and just like that...

 it started working again.  The thingy, plug in device that makes it possible to post photos from my super old camera!

Hooray!

I am so happy (it doesn't take much)!

So here is a little snapshot of what things are looking like around here lately.

                                        Freyja with me and my hideous outfit on mother's day.

and the mini cheesecakes I made for a family gathering, on Mother's Day (suggested by the fabulous kitchen witch, Miss Cheri at Cheri's hearth)  they were popular indeed!

Lots of acrobatic tomfoolery and horseplay involving me balancing various members of our household on my feets, and posing in ridiculous postures.

I have composed a zillion great posts in my head lately, but not managed to get anything on the page, not here, and not in a real journal.  

I don't know why.

I finished two excellent novels by Lousie Erdrich.

A plague of doves   and  Love medicine

We've watched a few movies... nothing has blown me away. 

The hurt locker  (honestly I enjoyed Generation Kill a lot more).

I was so annoyed by the end of LOST, I don't even know what to say.  It sucked.

Tonight we are watching The Road.  I am the only person on the planet to not like the book.  I am a huge fan of Cormac McCarthy, but I hated this book.  

Oh, and we got a new freezer, which I hope to fill up with berries and peaches if the rain ever stops long enough to allow our local fruit to ripen. 

 

in a foul, not fowl mood

I am so very sad that my computer is no longer allowing me to post photos.

I really like posting photos, and I really hate being restricted from doing things I like.

I drives me to distraction to be told no, for no good reason. 

I just finished making an amazing vegetable lasagna that no one but me will appreciate. 

My family is made of of food plebs that would prefer a Tonios frozen pizza to the fabulous food I prepare.

$%^# all y'all, I am making something for myself today and you will have to struggle though.

Is what I was thinking, as I shredded that zucchini, but I will find a friendlier way to explain it to them.

Your body really needs to have a variety of whole foods to be healthy!

Mark is of no help what so ever, being among the pickiest of the picky.

Him: I am not that picky.

Me: eating, lettuce, corn, peas and green beans does not an adventurous eater make.   You  are one vegetable over the redneck line, buddy, watch your step! 

He can't help it, he is from a family of picky people.  Having a family dinner with his family is like an anthropological study for me.  People focused on picking and deconstructing the food apart.  Fascinating, to observe the various real and imagined allergies, preferences, chewing, serving style and swallowing issues at work.

No one in my family would dare to be picky.  

It would be considered weak willed, and down right sinful, not to mention rude.  You are barely allowed to have a strong opinion.  If someone is generous enough to feed you, you better damn well eat what they serve- Liking it is beside the point, but then again I am from a family of good cooks, people that make thoughtful meals by hand, uplifting the most humble ingredients to perfection.  What I wouldn't give for one of my grandmother's cobblers, or my other grandmother's snicker doodles (or even her stewed tomatoes, Dad- so HA!) right now, fortification to ward off the nagging that is sure to ensue at dinner hour.

I laughed my ASS off at David Sedaris.

It didn't start off well.

We parked a million blocks away, and I was having some kind of weird low blood sugar crisis, due to not eating either lunch or dinner.

While Mark was sneaking a final smoke outside, I was standing in the bar line, because those lines are always super long and you must prestand, if you want your over priced drink.

I said,   

go ahead and smoke, honey, I will stand on line.     

Taking that queuing bullet like a god damned war hero, while in reality,  I wanted to get away from the sidewalk crowd, and I totally wanted a drink, who am I kidding?

I used to love to smoke, before I had kids, but I was one of the smoking freaks that could socially suck down a pack at a party or concert,  then ignore cigarettes for months on end.  It used to infuriate my old boyfriend, the Russian who smoked like a chimney.

When Mark found me, I was pissed and fading from low blood sugar.

I was totally irritated because, I had just shelled out $10 for a teeny plastic cup of wine (the cup looked exactly like the kind they collect urine in, in hospitals, and  from those free pregnancy test places, I SWEAR!), before realizing there was a real bar about 20 yards away.

The "wine" was  heinous, even for me, and Mark suggested throwing it out, but the cheapskate in me, kept sipping it through the straw provided (lids are required, to avoid costly spills!), by the time I was halfway through, I was sitting on a sapphire settee in the lounge, while Mark peed.
Still having not eaten much of anything all day, the cheap wine went right my head, and as I slumped, the remarkable nap of the velveteen  sofa over took me.

damn! this is some soft fabric, 

I thought, just as one of the parents from the school where I work  walked by.

Lovely.

Look at the drunken preschool lady, stroking the public sofa.  

How attractive!

Mark arrived with a bag of mixed nuts and water, just in time, to help me collect myself and limp five flights to our cheap seats.

David Sedaris was  BRILLIANT.  We laughed and laughed and laughed a little more on the way home.

Dear deer

I had an appointment in West Linn this morning, and on the way home I saw three deer grazing in the grass strip in the middle of I-205, at exit #8.

At first I thought they were statues, but they were not, and now I am worried about them getting hit,  or causing  an accident. 

They had to cross three lanes of freeway to get into the little triangle of grass.

Yikes!

I returned home to find a pyramid of canned tomatoes on the kitchen island- Rolf stocking up for bad times again. I hauled the tomatoes and the sardines (more sardines!)  down to the basement,  halfheartedly folded laundry and though about what kind of dessert to make for a family gathering we are to attend on Saturday at my mother in law's house.

I am grateful to have these quiet moments, where I am alone in the house, even when they involve canned fish transportation.  It is a luxury to be able to be home to meet Maxwell after school, to be home a couple afternoons per week to do laundry as a slower pace, to bake a cake in the middle of the day, to take my daughter to ballet at noon.  To honor my compulsion to vacuum daily.

We are going to see David Sedaris tonight.

It is Mark's birthday present, but I am the real fan, so I feel a little guilty. 

This is the fourth thing we have done together in twelve years (A Beck concert, the Frida Kahlo exhibit in Seattle, Anthony Bourdain.), we spend most of our leisure money and time on the children.

We suck at self care, or making couples time.
People (usually people without children) constantly harangue us for this gap in care of our relationship, but they don't offer to babysit.

I don't really have a strong opinion about it one way or the other.  It would be nice to have more special outings, but it also would be alien, so I don't really miss it. 

Before we had Freyja, we went to Mexico for a long weekend every spring.

I do miss those three days.  It was before my mother was a teacher, and she had a more flexible schedule.

Now she has summer.

One does not travel to Mexico in summer by choice.

this made me laugh out loud.

I particularly relate to the one on frustration and the one on meditation.