August 08, 2006

A Trip to the Past in Pictures. With Jelly.

Today, I'm going to ramble like I'm 90 years old and not all there anymore.

Have you paid a visit to my cousin, The Cuz today? If not, you're missing the opportunity to see a photo of me, age six, and The Cuz, age infant-teen, lounging in the way-back seat of our granny's red Dodge Aspen station wagon. Go see what summer looked like 28 years ago. I'm the big one with hair.

Did you see what I did this weekend, once B. got the air conditioner working? I made a dozen jars of homemade peach jam and nine jars of blackberry jam. If that's not incentive for you to make every effort to be in my good graces come holidaytime, I don't know what is.

Yes, after spending nearly 24 hours in sweltering mild discomfort, the first thing I did once the house temperature returned to the bearable range was fire up a kettle with gallons of boiling water with large pots of molten fruit on the next burner. Now, I know that my mom, her mom, her mom's mom, my dad's mom, my dad's mom's mom etc etc etc all did the canning thing without air conditioning, and produced a hell of a lot more than 21 half-pints of froufry jam. They also did it without the luxury of a dishwasher.

To be fair to my wimp-ass self, this is the first year I've canned with the luxury of a dishwasher. Obviously, I would have survived just fine on the farm.

I guess it was about six years ago when I got it in my head that I wanted to learn how to can. Easier said than done. Granted, I could have spent a weekend in my hometown and learned everything from my mom and granny. Not sure why I didn't go that route. It would have been easier than trekking to eight - eight! - stores in search of canning equipment. After the fifth store, I finally realized that I wasn't going to find mason jars at the mall. Okay, not really, but I would have been wise to have avoided the big box stores and headed straight for the tiny hardware store in my neighborhood first, though. Not only did they have everything I needed, but the 78-year-old store employee who waited on me gave me some lessons. Try getting that at Walmart.

Anyway, in the midst of my quest for canning equipment, I got myself in such a tiz about how this is a dying art, and who's going to keep it alive? All you lazy yuppies with your Smuckers store-bought crap-jam and your fancy green beans without even a trace of botulism bacteria? No! You're going to let it die!

I'll save you, Home Canning!

Once I got home and started actually canning, what with the washing and sterilizing of the jars and lids, and the boiling water, and the peeling of the tomoatoes and the chopping and the heat and the ladling and the third-degree boiling tomato sauce splatter burns on my arms and face and the hours of cleaning and holy shit, how did I manage to get pomegranate juice splatters all the way on the living room ceiling, I finally realized why canning is a dying art:

Because it's hard fucking work, Robin, you dumbass!

And yet, I continue to do it. I cuss the entire time. I slam things. I shake my fist at the tiny little part of my soul that retains a smidge of that Midwestern pioneer farm work ethic, because it's totally screwing things up for my lazy-ass, wimpy urban self. But I do it, because you know what? After it's all said and done, it's really rewarding. I get such a kick out of stacking all those jars and admiring their pretty, yummy contents. I don't even necessarily want to eat them. I just like to look at them, and know that they're mine, from all the women in my family before me.

My mom cans the basics - green beans, tomatoes, and whatever she's grown in her garden. Granny's still a jelly-making machine. That woman can make jelly out of anything. Apples, peaches, blackberries, elderberries, gooseberries, hot peppers, plums, and I can't remember what else.

Aside from putting away some tomatoes and peaches a few years ago out of some misguided sense of duty, I try to do things that are different. Like the cranberry chutney. I made ten jars, and I think that maybe one of them got eaten.

I developed my very own canned salsa recipe, which is damn near the best salsa you'll ever eat. Trust me on this. It's good. When I can salsa, we have to start rationing it around March or April when it looks like we might run out before tomato season.

One year I decided to make pomegranate jelly for Christmas gifts. We'd stopped in Chicago's Indian-Pakistani district on our way home from Michigan at Thanksgiving, where I found cases of pomegranates for some ridiculously low price that I couldn't pass up. Thing is, one can only eat so many pomegranates before they start to turn. You don't want to eat three pomegranates a day, every day. Trust me on this, too. Not that I did that, but it was fear that I might that drove me into jelly-making.

Are you familiar with the structure of pomegranates? Tons of itty bitty teeny tiny little seeds, surrounded by lucious little sacks of juicy delight.

To make pomegranate jelly, one must make pomegranate juice.

That entails removing all those itty bitty teeny tiny fucking little seeds and squeezing the ever-loving life out of them.

Two crates of pomegranates and 20-odd jars of jelly later, my kitchen looked like we'd been butchering beef, or possibly people. Red splatters on the ceiling! Red splatters on the stove! Red splatters on every single kitchen wall! Red rivers on the floor! Red on the dog! Red, red, red everywhere!

Which is the real reason why my kitchen is no longer pale yellow. It's now red, because if you can't scrub the last traces of murder-scene-like jellymaking from the walls, you might as well join 'em.

Posted by Robin at 09:46 PM | Comments (8)

August 05, 2006

Murphy's Laws

This has absolutely nothing to do with this Murphy:

Dumb Murphy

Instead, it's about that rat bastard who metaphorically screws shit up. To whit:

If one wants to get a single print of, say, this photo to mail to this cousin during this 3-day walk, Murphy will guarantee that the following will occur:

The photo department clerk at Store #1 will have gone MIA. After ten minutes of waiting, Murphy will send someone from another department, who knows not of these "digital photos" of which one speaks. Doesn't matter, as Store #1's machines no longer contain software to read floppy discs, even though machines still have floppy disc drives. One can conclude that said floppy disc drives are used for MIA photo clerks to store their tasty quesadillas while they go on their adventures.

The photo clerk at Store #2 has spent far too much time sitting in her closet listening to The Smiths, and it has made her oh-so-very forlorn. As she operates the one-hour photo machine, she looks despondantly towards the potato chip aisle, wondering if you really think she'll pull through. The monitor of the digital photo computer is as black as her mood, and when one asks Ms. Morrissey for a hand, she sighs as if one has asked her to go out to the parking lot, pick up Murphy's SUV, and personally carry it over her head to a better parking space.

Not wanting to contribute to Ms. Morrissey's demise, one opts to visit Store #3 where, of course, the photo printer has no paper. Murphy's nowhere to be found to refill it, and no one else in the store knows how.

Now, at this point, one should just cut her loses and go for a nice cup of coffee, as it's too late for one to make it to the post office before the deadline to mail one's card to one's cousin. But one is stubborn to the point of psychosis, so one visits Store #4. There, one learns that, as one has drug one's sorry, sweaty carcass hither and yon only to be faced with the failings of both man and machine, one has been doing so with a flawed floppy disc, which doesn't contain the photo one wished to print.

Murphy, in cooperation with Ms. Morrissey, probably deleted the photo with the blackness of their souls.

Oh! But that's not all! Murphy had a big day, he did. Because when one finally staggers home, stinking of 95-degree heat and the bitter stench of failure, one finds one's husband fluttering about it a right tiz. It seems that one's air conditioning unit, at promptly 5:05 PM on Friday afternoon, opted to go tits-up in cardiac air conditioning unit death.

At this point, one once again displays one's inability to function more than 23 minutes in a crisis, and one promptly loses one's shit for what surely must be the 984th time this summer.

Okay, I'll stop with the third-person bullshit. It seemed like it might temper my incessant whining about suffering from mild discomfort and minor inconveniences. Suffice it to say, that was my Friday afternoon, and I was none too happy about it.

You'd think Murphy would stop there, but no. We did have a bit of luck in that one of our neighbors used to work as maintenance dude for an apartment complex. He took a gander at our croaking, gasping beast, diagnosed the problem, and told B. how to fix it. Of course, this was about two hours after the one place that sells the part he needed had closed for the day. We splayed ourselves out for a very sticky, very warm night.

Let me veer off-topic for one moment here. I refuse to bitch about the heat, because everyone is dealing with the heat. A lot of people are dealing with far worse situations than mine. However, it figures that the year my locale goes through bone-roastingly miserable heat, I would have done two things: 1) cut my hair into bangs that I can't pull off my face, thus creating a lovely sheet of permanently sweat-slicked fur on my forehead, and 2) gone on one drug that causes excessive sweating and another drug that bears a warning label that reads, "If you get hot, you might die." On the plus side, I'm enjoying lots of woozy headrushes, and people don't invade my personal space anymore.

Speaking of my drugs ... The one that makes me sweaty also makes me anxious, nervous, and gives me insomnia - conditions that I'm perfectly capable of attaining all by myself without chemical intervention. The heat-death drug counteracts these efffects. I take the hyper-pills in the morning, and the heat-death ones at bedtime.

Well, except for last night, when I was so exhausted from running in batshit circles all day while basting in my own juices that I accidentally took the up-all-night pill at bedtime.

I didn't realize my error right away. At first, bed felt so good. There was a bit of a breeze coming in, and the fan was doing its thing. Besides, I was so exhausted that I gladly would have slept on a hot engine block if it wouldn't mean certain death. It was only after lying in bed for a few minutes and thinking, "My God! I feel great! I think I'll go paint the kitchen! Or go fix the air conditioner all by myself!" that I realized the pill I had taken was white. Whitey wired, orangey passed outedey.

Clara Jane empathized by waking up very unhappy several times during the night.

Long, annoying story concluded: B. successfully repaired the air conditioner this afternoon, and the temperature in our house is finally lower than the temperature outside.

And since I've invoked her name so many times, here's a Murphy story for you. This Murphy:

How Murphy dealt with the blackout

Murphy has an injured tail. We don't know what's wrong with it, as she won't let us come near it. I was able to get a glance at it while she napped - no easy feat since she sleeps with her eyes open - and a portion of her tail has a great deal of hair removed and looks somewhat raw. Now, this missing hair is directly on one of her black spots, and I'm not convinced that she's got the brain power to know that you're not supposed to chew off your spots, Nimrod. Chloe the Basset keeps trying to investigate, but everytime she does, Murphy growls, which in Chloe's world means, "Play with me!". Chloe attempts to play while Murphy runs away, tail askew and fear-shedding.

Occasionally, she tries to outrun the tail. Murphy, if we could outrun pain, every single creature on this planet would be in prime marathon condition.

Today I broke the news to Murphy that, if she doesn't stop trying to eat her own tail, we'll have to send her to live with my grandparents, Viv and Chuck. You see, Viv and Chuck don't cotton to animals with fancy "tails". No sir. You won't find a single tailed beast in their company. Granted, their cat Bobbi showed up tail-free. But their other cat, Elmer, had to have his tail amputated.

Do you want to keep your tail, Murphy? Or do you want to move in with Viv and Chuck, surrendering your appendage at the door? If you prefer the former over the latter, I'd suggest you hold still and let me see what the hell you've done to yourself. Nimrod.

And that's been my weekend.

Posted by Robin at 10:09 PM | Comments (4)

August 04, 2006

Friday Shuffle - The Disco Duck Edition

Hello, Readers. Welcome to my shower!

Damn duck

There's nothing too extraordinary here. A couple of razors, some shaving cream, face cleanser, a vat of mango-pomegranate shower gel, a purple bath poof and, oh yeah, that, the bane of my existance.

To you, I know it probably looks like a cute little inocuous ducky. It's all plush and squishy, but still safe for hours of water fun and frolicking. When you squeeze his tummy, he quacks. "Quaaaack quaaaack quaaaack". I think the duck might be from one of the New England states, judging from the length of his A-sound.

The duck was a gift from The Cuz on the occasion of Clara Jane's first birthday. He's served us well for the past year and a half. But now, the duck is pushing his duck-luck.

Something's amiss with the duck, prompting him to wildly quack for no reason, without being pushed, all the fucking time. Since our house is pretty small, there's no escaping it.

"The duck's talking to you!" Clara Jane tells me, sounding far too much like that little girl in Poltergeist.
I keep expecting to hear that Boston-accented quack, followed by an innocent "The duck's heeeeee-re," at which point I will run screaming from the house, which I'm starting to think was built on a sacred duck burial ground.

Sitting in the living room, knitting. "Quaaaack quaaaack quaaaack."

Trying to sleep. "Quaaaack quaaaack quaaaack."

Making dinner. "Quaaaack quaaaack quaaack."

Curled into the fetal position, whacking my head on the hardwood floor while weeping. "Quaaaack quaaaack quaaaack."

The duck's got a raspy voice, like he's been holed up in the shower, chain-smoking Pall Malls while taking nips of Old Crow bourbon.

A few nights ago, B. and I were in bed, reading. The duck had been quiet all day, so much so that I had nearly forgotten about it. But as soon as the thought of going to sleep crossed my mind, "Quaaaack quaaaack quaaaack."

B. threw the covers off and started to get up.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I'm getting rid of the damn duck!"

And you know what? I wouldn't let him. I wouldn't let him! Have I gone completely stupid? No. I'm just curious to see how long the phantom quacking continues. Maybe his little ducky energy will be gone by the end of the weekend. Maybe it'll go on for years. Who knows? I'd like to.

Yet more evidence that perhaps the latest round of brain pills aren't quiet doing the trick. Besides, they make me feel all shuffly.

1. If You're Ready (Come Go with Me) - the Staple Singers
2. We Believe - Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. Shadrach - Beastie Boys
4. Pieholden Suite - Wilco
5. If I Could Build My Whole World Around You - Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell
6. A Better Future - David Bowie
7. My First Plea - Jimmy Reed
8. Don't Come the Cowboy with Me, Sonny Jim - Kirsty MacColl
9. Vertigo - U2
10. Turn Me On - Nina Simone

Ah, a touch of soul to counteract being haunted by the soulless.

Posted by Robin at 02:07 PM | Comments (5)

August 02, 2006

Cure for Verbosity

Since I've been both verbose and curmudgeonly of late, here are some dots.

Posted by Robin at 07:09 PM | Comments (11)

August 01, 2006

Corporate Karma

Well, I got my come-uppance today for being a corporate shill yesterday.

I've had today's date marked on my calendar for several weeks. Why? It's Curious George day at Regal Cinemas Free Family Movie Festival*! Clara Jane loves Curious George. We tried to take her to see the movie on her birthday, but that plan was thwarted when another theater chain decided that the remake of The Pink Panther would make a better Crybaby Matinee than Curious George.

*I'm giving you the name of the theater company not because I want to promote them. God, no, and you'll see why in a minute. I do, however, want this entry to pop up anytime someone Googles Regal Cinemas Free Family Movie Festival. Prepare to see that name often.

So, on with today. It was nearly 100 degrees when we got to the theater around 9:45. Not exactly prime toddler-wrangling weather. But I'd been promising her for weeks that we'd go to the movies, eat popcorn, and watch Curious George. I'll be damned if a little death-causing heat wave is going to make me go back on a promise to my kid.

We walked into the theater without issue, or tickets. You see, the Regal Cinemas Free Family Film Festival doesn't require tickets. At the St. Louis Mills location, they don't bother to hand out tickets so that they, perhaps, might have an inkling of an idea how many people are crammed into their six movie theaters.

Do you see why this might be troublesome?

We stood in the long line at the concession stand, since I'd promised Clara Jane some popcorn. That kid would eat nothing but popcorn, if I'd let her. After waiting behind the other moms, many of them juggling many more kids than I was, I plopped down $8.25 for a small popcorn and a small soda. Highway robbery, yes, but we all know that's to be expected. I steered Clara Jane through the crowd, trying to keep her on track while I juggled our snacks and my purse. Got to the entrance to the wing where Curious George was playing on three screens, all set for our movie-watching extravaganza.

We were stopped by a guy in his early 20s in a white shirt, apparently a theater employee. "Unless you already have a seat, you can't come in. All three theaters are full."

It took a minute for this to register with me. Surely not. Full? Why are you telling me this now, after I've herded my kid through a massive crowd, made her wait in a long concession stand line, and then plunked down my money on overpriced junk food, all while getting her hopes up?

Once it sunk in, all I could do was look this kid in the eye and say, "What?" To which he repeated the information. And all I could do was look at him, look at Clara Jane, look back at him and say the only words capable of passing through my brain: "Do you have any idea how hard this is?"

He smirked and said, "Actually, I do."

No. If you did, you wouldn't be smirking.

In a fit of frustration, I threw the popcorn and soda into the trash and stormed off. Yes, not the most dignified response, but shit. Here we've gone through all this trouble, spent money, and now I'm left with the task of trying to explain to my 2.5 year-old that no, I was wrong and we're not going to be seeing Curious George after all.

If that kid really knew how hard that was, there would have been no smirk. There would have been at least an ounce of compassion.

I scooped up Clara Jane and stormed out of the theater, trying to find a way to make her understand that our plans had been thwarted. But there's no way to do that with a kid her age. All she knows is that I've told her we're going to do something great, and all of a sudden I'm going back on my word.

I caught my breath, cleared a smidge of the anger cloud from my brain, and realized I needed to go back inside and find a manager. Shit, my middle name is "I Need to Speak to a Manager". I've waited tables. I've worked retail. I've worked in hotels. I know what constitutes good customer service and what doesn't, and I've never had any qualms about speaking up when I think a company falls short in that area.

I once got a $300 restaurant bill wiped clean because of a lazy server. I know my ways around managers.

So, back inside we went, and I was sent to a manager. I explained as calmly as I could (which was surprisingly calm, considering I had a load of those someone-fucked-with-my-kid hormones coursing through my system) that I understand that a free screening of a fairly recent, popular movie on one of the hottest days of the year is going to fill up fast. My problem was with the fact that they waited until the last minute to inform the public that the theaters were full. They could have posted a sign on the door, preventing parents from bringing their kids into the lobby and getting their hopes up. Clara Jane's been to one movie at this theater. She knew where we were and why we were there as soon as we walked in. Further, my problem was with the fact that they didn't have employees at the concession stands pass along this info. Instead, haggered moms (and a few dads, but not many), weary from the heat and wrangling excited kids, were left to deal with the cattle-call conditions, paying exorbatant concessions stand prices, all for naught.

That's just unethical and wrong.

"Well, we still have seats available for Cheaper by the Dozen 2", the manager said.

What the hell is the deal with local movie theaters trying to get me to take my kid to mediocre Steve Martin movies instead of Curious Fucking George? Honestly. When Clara Jane's old enough for Steve Martin, she'll be introduced to a banjo-playing doofus in a white suit with an arrow through his head, just as God intended.

I pointed to Clara Jane and asked, "Does she look like someone who would appreciate that movie?" Translation: "Have you ever actually met a little kid in your entire life, Dumbass?"

To his credit, the manager did refund my concession money without me asking. I didn't go in for a refund; in fact, when I complain to a manager, it's never to get my money back. The money isn't the issue. It's the principle. Besides, how many of the moms behind me, who were hauling around more than a single disappointed kid, would have had the energy to protest? I'm sure a lot of moms just took their overpriced, unhealthy snacks with them as they left with their kids, simply because it's too hard to fight for what's right when you're beat down and exhausted.

The thing is, this movie stuff goes against so much I believe in. I'm not a fan of big Hollywood movies or the corporate megaplexes they've spawned. It's a culture that's all about profit and leaves little to creativity and art. In getting Clara Jane hyped about this movie for the past few weeks, that voice in the back of my head kept tsk-tsking me. Why am I doing this? She's too young. Kids movies are just 90-minute advertisements. Granted, her first movie was Wallace and Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which managed to sidestep a lot of the crap I don't like about movies. But still - why was I so intent on exposing her to something I dislike so much?

Desperation, partially. When it's been this hot for this long, any new activities that don't involve turning my kid into a human pot roast sounds good. Also, the desire to give Clara Jane a chance to discover something that she might love, even if I'm not crazy about it. The lure of a new experience. But mostly desperation. Please get me out of this house for a few hours with the built-in big-screen babysitter.

We took our refunded money to a nearby coffeehouse we love, and had more fun than we would have had at the movie. We sat in our comfy armchairs, shared a muffin. She had a milk while I had a hand-crafted latte that cost less than the watered-down soda at the theater. It was made by someone who took the time to ask Clara Jane's name and talk to her; someone who took the time to talk to me. Clara Jane pretended her straw was a saxaphone and played along with the piped-in jazz. She read books, and then snuggled with me. She told me how much fun she had at the coffeehouse. And she was right - sitting together at the coffeehouse, making up our own games, talking and connecting was a lot more fun than quietly sitting in a dark theater, watching glorified TV while the throng of kids fussed and screamed around us.

But I still had it in my head that I needed to follow through with my Curious George braincandy promise. That's what pissed me off more than anything - that I let a goddamn movie theater turn me into a liar in my kid's eyes. We stopped by Target on the way home, since they used to have DVDs of Curious George shorts. That's right, I said used to have. There wasn't one to be found.

I gave up. I set myself up to disappoint my child. That's the way it is and there's no way around it.

I made a quick pass through the kid's book aisle (single aisle, as opposed to the aisles and aisles of kids DVDs) on my guilt march out of the store, when Clara Jane suddenly lunged for the shelf. She grabbed a big, bright red book: A Treasury of Curious George. Eight Curious George stories in one beautiful book, filled with the original H.A. Rey artwork instead of the creepily-slick movie animation. She looked at me and announced, "I need this book, Mama."

I bought the book, which is probably what I should have done in the first place.

So, what have I learned from this experience?

1. When a corporation touts something as being kid/family-friendly, it's probably not.

2. I should always listen to that voice in my head that tsk-tsks. It's never wrong. Ever.

3. Clara Jane cares more about books than movies, and that makes me prouder than anything.

4. Never, ever, ever build up Clara Jane's hopes unless I'm 100% sure I can follow through.

5. Regal Cinemas Free Family Film Festival is neither free nor fun. If you've considered taking your kids to this, don't.

From now on we'll be sticking to all the great, free stuff for kids through the awesome public libraries in both St. Louis county and city (which is open to us county-dwellers, I recently learned). Free programs that promote literacy, presented by people who love kids and books. You just can't go wrong with that.

As a sidenote, about five minutes after I posted last night, I read an article on NPR about the proliferation of advertising to toddlers. Touche'. I get it. No more corporate whore. I promise.

Posted by Robin at 01:40 PM | Comments (6)