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June 30, 2007

Friday(ish) Shuffle - The Again with the Ish Business Edition

My blog mojo is seriously lacking these days. Fact is, there's really not much to write about right now. You can only read, "Omigod! I love my house! I love Prettytown!" so many times before you start lobbing dirt bike wheels at me.

You also don't want to read more about Murphy, who's been the crux of this week. In addition to Tuesday's escape, she had a bout of diarrhea, which christened one of the rooms in the house on Thursday. She's fine. I have a feeling she ate a monkey ball from one of our sweetgum trees. I'm not sure of this, but I wouldn't put it past her.

Last night Murphy made another blatant escape, this one while B. was letting her in the house. She had to investigate what is the new slightly irritating, unusual vehicle in our new neighborhood - a coach bus idling in the parking lot across the street. Actually, she chased the bus' driver, who lives two houses down from us. He's been on the road since before our move.

"When I heard her howl, I thought, 'Oh, she's beautiful! She sounds just like Nutmeg!'"

Not only have we moved to a quiet, pretty, friendly, easy-going neighborhood, it's also a neighborhood where every single person we meet adores Murphy, hound dog howl and all. This has several possible answers: 1) I live in a neighborhood of polite liars, 2) I live in a neighborhood of people with odd taste in dogs, or 3) I live in paradise which, contrary to the belief of some Missouri-side St. Louis Metro area, does not house dragons. Well, only friendly ones that'll give you a hand if you need a flame for s'more-making.

My knit mojo has returned. I'm sure you're thrilled.

I had my first guests yesterday who weren't immediately put to work. My friend Jill and her daughters, one who's a day younger than Clara Jane, came over for pizza, corn dogs, conversation, and the patented kind of noise that can only be created by three little girls having a good time.

There's still a lot of unpacking. Fuck.

I moved to a town that has a wing joint with over 50 varieties of flavors. Last night I had garlic parmesan wings, horseradish wings, and my first bottle of Stag, which I think means I'm an official Bellevillian now.

I'm about to unveil one of the things that's kept me away from my blog. It's big. Or will be, if I get a chance to get rolling on it this weekend. It's something to raise money for boobs. It's so big it requires its own domain name, much like my own boobs. Prepare yourself, and start putting away your pennies. You're going to want to part with them very soon.

Since I'm such a slack-ass, here's a bit of a musical bonus in addition to the shuffle. Devil Baby Freakshow, the band co-fronted by my pal Beqi, made their live radio debut yesterday afternoon, which had me dancing around my kitchen with a mop. No joke. That really happened. Because I've obviously moved to Pleasantville, as everyone keeps telling me. Anyway, you can listen to their set, along with the two-hour entirity of Dangerous Curves by clicking the "stream" button for the June 29th show. They're about 45 minutes into the program, but listen to the whole thing. Where else are you going to hear Wanda Jackson and a Shangri-Las record other than "Leader of the Pack"? It'll make your kitchen sparkle, I swear.

These songs, in comparison to "Dangerous Curves", will probably just make you shuffle around, staring at your shoes, wondering if anyone's peed in them lately.

1. Selfless, Cold and Composed - Ben Folds Five
2. Land of Caanan - Indigo Girls
3. We'll Meet Again - Johnny Cash
4. Holiday in Harlem - Ella Fitzgerald
5. You Don't Know How it Feels - Tom Petty
6. Friday I'm in Love - The Cure
7. River Knows Your Name - John Hiatt
8. Ana Ng - They Might be Giants
9. The Show Must Go On - The Real Tuesday Weld
10. Too Much - Elvis Presley

Posted by Robin at 09:17 AM | Comments (1)

June 26, 2007

Murphy! Come Home!

In the past 24 hours I have screwed up two knitting projects, spilled three beverages, and damn near lost one of my dogs. And yet, I still like it better here than at my old crapshack.

Which reminds me, I know I need to change my header. Several issues: 1) lack of time and higher priorities, 2) lack of reliable internet service, 3) complete lack of ability to do anything right at the current time, and 4) big plans to move to different software once things settle down a bit.

Anyway, the dog situation. Our new house is such a perfect little bite of Americana, it even has a picket fence. Although it's not a perfect picket fence, as two of the pickets are loose. I told B. that they needed to be fixed because the dogs might get out. "Oh, don't worry your pretty little head about things involving hardware," I was told. Well, not really, but that might as well have been what was said because all concerns I voiced about the two pickets were poo-poo'd.

I should have just taken the damn hammer and some nails and fixed it myself. That would have been a lot easier than grabbing my newly-awake kid and throwing her into the truck with a wet Pull-Up, a yogurt smoothie, and no shoes so we could track Murphy through the neighborhood.

I love hounds. And by hounds I mean the category of dogs. Both of my dogs are scent hounds. I love their personalities, their skills, the houndy way they look. I could do without the hound stench. The only really bad part about having scent hounds is that once they're on a scent, they're as good as gone. The get so focused on tracking that they don't pay attention to their surroundings and, often, can't find their way home.

Look at any hound rescue site, and you'll read a lot of stories about dogs wandering lost with no tags or microchips.

Um, yeah. I still need to get my dogs microchipped. On Sunday I almost had new tags with our new address and phone number made for them but decided to wait for ... what? For impending hound tragedy so I could save money by only having to buy one tag?

Something this morning told me that I needed to take a look out the kitchen window and make sure the dogs were fine. I didn't see either of them. When I went outside, Chloe the Basset came running to me, in the yard just as she was supposed to be. She had that Lassiesque "Timmy's in the well and I have to show you" look about her as she ran across the yard to one of the broken pickets, which had been shoved aside. Then she turned to me and woofed, "That stupid nard Murphy busted out and went that-a-way! Gimme a treat!"

Thus, the grabbing of the pee-soaked shoeless kid by her braless, pajamaed mother. I didn't want to haul Clara Jane around the neighborhood on foot because I knew we needed to move fast. We live on a four-lane street. The yard Murphy had busted into opens directly into a driveway, which empties onto Main Street.

I somehow stifled the urge to call B. at work and tell him to get his ass home so he can scrape our dog off the street and explain Doggie Heaven to our kid.

Several trips up and down Main and the side streets, and I spotted a team of roofers a block from my house. At first they hadn't seen her, but on my next pass by, they flagged me down and led me to where they'd last seen her. Since it was on our block, I decided to go home, grab some shoes for Clara Jane, and work on foot.

As I pulled up to our curb, Murphy came wandering into our front yard, dazed, panting, and terrified. This is the dog who's afraid of the water dish, mind you. This is the dog I've often commented is too stupid to be alive. And yet, she somehow found her way home.

Why yes, after B. got home from work, he went directly to our neighborhood hardware store to buy stuff to fix the fence, followed by a trip to the neighborhood deli to buy a shitload of fried chicken livers because after I've bralessly chased my stupid dog with my pee-soaked, barefoot three-year-old and a team of Mexican roofers, you can guaran-damn-tee I will not be making dinner, or my own coffee. As soon as I got Murphy into the house, it was off to the drive-thru coffee house. Mama needed a latte. Bad. Baby needed a scone. And those roofers needed some fresh-baked giant muffins, after having to put me with me and my unfettered, not-so-fresh giant muffins flopping down the alley, all in the name of a stupid little dog, who's been sleeping on the couch all day.

Posted by Robin at 06:06 PM | Comments (10)

June 25, 2007

Pee Shoes ... is Niiiiiice

For one of the first times since we moved, I left Clara Jane and B. home while I ran some errands by myself. Not that this was a big deal. It wasn't. I didn't get lost; you know how much time I spent in Prettytown before we moved. I know my way around. It was pleasant to have that solo time, even if it was just shopping, getting trapped in a bookstore in the pouring rain, and stopping for coffee.

But you also know that nothing in my world is that simple.

Sometimes wishes come true. When I decided to stop for coffee I was hoping my pal Raquel, she of the beautiful, newly-finished back tattoo that ended with a trip to the E.R., would be there. And as luck would have it, she was working behind the counter. Raquel makes a fantastic latte.

There were three other patrons in the coffeehouse, apparently regulars but this was my first encounter with them. The only way I can describe this trio sounds terrible. It really does. But there's no other way. What I walked into at the coffeehouse was a meeting of the Metro East Bosnian Borat Fan Club.

Two of the guys wore matching Borat t-shirts, possibly homemade, as I can't find the design on any of the umpteen bazillion websites selling Borat t-shirts. The third wore an obviously inaccurate "Made in Ireland" shirt and did a lot of muttering in my general direction while we were both at the counter.

After visiting with Raquel for awhile, Borat Shirt #1 waved in my direction and said, "Hey, Ma'am? Is Niiiiice."

And then he started doing the movie's dialogue from the beginning.

Before he could display his love of disco dancing I interjected, "You've seen 'Borat' a few times?"

He held up four fingers and continued his monologue.

I don't know how I feel about being hit on by three Bosnian Borat wannabes. Well, other than hysterical, because that's some funny shit right there. It's no secret that I attract unusual characters, but this gaggle might top the list. They're definitely up there with the homeless man who once told me, "I don't want no skinny girls. Gimme a gal like you!"

Anyway ...

When I got home, Clara Jane was napping. B. and I went about the usual business of trying to decrapify our new house.

As you might recall, I recently wore the same pair of shoes for well over a week because mine were in a hidden box, trapped in the garage. My shoes have since been recovered and all is well. Until today.

"Uh, Rob?" B. said. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but since your shoes are still in the sink I guess I should."

"What do you mean, my shoes are in the sink? Which shoes?"

"That pair you wear all the time. The black leather ones."

Seems that Clara Jane, the Potty Train Wiz-ard, was going commando, playing in the basement for a bit while I was gone. She yelled upstairs, "Daddy! I peed!" which you never want to hear. I mean, we just got the dogs to understand that this is their den and pissing on the floor is unnecessary.

The good news: there was nary a drop of child urine on the carpet.

The bad news, which you've probably already figured out: when Clara Jane peed, she happened to be straddling my shoes.

"It was just like those pictures you see of people drinking champagne out of shoes. Except it was a clunky shoe instead of a pump. And it was pee," B. explained.

For a moment, running off with the Bosnian Borat Cult didn't seem like such a bad idea. Pee in shoes? Not niiiiiiice.

Posted by Robin at 12:06 AM | Comments (9)

June 23, 2007

Friday(ish) Shuffle - The Dots That Keep Me From Posting Edition

You know this is a busy time, right? Here's how much so:

• My new modem's crap. I don't think I've ever signed up for internet service and gotten a good modem the first time 'round. B. and I have spent a lot of time on the phone with our ISP, who have actually been nice and easy to deal with. New modem's on its way. In the meantime, the internet, she comes and she goes.
• Can't stop listening to Icky Thump long enough to form coherent sentences.
• When not listening to Icky Thump, life has been taken over by Little Steven's Underground Garage, which plays 24/7 on our satellite system. This show gave me that moment even mother dreams of: the moment when she walks into the living room to find her daughter, naked from the waist down, pogoing and screaming along to "High School" by the MC5.
• Speaking of naked from the waist-down, Clara Jane's feeling right at home in Prettytown. Comfortable enough to stand in the front window of a local coffee and ice cream establishment, bend over, and drop trou. You can take the girl out of the Redneck Jungle ...
• There are two - two!! - competing farmer's markets in this town. This morning I bought all my favorite veggies: broccoli picked this morning, zukes, sweet corn, green tomatoes, gooseberry pie, and strawberry jelly roll.
• I'm far too busy buying used furniture in East St. Louis to post.
• All that motherfucking unpacking.
• Planning a fundraiser-gone-amok for The Cuz that might lead to one of us sporting bright pink hair and the other sporting no hair at all, if all goes well.
• Wasting my time "auditioning" for a job with a large internet company called clusterfuck.com. Not their real name, but it's just about appropriate, all things considered. When you want to quit the job before you've landed the job, that's not a good sign.

  Would you like to see some photos of the new house in its current horrible state?

  
  
  I bought this to house all those vintage cocktail glasses I bought a few weeks ago. The Styrofoam under the leg will be replaced with a caster just as soon as we get time, around Clara Jane's junior year of college.

  
  This is the one organized area in my house.

  
  I just want to sit here and knit. But not until the unpacking's done. And not until the chains are fixed so I don't face-plant into the brick wall every time I sit down.

  
  At least we don't have piles of our personal belongings in the front yard anymore, thanks to one of our nice neighbors.

  
  Again, the important parts of the house are in order.

  
  "Hey B.? Did you remember to unpack Clara Jane? I can't find a damn thing in her room."

  
  B. can't find his heel cream (it's in that plastic box right there, but he has no problem finding the 3-year-old bag of masdoor dal on his dresser. Again, priorities.

  
  Oh good. She's unpacked and lounging in the formal living room. You can tell it's formal because there are only eight boxes in it instead of the 156 each of our casual rooms contain.

  
  See that bag of potato chips on the dining room table? Until today's farmer's market run, that was the most nutritious thing any of us had eaten in over a week.

  But this is pretty:
  

  And so is this:
  
  PKB gave me that turquoise cake safe. She found it at a yard sale nearly seven years ago while driving to work. I'm required by law to tell people that. Seriously. She somehow had a law passed that my ass goes to the slammer if I don't tell people she's responsible for that cake safe, and that it's my favorite.

  
  You know what happens when you unearth a St. Joe who's been buried for six months? You find yourself with a St. Joe full of dead earthworms. Had I known that when I took this photo, I would have cried. He lives on my kitchen window ledge, along with an illegal German Elvis and the naked lady vase, where they shuffle the day away in Prettytown delight.
  

  1. Coal to Diamonds - The Gossip
  2. I Can't Feel You Anymore - Loretta Lynn
  3. Bird on a Wire - Johnny Cash
  4. English Civil War - The Clash
  5. Crazy Love - Van Morrison
  6. Breakdown - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
  7. Dumb Blonde - Dolly Parton
  8. I Can Love You Better - Dixie Chicks
  9. 10 A.M. Automatic - Black Keys
  10. Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys

  Posted by Robin at 09:30 PM | Comments (8)

  June 21, 2007

  Bourgeoning Young Criminals Galore!

  No, our new neighborhood hasn't gone the way of our old one. Everyone's still delightful. We've lived here for a week and I haven't once had the urge to call the cops. It's been nearly a decade since I've gone a week without wanting the cops. Progress!

  Unfortunately, I'm starting to fear that we're the equivalent of the dune-buggying, dirt-biking, face-tattooing, verbally-abusing, Brandy-screwing folks we left in our old neighborhood. Two examples:

  1. Remember the situation with our garage door being shut, possibly permanently trapping a great deal of our worldly belongings, including all but one pair of my shoes? Well, let's just say it's been fixed. Let's just say it's been fixed by a member of this family who went to a website - possibly www.burgeoning_young_criminals.org - and learned how to pick a lock with a Steelcase desk key, which he did right beside our Neighborhood Watch sign. And me without my camera.

  2. Clara Jane set off a cherry bomb in a public toilet. At least, that's what I'm going to tell people, because it's less embarrassing than saying, "Yeah, my three-year-old is such a gold-medal-level shitter* that she demolished the toilet at a local yarn shop."

  I'm just glad I made a sizable purchase before the kid went all shitorious.

  (*Thanks to Rachel for the terminology. She's the one who had to deal with my kid's intestinal fallout, so for God's sake go buy a bunch of yarn from her. The gal deserves it for what she tolerates from me and my child.)

  Posted by Robin at 08:10 PM | Comments (15)

  June 20, 2007

  Hacksaw, Please!

  I'm here. I'm alive. I'm not unpacked. I'm swamped. You know how it goes.

  I'm still in love with Prettytown. No matter how many local officials I talk to, this still seems a bit like Norman Rockwell Nirvanaland, and I'm good with that.

  We've only had two problems since arriving, and both involve us not being able to access our crap. First, on Thursday night, we arrived at the new house without the padlock key for our U-Haul, a situation that was easily fixed with some bolt-cutters.

  But now we've got a bigger impediment keeping us from our crap, which still fills our two-car garage. Last night, the garage door opener died. With the door down.

  Have I mentioned that, when they built our garage, the only opening they put in it was the actual big garage door? No windows. No human-sized door. Just the two-car monster door, which is now stuck in the down position, holding all but one pair of my shoes and all of my art and music books hostage.

  Anyone got a hacksaw that'll cut through bricks? Or perhaps a large ax? It seems the bolt cutters won't do us much good in this situation.

  I'm not freaking about this too much. It'll get fixed. Somehow. I'm still just too damn happy to be in this house and town, and away from the crap-filled nightmare street.

  There's really not much else to tell. I want to write in detail about the old neighborhood, now that I'm not there anymore and and give away identifying details. But there's unpacking to do, a door to jimmy, job-training to finish, parents to occupy, Stag Beer to drink, a new White Stripes album to hear. You know how it goes.

  Posted by Robin at 09:28 AM | Comments (8)

  June 16, 2007

  Friday(ish) Shuffle - Greetings From Prettytown Edition

  I have moved to another planet.

  It's a planet where the neighbors come to introduce themselves when they see the U-Haul pull into the drive. They also stop to help you carry furniture into the house for an hour in 90-degree heat. It's a planet with two predominiant professions: psychologists and Catholic high school principals.

  It's a planet where the neighborhood grocery store makes awesome mustard potato salad, will let you open an account, and turns on their barbecue smoker at 8 PM. Every night, if you're outside my house, it smells like barbecue.

  Okay, so maybe I didn't move to another planet. I think that maybe the move killed me and I've died and gone to heaven.

  Speaking of heaven, do you know what happens to a $2 hollow St. Joe who's been buried for six months? He gets filled with dead earthworms. That was a little grisly. Not as grisly as the unearthing, I understand. I wasn't there; B., PKB's awesome son, and a little guy named Thumper excavated the front yard of the Crapshack in search of Joe as their last act.

  When I buried Joe, I put him six inches down and jammed a big stick to mark his space. A few months later, B. covered that section of yard with 15 feet of mulch and he removed my Joe marker. Not that it would have been visible under the mulch, but still. They called me at 7 PM Friday night, "Where did you bury that thing?"

  PKB's awesome son and Thumper asked B. if it was really necessary to go through such a production for a $2 plastic saint filled with dead worms. Yes. Yes, it was. As B. told them, "We almost lost her cat how many times today? She'll kill us just for that. If Joe's missing on top of it, there's going to be real trouble."

  The cat's fine. She's just good at hiding, but I guess there were several occasions when the guys were sure she'd gotten out of the house. At one point it was dire enough that B. went across the street to Tattoo Face's house. He was outside with his wife-type person, several other local drunks, and I don't know who else, since I wasn't there.

  A few hours early, at 1:30 PM, PKB's awesome son noticed Tattoo Face outside, drinking a beer. To which he said, "Dude. That guy's drinking a beer at 1:30 on a Friday afternoon." B. replied, "Oh. He's running behind today."

  Anyway, B. went The Tattoo Face Round Table Discussion Group to see if any of them had seen, or perhaps ritually sacrificed my cat. No, they hadn't (like I said, she's fine and adjusting well to the new digs). They did ask B. if he knew who would be moving into our old house. You see, these people, who have drunken cookouts in their front yard most nights, scream at each other, scream at their children, zoom not-quite-street-legal dirt bikes up and down the street at all hours of the day and night are concerned that they might get bad neighbors.

  !!!!

  That's exactly what they said to B. "Well, we sure hope they're good neighbors. We don't want anyone bad moving into the neighborhood."

  Bad? From what I've witnessed of this gang, I don't even want to know what constitutes a bad neighbor. Flesh-eaters? Post-doctoral students? The Amish? I just don't know.

  I got a call from my next-door neighbor on Wednesday when we had the 26-foot U-Haul in the driveway and an army of people hauling all our worldly belongings into it. When I see her name on the caller i.d., I never answer because I don't like to talk to her. Besides, I think she has a little crush on B., so I figure I might as well allow her that little thrill.

  So in the middle of what she knows is moving day, with moving chaos occuring right before her eyes, why did she call me? Because she had some questions about a doctor's appointment she'd recently had.

  I'm sorry. I'm moving. I'm also not a doctor. Unless your uterus is hanging out of your body and I'm the only person in the world with the kind of stick required to put it back in, THIS ISN'T A GOOD TIME TO CALL!!!!!

  So there you have it. Two final tales from the Redneck Jungle. From here on out, it's nothing but tales of Catholic high school principals who are really nice and will help strangers move. Not nearly as interesting. Thank God.

  We're nowhere near being settled. Much unpacking to do. But all of our stuff's here. Our family's all here. Clara Jane, the dogs, the somewhat errant cat, B., me. Even with our stuff piled all over the new house, and the exhaustion, it couldn't feel more right to be here. It's already home, and we love it.

  1. Kate - Johnny Cash
  2. Fast Cars - U2
  3. Joy Inside My Tears - Stevie Wonder
  4. On and On and On - Wilco
  5. We're Going to Be Friends - White Stripes
  6. What a Difference a Day Makes - Dinah Washington
  7. Crab - Weezer
  8. Dinner at Eight - Rufus Wainwright
  9. Amazing Grace - Mahalia Jackson
  10. Sunrise Always Listens - Paul Westerberg

  Damn. Even the shuffles are better in Prettytown.

  Posted by Robin at 11:14 PM | Comments (11)

  June 14, 2007

  Last Entry: Crapshack

  It's 9:36 PM. I'm at the crapshack, but most of my stuff is at the new house. We will be, too, in two hours or so. We made one last trip tonight to fetch the hounds and grab some necessities. In my fervor to make sure the essentials didn't get packed until the end, we managed to get to the new house with things like winter clothes and 3098 Fiestaware carafes, but no toilet paper, towels, food, beer, or, well, dogs.

  Closing procedures went swimmingly. Aside from the lack of essentials, we've only had one problem: upon arriving at the new house with the 26-foot U-Haul, B. realized he'd left the padlock key on his dresser at the old house. First purchase for the new house: bolt cutters.

  It's good. Exhausting and filthy, but good. Good friends (PKB, Lance, Raquel, Thumper) make excellent pack mules.

  We're sleeping in the new house tonight, although it'll be more like tomorrow morning.

  It's good.

  Posted by Robin at 09:36 PM | Comments (22)

  June 10, 2007

  From Here on Out, Nothing But My Old Crap

  The condition of my brain has further deteriorated from hours spent sorting through old crap. However, I found some things you might like.

  Here's what's left of my childhood ceramic doll collection. I ditched all but the ones that say "October" in paint (no October stickers; that's tacky), ones that came from grandparents, and things with the potential to scare the ever-loving shit out of people:

  
  Clowny likes the babies.

  You know what makes Clowny even funnier? While giving him a much-needed bath today, I found an inscription on the bottom: "Happy birthday Robin! We love you, Mom and Dad".

  Some people have funny, scary ways of showing that they care.

  Wanna see the most '80s-ist of 1980s high school yearbook covers?
  
  That's a mock Swatch Watch face, covered with the faces of the members of the class of '88. What if the cover had been a mock Swatch Watch face, covered with the Swatch Watch faces of the members of the class of '88? If that had happened, no one in my school would have felt the need to smoke pot because our minds would have been blown, Man!

  Here's the crap that went bye-bye:
  

  Good riddance.

  Posted by Robin at 09:51 PM | Comments (63)

  June 09, 2007

  The Last Saturday in the Neighborhood

  
  
  • We have new neighbors in the house behind us, where the drunken lady who used to hear imaginary dogs used to live. These people, they sit outside all night. As in, from dinnertime until, I don't know. I can often still hear them talking when I go to bed around midnight. Or, rather, I can hear the one booming know-it-all voice that overpowers all the others at such depth and volume that it took me a few nights to realize that it was a live human being and not someone blasting "The O'Reilly Factor" through a PA system. They also have some rather sinister, angry-acting pit bulls that have probably been trained to eat the faces of liberals.

  • From the house catty-corner across the street, where the illegal tattoo and piercing parlor is located. The dad, with his face tattoos, stood on his front porch a few minutes ago, tall boy in his hand, yelling, "Get out of the street! I swear, I'm not putting up with this shit all damn day again!" at one of his Razor-scooter riding sons. Oh, did I mention that the son is six months younger than Clara Jane?

    Last week, Tattoo Face and Wife-Type-Baby-Momma person had some loud outdoor arguments regarding his relationship with another female-type person. At one point Tattoo Face stormed off down the street, while Wife-Type-Baby-Momma yelled, "Where you goin'? I'll bet you're gonna down to talk to Brandy."

    Of course he's going down to talk to Brandy. What else would the third party in the Tattoo Face/Wife-Type-Baby-Momma infidelity scandal du jour be named?

  • Why in the world would a 23-year-old man take up pipe-smoking? All I know is it seemed to be a great bonding activity for him and his four-year-old.
    
  • B. and Clara Jane got lunch from the ice cream truck today. While walking back to the house with her cookie crumb-coated ice cream bar, Clara Jane sighed, "I'll never see that ice cream truck again." I'm going to introduce her to MacArthur Park to help her cope with any moving-related melancholy.

  • For dessert, B. and Clara Jane are on one final weenie run to Woofie's, one of the few things we might miss about this neighborhood.

  • If you live in St. Louis and ever shop at the Value Village thrift store on Natural Bridge Road, please note that because of the 2033 boxes of donated goods we've provided them, from now on they will be exclusively carrying nothing but my old crap. But down go looking for Clowny. He stays with me.

  • Shouldn't I be packing?
    

  Posted by Robin at 12:34 PM | Comments (7)

  June 08, 2007

  Friday Shuffle - The Move to Stupidville, Population Me, Edition

  Less than one week until we move.

  Panic hasn't set in. Yet. Sentimentality hasn't set it. Yet. I'm not expecting it to. I've never been so unsentimental about a move in my entire life. And I get a little misty whenever I drive past every single place I've ever lived. Even the four-plex that was 3/4 crack addicts and 1/4 me.

  The nearest "restaurant" - Sonic - was giving away free root beer floats last night. B. and Clara Jane made the trip up the block, but I passed in favor of getting a few more boxes packed.

  That's right. I skipped one last opportunity to see my redneck neighbors, flocking for free crap, because I wanted to pack the bathroom. If I were an advertiser on this blog, I'd pull my ad in protest, especially in light of the number of braless women who were there. My sweet tight-panted neighbor at least stopped by while we were sitting on the stoop, eating our free crap. I can, at least, report that she was wearing a white spaghetti-strapped jumpsuit emblazened with brightly-colored rhombuses and other uncommon geometric shapes. She's nice. I'll miss her. A little. I'll definitely miss her outfits.

  B. informed me that there were a lot of women, shaped similarly to me, at free root beer float night. Of course. Women shaped like me don't pass up free ice cream and root beer. He suggested that, even though free root beer float night is a rather informal affair, perhaps some of the full-bodied sisters might have at least considered putting on bras for the occasion.

  I didn't bother to put on a bra while we sat on the stoop with our free crap. Let the floppy neighbors see me flop. For the only time in eight years, we fit in!

  We have rarely sat on our stoop. That only happens if I'm throwing a party. The smokers migrate to the stoop, and pretty soon everyone else follows to see what kind of fun they're missing. I'm not sure why we sat out there last night. I got chewed to bits by mosquitos. But we did get to watch some hot dune buggy action. Not that I bothered to give the mosquitos a break long enough to go inside and get my camera. Sorry.

  I've realized something, which is a big deal, considering what I realized: something about this move has turned me completely stupid. I don't know what kind of asbestos/lead paint/mold cocktail I've been inhaling while working in the basement, but it's having a negative affect. How else can you explain me, blindly turning down so many neighbor-mocking opportunities in one night?

  There are other things, too. Like the root beer floats. B. only got the freebies for himself and me. Clara Jane had a little ice cream cone, because I'm militant about not giving this child soda.

  But somehow, root beer with ice cream in it doesn't count. Because it has calcium. Yeah. And high fructose corn syrup. That sounds ... vegetably. Sure, she can have a slug of my float. And by "slug" I mean, "slurp down half the whole mess in one gulp".

  Did I mention that Sonic uses the one brand of root beer that contains caffeine? It was a long night.

  Yes, I've accidentally let my kid have caffeine twice this week. Stupid. I've gone completely, utterly stupid in a way that's caused me to forget my own self-imposed rules and regulations. It's also caused me to forget where, exactly, I live, and my phone number of the past five years.

  Yesterday morning I sent an email to a bunch of friends, passing along the information regarding our move, including the new address and house phone number. I included a note that my cell phone number - the one I've had since 2002, when my phone played a MIDI of Weezer's "Hashpipe" every time it rang - would remain the same for a bit longer.

  Within minutes I got an email from PKB that said, "Sister, that ain't your cell number!"

  I'd given my home number instead.

  It was a few hours later that I realized the new address I'd given was for a house a block away from my new one.

  I no longer know how to feed my child. I no longer know my correct phone number. I certainly don't know where I live. I don't even know a prime blog fodder opportunity when it falls at my feet like so much melted root beer-flavored soft serve, flung about by a hyped-up three-year-old. I'm going to shuffle through this world, brain damaged and dull, with my hyper little root beer-addled child chained to my wrist.

  We're going to fit in great in the new neighborhood! Wherever the hell it is. I forget.

  1. Take it Easy (Love Nothing) - Bright Eyes
  2. Pop a Top - Alan Jackson
  3. Rockin' in the Free World (Fahrenheit 9/11 Mix) - Neil Young (which, had I not gone stupid, would have been the perfect song to blast during our stoop-sitting last night, as the dune buggy people do like our president a lot.)
  4. Good Day - Paul Westerberg
  5. A String to Your Heart - Jimmy Reed
  6. Grand Illusion - Joan Osbourne
  7. Sons & Daughters - The Decmberists
  8. To Make Me Who I Am - Aaron Neville
  9. Thursday - Morphine
  10. Fire - Red Hot Chili Peppers

  Posted by Robin at 08:20 AM | Comments (127)

  June 05, 2007

  Clara Jane was a Good Little Monkey, and Always Very Curious

  You might recall a a tirade I wrote last summer regarding the clusterfuck a local movie megagoogleplex referred to as "Free Family Movie Day", in which I attempted to take Clara Jane to see Curious George. The long and short of it, it didn't go well, and I haven't attempted to take her to a movie since. Not so much because of the bad experience, but because there hasn't been anything I really thought she should see.

  One of the main problems with last year's movie fiasco was that I'd built up the movie experience to Clara Jane, only to have things go wrong. Had I not built it up so much, it wouldn't have been such a disappointment. Not that she was terribly disappointed, but the fear of disappointing ones child has got to be one of the biggest parental motivators out there. So, you'd think I would have learned to not build things up, right?

  Wrong. Today was going to be yoga class! We took a kid's yoga class a few months ago, and she loved it. After a long wait, classes finally started this week, and I started building them up to her.

  How the hell was I supposed to know that it would take three calls in three days to reach someone the day before the class who would inform me that the session was already full?

  Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap. Double-crap when the kiddo wakes up squealing, "Let's go to yoga! I love yoga class!"

  Crap.

  At 8:30 this morning, I scrounged the 'net, desperately searching for something as fun and special and awesome as yoga that I could pull out of my ass in roughly thirty minutes. Lo and behold, that movie megagoogleplex I swore to never enter again after last year's fiasco were starting the "Free Family Movie Cattle Call Trampede-a-thon" this very day at 10 AM. And what movie were they showing? Curious George, which Clara Jane still hadn't seen.

  This time, I didn't tell her where we were going. Not when we had less than an hour to get ready and stake a place in the theater, instead of getting turned away with $14-worth of concession stand crap already purchased, like last year.

  No ma'am. This time, we were firmly in our theater seats with $14-worth of concession stand crap (well, two bottles of water and enough popcorn to create Ethanol to fill my truck) a good twenty minutes before the movie started.

  For the last few weeks, Clara Jane hasn't exactly been fond of me. In fact, our relationship has been a bit strained. But let me tell you, all it takes to get back into the good graces of a 3-year-old? Curious George and her body weight (38 pounds) of movie theater popcorn. In Clara Jane's world, I once again rule.

  After the movie we went to lunch with some friends, as we tend to do more often than not, while my house packs itself for next week's move. That's right. Next week. HOLY FUCK!!! Anyway, it was at lunch that Clara Jane, a good little monkey who's always very curious, made two discoveries via her curiosity:

  1) That little monkeys who remove their shoes can run their bare feet through yogurt that's spilled on the floor, then suck the yogurt off their toes, and

  2) that a curious little monkey can slip her big spoon into my coffee mug, slurping up Madagascar vanilla coffee with sugar, cream and cinnamon a good three or four times before it finally registers in my tired little mind that, HOLY SHIT, CLARA JANE'S DRINKING MY COFFEE!!!

  To be 100% honest, I'm surprised it took her this long to have her first slugs of coffee. Not surprisingly, she liked it. A lot.

  I think I was about her age when I discovered coffee. First it was from those wonderful Brach's coffee-flavored hard candies that came in beautiful 1960s gold wrappers emblazened with a Mod red and purple coffee cup design. My God, I loved those candies. I had them damn near every time I saw Granny Viv. She always had them stashed in her purse, pockets, and in every room of her house.

  It was Granny Opal, my dad's mom, who introduced me to the real thing. I was older than Clara Jane, but not by much. By my estimate, I was around six or seven. Granny Opal boiled her coffee, poured it from her cup into her saucer so it could cool enough to not set fire to the inner flesh of her mouth, and would dunk either doughnuts from Papa Jake's or oatmeal Archway Cookies into the sludge. And it was divine. The massive amounts of liquid saccharin she added only made it even more delightfully bittersweet.

  I don't think it's any coincidence that I stopped growing shortly after a childhood spell in which I spent a lot of weekend nights with Granny Opal. As a child our family doctor predicted I'd be a tall adult, since I have really tall women on my dad's side of the family. The fact that I was five feet tall by age nine was a bit of a tip-off, too.

  How tall am I today? 5'3". Why? Drinking Granny Opal's boiled-black coffee every other Sunday morning during my prime growing years.

  Could be worse. I could have been smoking Tareyton Cigarettes with her, too, but she wouldn't let me. Granny Opal drew the line at coffee, doughnuts and Archway Cookies as being a nutritious breakfast for an elementary schooler. Besides, developing a taste for coffee was worth sacrificing a few inches.

  I hope Clara Jane feels the same because if today was any indication, she's going to be very, very curious, and very, very short. And hyper. Very, very, very monkey-doing-headstands-in-the-coffeehouse hyper.

  Posted by Robin at 08:06 PM | Comments (32)

  June 03, 2007

  What Lurks in the Basement

  After weeks and months of packing, I've finally hit the point where there's nothing left to do except venture into what we call The Mudroom. It's this little, unheated room in the back of our basement which has never contained any mud, but has always contained a lot of crap. This is the room where, for eight years, we've tossed every single item for which we didn't have a better solution.

  In June, 1999, once we were settled into our then-new abode, my parents arrived for a weekend visit. Dad backed his truck up to the walk-out basement door while my mom did a little dance in the driveway, singing, "Take your shit! Get it out of my house! It's yours! It's yours! Hallelujah, it's finally yours!"

  Since that day in June, 1999, those boxes and big black garbage bags, filled with the first 18 years of my life, have sat, untouched. Well, not completely untouched. I'm sure they've been touched by many spiders. But not touched by me.

  I grew up with a real sentimental streak. I never threw anything away. I've since outgrown such sentimentality, thus I have never had any desire to deal with all this crap.

  Don't think that I haven't thought about just hauling all that shit to the curb on trash day. I can't, though. Some of the sentimentality remains, primarily because of my writing. I've written for as long as I can remember, and I was always careful to save every single word that came from my pen.

  Tonight, I reached the point where I had no choice but to deal with The Mudroom. Within the first box, I found some of my early writings, those things that prevented me from shoving boxes upon boxes of 1980s garbage out the door without a second glance.

  I was a very talented child. A gifted writer, I was told. I won awards. When I tucked all those pages away, the thought lurked that surely someday, when I was a famous writer, there would be a need and demand for those brilliant first works.

  Tonight, I read two poems. I was astounded. Flabbergasted. And so thoroughly disgusted and mortified that I did what I should have done 25 years ago: I pitched that shit directly into the trash.

  I'm not feeling bad about this. Not even a little. If anything, going through my old shit gave me some insight into why I let go of my sentimentality: it's the same reason why, if you have an amazing vacation to, say, Provence, it's not necessarily worthwhile to remember every single detail of what you packed, the drive to the airport, what you got at Starbucks while you waited for the plane, what delayed the plane, what magazine you read, what you drank ...

  I'm sure you get what I'm saying. I'm looking at that stuff from so long ago as a part of the journey. I'd rather remember how writing made me feel, how and what I learned from it, and how it affects my life now. Letting go of the material remainder, along with the vomit-inducingly horrible 1984 poetry - sweet Jesus, what the hell did I know about bitter break-ups when I was 12 that would motivate me to compose poetry about them? - felt really, really good.

  But some things in The Mudroom, I can't release. At least, not to Goodwill or the trash. Some things just beg to be sent to Kristina. And believe me, there was a great deal of screaming in The Mudroom when this was unburied:

  

  Also, if you read my blog and you knew me at any point in the '80s or early '90s, this would not be a good time to piss me off because I can promise you, tonight I found a treasure trove of lovely blackmail photos. Oh, my kingdom for a scanner!

  Posted by Robin at 08:48 PM | Comments (69)

  June 01, 2007

  Friday Shuffle - The Panic! Pie! Edition

  This has nothing to do with the rest of the entry, but I thought I should tell you about this, since tales of my neighborhood will soon be a thing of the past. I had a moment today where, had I not been driving, I wouldn't have known which direction to aim my camera. On one side of the street, a cop had pulled over a school bus. On the other was a local tattoo shop, where a little red truck is often parked. Across the truck's back window is a URL - www.eroticnightdreams.com. I'm not linking to it directly, because I'm a chicken, but feel free to visit them. But probably not if you're at work, unless you work at a place that doesn't have a problem with really unerotic erotic photography. At least now I know where my neighborhood dungeon is located.

  Anyway, I've seen this truck many times in my years of living in this neighborhood. I'm pretty sure I've even mentioned it here awhile back. Well, today, while the cop was pulling over the school bus, I got to see what I'm assuming is the unerotic nightmare photographer. He was maybe 60 years old. Or he was 30 and has been nursing a methamphetamine habit for a few years. It's hard to tell around here. Dressed in a faded gray muscle t-shirt, arms covered with faded tattoos, and sporting what is, without question, the most horrifically fabulous hairdo I've ever seen in this neighborhood. And that's saying something, because I live down the street from '80s Lady. Bleached, possibly with Clorox, it would have made a lovely substitute for raffia in, say, a Thanksgiving centerpiece. Not that you'd want this guy's hair on your table. Or in your house. Bangs, much like mine, the rest of his yellow, yellow, yellow as the sun hair reached halfway down his back.

  I'm not sure, but I think I recognize him from a Ronnie James Dio video.

  Anyway, pie. This is about pie. Specifically, my new recipe, which I've named Panic! Pie!

  Why all the exclaimation points? Because I made the pie in a panic, that's why. If you've been reading for any length of time, you know that I have some serious Martha Stewart-style mental problems. Like last week, when I fretted about my recent lack of cooking.

  Since we have less than two weeks left in the crapshack, I figured I wouldn't be doing much baking. On Wednesday, I packed my pie plates.

  On Thursday, Beqi invited us to Friday night dinner. I bought two pounds of strawberries and a pint of whipping cream. I'll make strawberry pie! With shortbread crust!

  Two things happened on Thursday night that led to the mild panic. 1) I spent four hours on the phone, chatting with an old friend of mine, totally forgetting that I was going to make shortbread crust, and 2) I remembered that I'd packed my pie plates.

  Panic!

  I told you, I have mental problems. Bear with me. It's not like Beqi even asked me to bring dessert. I took that upon myself. Why? Mental problems.

  I could have bought a crust, and I intended to, but I spent the entire day at the coffeehouse with Beqi and Raquel and didn't have time. Panic!

  We got home, threw Clara Jane down for a brief nap, while I went to work at concocting a pie without a pie plate or crust of any form, with an hour to spare.

  First, calm the hell down. It's just pie! Put it on a damn plate.

  Second, I've made crumb crusts out of just about anything that I can crumble. Even though I'm in the process of unstocking our pantry, I did manage to find the dregs of a stale box of Annie's Chocolate Chip Bunny Grahams and a tiny box of dollar-store Teddy Graham knock-offs. I dumped it all in a plastic bag, beat the hell out of it with a wine bottle (I was frustrated), and mixed in some butter. A lot of butter.

  

  Next, the strawberries. Too sour to just throw onto the crust. I dumped some sugar on them. Too sweet! Gritty! Panic! Wait - the dregs of a bottle of balsamic vinegar! Yes, vinegar. Shut up. Did you go to culinary school? I didn't think so. Balsamic vinegar and strawberries are made for each other. Besides, I was panicky and it felt good to macerate.

  

  The next part was easy. Homemade whipped cream makes everything good.

  But then ... more panic! The macerated berries, while delicious, were soggy. Putting them on my butter-with-crumbs crust? It would soak right through. But I have extra strawberries! I'll make a maceration barrier!

  

  In the background of the photo, you'll notice discarded possible crust ingredients: old panko, whole wheat white hamburger buns leftover from last night's dinner, and half a bag of stale Jay's Sweet n' Sour potato chips.

  Next, dump the macerated berries onto the berry barrier in a panic:

  

  Throw on the whipped cream, and add the one strawberry you forgot about to the top, so it looks like you put some thought into this whole crackerjack operation. Hmmm ... Cracker Jacks might make a good crust ...

  

  Finally, transport your pie across town in Friday's waning rush hour traffic, through road construction, in a thunderstorm. Wait panickedly for entire pie to slide off the unprotected side of the plate and onto spouse's lap. Catastrophe doesn't happen. Worry that perhaps some crushed Klonopin would have been an appropriate garnish. Consider going back home to add it.

  Arrive at host's home with child who is sleeping in the car seat, wearing nothing but a Pull-Up, because you were too busy making Panic! Pie! to properly wake her from a nap and, you know, put clothes on her. That's okay. Children can get away with near-nudity at a dinner party. And if a child happens to flick a booger the size of a rotini noodle at a dinner guest, well, that's just good entertainment.

  Enjoy the pie, along with three hogs' worth of ribs and some damn fine company. Relax, finally, knowing that you can shuffle through the world bearing the ability to make a pie under any circumstances with anything you have on hand. Because you rule.

  1. A Call to Apathy - The Shins
  2. Starman - Seu Jorge
  3. Picture Book - The Kinks
  4. How Do You Keep Love Alive - Ryan Adams
  5. I've Been Lonely (For So Long) - Frederick Knight
  6. Take a Picture - Filter
  7. Talk to Me of Mendocino - Kate & Anna McGarrigle
  8. Wild Cat Blues - Clarence Williams' Blue Five
  9. Abra Cadaver - The Hives
  10. Got a Lot on My Head - The Cars

  Posted by Robin at 09:52 PM | Comments (8)