I got nothing

Cute baby?

Drei Finger hoch der Gin, das Glas im Gesicht

Except I’ve only got about two fingers in my glass, it’s sitting on the table, and it contains whiskey. And that’s a line from a song; I don’t have to explain myself.

The alcohol is causing me to reflect upon my life. Lo, it has been many years since my youth. Every family vacation a camping adventure. Tent camping, my friends: the only pure kind of camping. I’m close-minded on this score. RVs and pop-ups are fine for old folks, but let’s not kid around. This is serious shit. You there, on the air mattress – get lost. Real campers only use foam, if that.*

Anyway, hours in the car driving to Montana, to Utah, to Maine. Four kids with ten years splitting the oldest and youngest. Cheerios on shoelaces, books, coloring materials, books, Adventures in Odyssey (in the later years), books, whining, and occasionally singing. Probably some Psalty and Raffi. There’s a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza. Mareseatoatsanddoeseatoatsandlittlelambseativy. Found a Peanut. Sweet Violets. Kum ba ya and whatnot.

One song was my Dad’s favorite. Drove my mother crazy, but we kids loved it. And, damn it, Max has got to earn his keep somehow.

This one’s for you, Dad!

*In the interest of full disclosure, it must be admitted that Himself prefers an air mattress due to back considerations. This has been a real roadblock in our marriage, as I have struggled to maintain respect for my otherwise noble and worthy husband.

Piffle and rot

I’m in the middle of a standoff with a stinkbug in my bedroom. We had an infestation of them for some weeks – clinging to the screen door, crunching unpleasantly between Max’s jaws, sneaking in and lighting our rugs on fire when we weren’t looking – until the weather turned and they all died off. This one persists. We keep the bedroom door closed to prevent Harriet from her infrequent yet persuasive bathroom accidents on our linens, so the bug can’t be getting much in the way of food. He or she just sits on the blinds day in and day out. I could release or kill him/her/it, but I’m strangely intrigued. How long will he/she/it persist?

Mean Sister, old girl, you may be saying. I think it’s time you got a hobby. Single-player backgammon is all the rage right now, so there’s no shame in indulging in one’s baser urges. Slap out that old game board and get cracking.

Yes, now that you mention it, I AM back into reading 19th and early 20th century English literature – what of it? It’s what I do when left to my own devices.

Also, night-time walks in the rain. I got to try out my new coat – aren’t I smashing? Or as my dear friend and confidant, Jay Nord…, would say, I’m pleased as punch with my own bad self. How I do love that man.

For many of the same reasons, I adore Dorothy L. Sayers. If she were alive, I’d erect a little shrine for her decorated with red paper cutouts and snippets of her hair and simpering fan mail that had been returned unopened, to be sure, but at least gazed upon by her artistic eye. I might even lovingly commit a few murders for Lord Peter to solve – oh, rapturous thought!

I found a copy of The Documents in the Case at a used bookstore (that specializes in mysteries) downtown the other day, and I’ve had her on the brain since. I just finished the book for the first time today and was pleased to note towards the end two broad references to Poe and Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone. I visited one of Poe’s Philadelphia homes just last week, complete with creepy cellar – he wrote “The Black Cat” while living there – and I’m several chapters into The Moonstone. Coincidences? Or am I somehow connected with Sayers’ ectoplasmic literary aura?

It’s difficult to say.

Proof

I promised myself that I would post Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from now on, and I almost just broke my promise on the second day. Note to self and others: The Mean Sister™ is NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

Just briefly, then, here are some shots from the last month or so.

Our first cheesesteaks:

My red hair, which, darn it all, I try to wear down as much as possible although the temptation to pull it back is almost overwhelming. Why can’t I just be bald?

Cats investigating fall decor in living room:

Some have wondered why I don’t feature Harriet as prominently as Maxwell on this site. Mostly, she’s just not as interesting to make fun of as he is. She is afraid of pumpkins, though.

The Wissahickon creek and trails are quite near our apartment, and I’ve been visiting them frequently.  At the Devil’s Pool:

And, in case you worried that I might be losing my touch, here’s a large snake disgustingly eating a large frog:

Now why don’t you settle down with a big dish of red Jell-O and try not to think about frog guts? Sounds like a plan.

I wrote you a story; or, Because I’ve been reading too many fairy tales

This is the story of the first lamb’s ear plant.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful queen with long flowing hair and skin as soft as a baby’s sigh. She was very vain and would often say, “Not even the smallest child in her mother’s arms has skin as soft as I.”

One day as she inspected the vast farms in her kingdom, she leaned down to pet the head of a lamb. To her dismay, she found that the lamb’s ears were even softer than her skin. She ordered that the lamb be slaughtered and ate him for dinner, thinking her problem was solved.

But the next day as she continued her inspection, she was surrounded by lambs, and each one’s ears were softer than the last. Unwilling to be beaten by a lowly animal, she ordered that all the lambs’ ears in the entire kingdom be cut off and brought before her.

Now on one of the hillsides in the farthest part of the kingdom lived a canny young lamb. He had heard of the queen’s orders so he tied his ears back until they looked like a fuzzy headdress. When the soldiers arrived, they saw only a funny-looking lamb and left empty-handed.

The little lamb wasn’t content to save just his own ears; he wanted to find all the lost ears and return them to their rightful owners and punish the queen for her crime. He left his hillside and headed out into the wide world.

First, he went to the sun and asked, “Please, noble Sun, won’t you help me find all the lambs’ ears and bring the queen to justice?”

But the sun replied, “I shine on the good and bad alike. I have no interest in justice.” And he went behind a cloud.

Next the lamb went to the moon and asked, “Please, gentle Moon, won’t you help me find all the lambs’ ears and bring the queen to justice?”

But the moon replied, “I give cool light to the good and bad alike. I have no interest in justice.” And the man in the moon said, “Me neither!”

Finally, the little lamb went to the north wind and asked, “Please, rustling North Wind, won’t you help me find all the lambs’ ears and bring the queen to justice?”

The wind replied, “I blow on the good and bad alike. I have no interest in justice. But there is a certain barn on a certain farm near the palace where I once blew open a door and found a whole pile of ears. I will show you the way.”

The wind blew the lamb along until they came to a barn in the heart of the kingdom. Through the door, he found an enormous pile of lambs’ ears. The sun’s heat had shriveled them all up and the moon’s cool light had taken the warmth of life from them and the wind had blown them around and around until they were thoroughly mixed up. The lamb tried for three days and three nights, but he could not match them up. Full of shame and sadness, he dug a hole to bury them and wept over the grave until he fell asleep.

When he awoke, he discovered that there on the grave, wherever a teardrop had fallen, a beautiful green plant with leaves like lambs’ ears had sprung up. As he watched, he saw more and more plants shoot up out of the ground until they had surrounded the palace.

The queen was powdering her face when she glanced out the window and saw them. She rushed outside angrily and felt the leaves. Each one was softer than her own skin, and in a fit of rage, she fell down dead.

The kingdom rejoiced, for she had been a cruel ruler. They buried her in a ditch and asked the canny young lamb to be their new ruler. But once he had seen all the sad ear-less lambs pluck new ears off of the miraculous new plants, he returned to his hillside to live the rest of his days in peace.

And that is where the lamb’s ear plant comes from.

The End.

Happy birthday to me!

I’ve been in Seattle for the last little while, living it up with the Weird Sister, the Technical Director, and the Wild-Eyed Bambina. Too busy and/or lazy to post, but you can go HERE for some pictures. More when I return.

Incidentally, this blog is now a year old, so hey! That counts for something.

Philadelphia; or, Overeating IS a healthy form of therapy

Predictably, the act of moving to Philadelphia has made me want to crouch in a corner and howl. We have plenty of corners in the new apartment so this has not presented a problem, although the neighbors are beginning to grumble. I’m not great with change, but I feel this is an acceptable way of dealing with it. Overeating is the next step, should this not pan out.

The move was grueling, and I’d like to recommend NEVER EVER EVER using google maps for anything EVER. Waste of internet space, they are, and that’s saying something. West Virginian mountains, after dark, directions to a trailer park instead of our hotel and of course we don’t have a cell phone – I’m still seeing red.

We live on the third floor of a lovely complex and couldn’t be much happier with our apartment, all things considered. No urine to clean off the bathroom floor, no sticky carpet, and sufficient space for the first time in the last five years.

Closets! There are enough of ‘em to make me dizzy. I can walk right into two of them which were made that way ON PURPOSE, and with some effort, I can squeeze into the remaining four. Hours of sheer delight. (You think I’m kidding. I’m not.)

Operation Buy-the-same-IKEA-furniture-as-your-friends-and-try-to-make-it-look-like-you’re-not-copying-them is going swimmingly. Our friends will NEVER KNOW.

How many damn books do we have? Concerned Sister, I think I have your copy of Der Richter und sein Henker. You’ll be happy to know we DO in fact have Vanity Fair, Sickly Child, so we don’t need your castoffs. It’s not all The Prayer of Jabez for Women and The Satanic Bible here. We’re classy folk. Why do we have two of A Soldier of the Great War? Truth, beauty, blah blah blah; get over yourself, Mark.

The story of the move would be boring, but here are some highlights using Maxwell Maxington Poopinghouse the Third as a paid model:

Last evening out at Nick’s in Bloomington. We asked our toothy waitress to take a picture of us, and this is what we got.

ENDLESS HOURS OF TOIL LATER: Our building is on the left, and our apartment on the third floor at the end.

We’re at the top, and that’s my bike on our terrace. The next two windows are the study and the bedroom.

Finally empty. We were so incredibly disgusting and tired and had drunk between the two of us 224 oz of Gatorade plus water and soda. I peed lemon-lime for the next 48 hours.

Yes, Max, I think they’re on to us. Play dead!

Good boy.

You can thank me later

Surprise! I know you came here with despair in your heart, knowing the chances of seeing a new post to be BILLIONS to one, with only the tiniest flicker of hope in your cold, hollow bosom preventing you from hurling yourself off the nearest cliff, precipice, skyscraper, totem pole, or catamaran. I have saved you from an untimely death, and you’re welcome.

Happy Anniversary to Himself and me, by the way. SIX YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE. We’re celebrating by eating immediately consecutive breakfasts and lunches at Panera (done and done), packing all day, and dressing our cats in people clothes and making fun of them. Yay, marriage! Who says it ever gets dull?

Last weekend we went to LaPorte to see the family one last time before…Christmas, maybe. We headed up to Mt. Baldy on Lake Michigan, where some joker took this highly inappropriate picture:

The brother and the mother pointing to something in the distance. The Concerned Sister, karyatid-style, contemplating the meaning of life. The father, skeptically noncommittal. The friend, obscured behind the motley crew.

No day is complete without at least one brother hanging from a tree.

Not that the Concerned Sister and I are whiners (winers, perhaps), but those sand dunes are tall and hard to climb. So tall! So hard to climb!

But, damn, girl! The eye candy was SMOKIN’.

The dunes are moving away from the beach at an alarming rate, as evidenced by the buried trees. The Concerned Sister attempts to punch me to my death. I valiantly defend myself with a water bottle while my father ignores my struggle for life.

Here, Dad, this one’s for you: NO SAND!

More like the emaciated shoreline. Get thee some food, boys!

And then we got IHOP and slept all the way home. Yum.

Off to pack! Max, really, you look ravishing in that pink tutu.

Come into my parlor

Soon to be deceased fellow tenant:

Possibly a Yellow Sac Spider. Not the worst kind of neighbor but also not the best. Currently cooling his heels in the freezer, where we keep most of our former friends.

Of toads and toadstools; or, Drunken blogging at its best

My muddy shoes are muddying up the already muddy rug, and I’m yelling at Max, “Clean them up, fool!” but he’s too busy packing to comply.

The shoes are muddy from two visits to the trails at Griffy Lake in the last two days. The blogging is not really drunken. More tipsy, or perhaps laid back. The lake didn’t play a large part in the expedition. In fact, we had nothing to do with her, nor she with us. Featured rather more prominently were the toads and, to be accurate, fungi of assorted shapes and colors.

Please to be spotting the toad:

Harvestman just chillin’.

We didn’t have a map because while they MAY have had maps at the boathouse, they were guarded by garrulous youths, and if there’s one ideology to which we are hearty subscribers, it’s misanthropy. Now go away.

Maybe it was a bad idea, this maplessness. After about an hour and half, we came to this sign:

Please note: The trail does not return to Griffy Lake.

Whoops. Mapless AND hapless. Oh, well, what’s a little hastening dusk in the wild among friends? Was sagst du dazu, toad amigo?

Fortunately, Himself pirouetted three times in the middle of the stream, turning back time to early afternoon, and we barely escaped with our lives.

And they all lived happily ever after. The End.