Hank Raises An Objection

Last week I was trying to get everyone ready to leave town for my cousin's wedding.  I asked Hank to come try on his khakis, as he hadn't worn them in months, because he likes to keep it casual.

He ran across the living room and hurled himself face-first onto the couch, whined into the cushions, then slid down onto the floor like a boneless chicken cutlet.  I said, "Dude! What's wrong?"

He said, "I don't want to go to that wedding."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because it's too dignicating."

"It's too what?" I asked.

 He repeated, "Because it's too dignicating."

(I'm just spelling the word the way it sounded when he said it.  I am not sure if that's how it's correctly spelled in his Hank lexicon.)

I said, "What is dignicating?"

He said, "It is something that you don't wanna do."  Then he sighed.

The thing is, if I were a kid, I'd be exasperated with parents too, because we ask questions for which we already know the answers.  I knew exactly what "dignicating" meant the first time he said it: it obviously means a situation that imposes a state of unwanted dignity and correctness in dress, behavior, or decorum.  The etymology of his coinage was perfectly clear, like Sarah Palin's "refudiate."  Yet I wouldn't have guessed that Hank knew or even half knew "dignified" or "dignity."  But I guess he does?

Watching kids acquire language is my second favorite part of this parenting biz.  My most favorite part is eating the leftover mac and cheese off their plates.

I coaxed him into the khakis, which still fit.  And he went to the church nursery with his cousins during the ceremony, where I trust he was not overly dignicated.  He did sit nicely through the rehearsal dinner the night before.  He sat there like a dream through people making toasts, quietly dignicating some dessert.



Here are a few more snaps from the wedding weekend I wanted to share.  I go out of town for two days and you have to hear about it all week.  I know!



Here Matt is sporting Laura's feather hair barrette, which she'd tired of and clipped to his shirt. I told him he looked like he'd been decorated by a really awesome chivalric order.

Me with my dad, known to blog readers as Camp Papa. 

Debbie, my very own mom.

My date.

Kate, adorable sister-in-law.

Shorties got low.

Color scheme was apple green and pink. Preppy!

If you have scrolled through these wedding posts and now feel that you know my family enough to want to see more pics of us hanging out in my mother's kitchen, and also a rainbow I photographed, click here.

I hope you are having a good week with little dignication.

Wedding, Dresses

Well, after all that I wore a different dress to the family wedding over the weekend.  O Fickleness!

I put my sunglasses up there and then I can't feel them because of my wig, so I forget they're there.

So yes, I carried the pretty pink dress down to Pensacola and then the day of the wedding, I just wasn't feeling it.  I put it on and it seemed a little too big.  I realized I wouldn't be as comfortable as I am in this more streamlined, stretchy dress.  I'd brought it as an emergency backup, and once I put it on, Matt and everybody else liked it better.  You gotta wear what makes you feel the best, and this was really it.  Of course I needed to spend fifty bucks on a non-returnable, final clearance dress to figure out what made me feel best. C'est la guerre.

I did wear the big earrings though.

Oh, and other people wore clothes too.  Like the bride, Jessica.  Just look at this dress.





It was so big!  Patrick looks like he's standing in a snowdrift.  It was truly the kind of wedding dress little girls dream of.  She looked gorgeous.  And she has a mass of dark hair that is pretty like Snow White's.

Laura watching the bride and groom dance.

Other notable dresses:



This was a rerun from last year.  Still fits.  Here Laura is returning from her third trip through the food line.



My sister-in-law Kate.  This is an Anthropologie dress.  It has a Battenberg lace top layer.  Women crossed the room to ask her where she got this dress, and one little old lady asked her to be her date.  Also this picture makes me laugh, because it looks like they were having a normal conversation and just suddenly struck happy dancing poses.



The actual bridesmaid dress, worn here by Kelly, the matron of honor.  I loved the magenta and green.



Okay, Jessica's going away dress looked crazy good on her.  We gasped as she walked out.  That's why I didn't get any pictures of the front as she was walking by me, I was too stunned.  Later, Katie and I said, "It was the right dress on the right girl."  Those shoes, plum suede peeptoe wedges, were what she wore under the wedding dress too, on her tiny doll feet.  I wish I'd gotten to spend more time with those shoes.



Just lovely.  Keep rocking it, girl.

There are some dresses for you.  I have some other odds and ends that I'm sure I'll be posting.  'Cause that's how I do.  Have a good afternoon, buds. xoxox-B

Going to The Chapel of Love And What I'm Wearing There

J Crew's Sophia dress in sheer lilac.

Tomorrow afternoon we are going to zoom down the highway to Pensacola for the weekend, for my beloved cousin Patrick's wedding to the lovely Jessica.  He's the one whose coffee-can-diamond-ring-mariachi proposal I blogged about early this year. Obviously love does make the world go 'round, but more important, what will I be wearing while that's happening?

I got this silk dress when it got marked down to $49.99. Score!  J. Crew's wedding stuff is good quality.  And it fits nicely and it's pretty.

But how would you style it away from being bridesmaidish?  I am not a bridesmaid. Or bridesmatron.  I have some pewter-colored slingbacks I was going to wear. I was thinking a chunky necklace (as opposed to say, pearls) would take in in the wedding-guest-not-bridesmaid direction. Or maybe big earrings instead (Perhaps these that I got at BlogHer)? What are your thoughts?

I just realized that I don't know what color the actual bridesmaids will be wearing.  If it's close to this color, I will die and be dead.  Like, "Um, is Becky auditioning to be a bridesmaid?"

Also in that J. Crew order I got this.

It is very ruffly, yes?  I think it's ADORABLE and it looks good over skinny jeans too. Or, dare I say? JEGGINGS.  I took it out of the package and was flouncing around in it.  Then I sensed that it was a lot of look, so I walked into Matt's office and asked his opinion.

He said it reminded him of the time on "30 Rock" when Tracy Morgan was wearing the shirt made of hundred-dollar bills.

Yes, well.

Y'all lemme know about the accessorizing issue.

That Magazine Is Just Now Getting Good

Looky. Here is a snapshot from inside the dressing room at the radiation oncologist's, a room that you never get to see unless you're a patient. JEALOUS? But check it:

I was walking back into the dressing room yesterday and I thought, "Hmm, that magazine looks kind of . . .old." So I went in for a closer look.

It's from June 1997.

!!!

Sure, it's only thirteen years, but in magazine years, that is getting up there. Like, wow old girl, where have you been and how did you get here? And here I was complaining that the Vogues in the outer waiting room are all from 2009.

When I discovered it, I told my parents about it excitedly and told them I was going to photograph it. They suggested that I take a picture of the Table of Contents, that it would be funny. Like when you look at an old Saturday Evening Post and it's all, "Dang These Kids And Their Jazz!" and "Keeping up with The Kaiser."

So I turned to the Table of Contents, ready to be amused.

But Southern Living hasn't changed at all in thirteen years.

In fact I quickly became absorbed in an article about topiaries.

Let's Recall A Bad Idea

On this first day of fall, let's cast our minds back to how last year I caught a touch of the Martha and I spray painted a pumpkin white. I love to spray paint junk white. Or actually I painted it Krylon's Ivory in semi-gloss. I loved it. It was very SubMat. Then I got really busy and then Matt and I left town.

And left the pumpkin sitting on my table.

Then one morning while we were gone, Matt's mom called me from my house. The pumpkin had exploded on the table.

(crap)

Remember that?

That was sad.

That's all I have. I am just thinking about that spray painted pumpkin because I have a strong urge to do it again. The painting, not the furniture marring. I have a new can of ivory and a can of celery green. I bought the ivory paint for this humongous owl lamp that I got from a dumpster and that's in my garage and that's a whole 'nother story. But a few pumpkins in those colors would be so presh.

Oh spray paint, why can't I quit you?

Also, One Time He Said I Was High-Maintenance

This afternoon I took the kids to the library, then we made a trip through the grocery store that wound up taking an hour. When I got home, Matt was watching football.

I said, "Hey hon would you get the groceries?"

He said, "Okay, I heard you. I will do it in one minute."

I said, "You're making me feel like I'm nagging the first time I ask?"

He said, "Sorry. You're the third person to tell me about the groceries." It seems that the kids had each come in and said something like, "Mom wants you to come get the groceries," all while people were playing the football on the TV.

Okay. So then he did bring in the groceries, commenting that it was time for the kids to learn to bring in groceries, and I unloaded them and prepared a meal. I fed the kids while he was still doing the watching of the football, and then he and I sat down to eat. Because of his canny spidey sense, he asked, "Why do I get the feeling that you disapprove of me right now?"

I said, "I am a little miffed that you were grudging about bringing in the groceries. It would have been awesome PR for you if you leapt to get them as soon as I came in the door. It's not that you did anything wrong, exactly, it's only that it was less than stellar."

He said, testily, "Well, I think my Q Score can withstand some pretty heavy hits."

I continued, with an air of martyred acceptance, "It was just a missed opportunity."

He listened to this. Then he began, "I am sorry if I made you feel . . ." Here he paused, obviously thinking hard, and went on, "whatever it was you were feeling."

Then we both burst out laughing, because that was the worst apology possible. It's got everything: the conditional "if," the blame shifting (the offended party's feeling is the problem, not the apologizer's action), and the vagueness. Just hilariously awful. We agreed that we should go immediately and present ourselves as a model couple for John Gottman's Love Lab, because we are so on top of the communication.

I also suggested that he write a relationship book entitled I'm Sorry If I Made You Feel Whatever It Was You Were Feeling: A Guide for When She's Giving You That Look.

Then I told him that I was going to blog this immediately. And he said to please indicate that he started the apology in all sincerity, but then, as he said, "I sort of lost my way." Okay, it's not like I gave him much to work with, and sometimes I am insufferable. Reader, I know you can barely believe it. But I mean, "a missed opportunity"?

I think what was really going on was that I'd been out with the kids for a couple of hours, and I arrived back home wanting to hand off parental duties for a spell, but then seeing him ensconced in the footballing, I realized that several more parenting tasks awaited me and I assumed a snippy predisposition. I mean, who knows? I am a mystery even to myself.

Don't worry friends, our little barque sails on.

Tween Fashion

Well, in the beginning there was this look:

Which morphed into this:



And now we're wearing this:

When I first saw her in this ensemble, I was like, "Whoa! My eyes!" It's a lot of look, the glittery peace sign with the pink snake print tights. But then when she put on the high tops, it kind of all came together for me. Or more like, it made the proportions work and I get what she's doing.

The key is, it's what she's doing. We've had a steady progression from clothes totally picked out and combined by me, to clothes picked out under strong guidance from me (I blogged about my first trip to Justice this time last year), to my giving more like girlfriend-level advice. Her burgeoning fashion sense is fun to watch.

Plus I think she's totally rocking it. She looks trendy but she doesn't look exactly like any of her friends. And I'm mostly over my Gymboree nostalgia. Gymb-algia? Gymborrhea?

Also, as I've said before, her daily sartorial commitment to peace is inspiring. There are peace signs on her sneakers too. Also her pro-snake agenda. Inspiring.

I'm thinking Hank will keep letting me dress him until he's nineteen or so. Mothers of boys, am I right?

Cancer Treatment is Mostly Driving, The Squeakquel

Having radiation treatments is taking up the time I would normally use for blogging. Also my levels of vim, vigor, and overall awesomeness are somewhat reduced. You deserve better, Reader, I know you do.

I am tired. My first treatment was last Wednesday, so today was treatment 7 of 28. Oh dude, is that one-fourth of the way there? Sweet. At first I thought I was tired from the mental stress associated from the idea of being, you know, irradiated (I found it unsettling) and the whole commuting/logistical enterprise. As of today though, I am pretty sure that the actual radiation itself has a fatiguing effect. I think my body, in some way, is going, "OMG stop that right now quit it WTF???" Like I'm going into powersave mode. I feel fine all day and then by early evening, it's a bad case of the can't-help-its.

Tonight my sister called me and said, "Hey, I sent you a text and you didn't respond, just wanted to check on you." And I protested that I had texted back, yes I had, but then I remembered that I'd gotten almost finished composing the message and then had decided to take a rest before hitting send. Because my thumbs and my eyeballs were tired from all that exertion.

Or, another example: I am watching "House Hunters," but I am not feeling up to shouting at the house hunters the way I usually do--the way they deserve. People, please do not tell us that you are looking for a beach house, then buy the place the farthest from the beach. It kills me. And also, the way you're always saying, "This will be great for entertaining!" with that aspirational-yet-smug emphasis on the word. Like you'll be hosting a chamber music recital in that breakfast nook. Please stop.

So energy levels are down but whining and bitchiness levels are spiking.

The deal is, my radiation appointment is every weekday at 11:30. I drop Hank off at school at 9:30, and once I'm down by the school it doesn't make good sense to go home before making the forty minute drive down to the hospital. But I can't go straight on down there because I would arrive way, way early. So there's some time-killing required, then the drive down there, the treatment, which lasts thirty seconds, and the drive back up.

Then it's the same timing situation in reverse: I arrive back up in my neck of the woods a full hour before it's time to get Hank. No sense in spending 25 minutes of that driving on to my house and back to the school, so more time-killing is in order. Then Hank, then home, where all the stuff I would normally do in the morning (emailing, blogging, coffee-drinking, straightening, whatnot) is undone, only I don't want to do another thing.

I went by myself for the first two days, which was a bummer. Then Matt went with me, then my parents came to town, and now Betty is on the scene to keep me company. So it's pleasantly social.

Really it's my attitude that needs an adjustment. It's totally going fine--the effects of the radiation, like sunburn or arm stiffness, are cumulative and I haven't seen any yet. So it's all good so far.

In a perfect blogworld, the whole scene at the radiation oncologist deserves a couple of posts where I tell a whole story about the experience and all the characters there, and I try to get all edumacational about what it's like and give you something useful. But boy that just sounds like a lot. The edutainment angle on my radiation treatments is made more difficult by the fact that I barely have a grasp of what is going on. It is like actual rocket science.

I will say that the technician who helps me onto the table is named Omega. I found that ominous.

I have missed you guys this week and I thought of you every day. What are y'all doing? I know preschools have started up. Kids are settling into big school. The acorns are falling. I hope you are feeling fine. That is all I have; my thumbs are really SUPER tired. xoxo-B

A Less Often Featured Family Member

Did y'all know that I have a dog? Her name is Percy. There she is, in one of her usual poses. She sits like a person, or maybe like Opus from "Bloom County." I see a certain resemblance.

Anyway, she is not the smartest or best-smelling dog in the world, but we are fond of her.

And here is Laura. She is not a less-often featured family member, but I had this nice picture of her from last weekend. I think I can see what she'll look like when she's grown up.

We are embarking on a lazy weekend. Get this: this is only the second weekend in the last nine weeks (I counted) that we've been home. It's been non-stop running around. It was all fun stuff but I am beat. Leisure is so exhausting, gah!

Laura had a friend sleep over last night. We watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Have you seen this? I definitely recommend it for a family movie night. It is very entertaining and even hilarious at moments. Even Hank was transfixed.

At this age, Laura and her friends are so low-maintenance that I feel like a slacker. They ate pizza, watched the movie, and then went upstairs to engage in a highly-important giggle/chat/performance art hybrid. I found them asleep at midnight and switched off the light. This morning they went out for a walk, then came back and gave me a full report on three garage sales going on around the corner.

I love girls.

Obviously I don't have much to say. Just this: have a good Saturday, I hope it is chillaxing.

Segway Tour: Walking Makes Me Sad Now

While we were in Asheville over the weekend, Matt had a surprise outing for us. We got up Monday morning and he said, "What are the most comfortable shoes you brought?" And I was like, "These thong sandals with big brass salamanders on top, naturally. I didn't know there would be, like, hiking." After he asked that I figured that we were going to meet up with a walking tour, or maybe one of the trolleys I'd seen around town. But no!

ZOMG Segways! He'd booked us spots with Moving Sidewalk Tours. When we got to the Asheville Visitors' Center and I realized what we were doing, I squealed like a tiny baby girl. I'd always been curious about those things, and I couldn't believe they were going to let me get on one. It crossed my mind that I would possibly drive it into a telephone pole, but I was so excited! I resolved to be the most A+++ student of Segway ever and to not endanger other people much at all.

Fortunately our guide, Wes, passed out helmets (Matt got the Evil Knievel helmet) and gave us a lesson before we hit the open road. It was just us and one other couple, which was great. There was only one awkward moment, after Wes had pointed out which were the bigger helmets and which were the smaller ones, and I reached for a bigger one. The other girl said, "But that's one of the bigger ones," and I was all, "Look at the size of this melon." Anyhoo.

So, the instructions for successfully getting onto the Segway:

1) Step up onto it.

2) Just stand there.

Magical fairies down underneath your feet do the work of holding you steady. You don't balance, you just stand and breathe. It feels weird for about thirty seconds and then it feels totally amazeballs.

Then, when you want to move forward, you just barely lean forward with your hips, and you glide forward exactly like you glide in your best dreams. Wes was leading us around the parking lot, and I was getting the hang of it, weaving around obstacles and zooming on the sidewalk. All at once I found myself saying, "I feel that I am magic!" Only I kind of yelled it, like, "I feel that I AM MAAAAGIIIIIIIIC." Wes was like, "Yeah, that feeling is normal." And there were rainbow-colored comet trails of sparkles shooting out behind and bluebirds and cartoon squirrels raced along, trying to keep up with me.

If I had a Segway I would go outside right now, in the dark, and ride all over the neighborhood in my socks. Segway!

So you use the handlebars only to turn; you can actually ride with no hands, which is helpful if you are having a conversation and need to add gestures. Wes showed us a technique where you actually steer with your knees, leaving your hands permanently free for I don't know what. The other thing the handlebars do, I found, is nudge against your hips when the Segway decides you're going too fast. This happened to me a couple of times toward the end of our tour when I was getting cocky and sorta kinda racing.

Asheville is the perfect-sized place for a Segway tour. We spent about three hours and covered practically the whole downtown, much more than you could do in a walking tour. I so totally recommend doing this if you have a chance. Plus, when we stopped for coffee, we got to leave our Segways in a little row out front, and I was all, "Yeah, this is the way to make an entrance." I felt like I was at the very top of the Nerd Food Chain.

The other couple, Roger (in red) and Victoria, was also celebrating their anniversary. Yay!

This is a new war memorial for Western North Carolinians, and it is hard to take an appropriately somber picture when people are zooming around it on Segways.

So, you know how when you're on the moving sidewalk at the airport and then you step off and it feels like a letdown? Like the ground is so unfriendly to your forward progress and your feet are so dull? That's what getting off the Segway is like, times a kabillion. After our tour we went back into downtown and got lunch, and it was so sad to be shuffling along the same streets we'd zoomed down earlier. Walking is so boring now. Really, it is like dead to me. Stupid dumb walking!

But what a wonderful treat! I did not want to give that thing back. Y'all have got to try it if you haven't. Good thought, Matt! You want him on your team, people.

Bedscape: Grove Park Inn

Hey there! Matt and I spent Sunday night at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, so you know I took a picture of the bed. Comfy!

Matt acting as porter.

This place was built in 1913, which is kind of old for these parts. I think after the Vanderbilts built their little getaway at Biltmore, Asheville got kinda fancy, and Grove Park was part of all that.

F. Scott Fitzgerald lived here during the summers of 1935 and 1936, but it was while Zelda was in the mental hospital. So not a happy time for him.

Fitzgerald is my fave but a bunch of other famous historical personages have stayed here too. William Jennings Bryan spoke at the grand opening of the place. Thomas Edison slept here. David AND Amy Sedaris. Also, Shatner! Rooms that have had famous guests have little plaques by the door, but nobody famous had stayed in ours.

Until us, of course.

Our room was tucked up on the top floor, under the sloping roof, where they put the common people. Even though we couldn't bathe in the same tub William Howard Taft got stuck in, or gaze upon a shoe tree that belonged to Harry Houdini, it was very charming. I loved exploring the place. The mountain view is the thing there, and the Arts and Crafts decor. The whole place is like a Gustav Stickley wet dream. LOVE THAT.

I'll just take some of the furniture and pottery and then I'll go.

We had a really good time, and we packed a lot into a twenty-four hour getaway, including a surprise (post pending). Asheville is awesome, I recommend you go there and check it out. Here are a few more Asheville moments:

Codi!

Which will he choose?

Spotted at an art festival. I really think it should be "whomever." Anyone?

Y'all have a nice weekend? Since we got back on Monday night, I am running to stand still. So much going on lately, things that would be headliners in normal times barely rate a mention. For example: Hank starts school, I start radiation treatments, another tree falls in our yard (really), and I try out a neti pot (yes really really).

Whew.

We will try to begin to take up these matters tomorrow. Night night lovers!

And If This World Runs out Of Lovers

The occasions for celebration are piling up around here. We are hip deep.

Matt's birthday was Wednesday.

Go Matt!

And our fifteenth anniversary is Saturday. Fifteen! And me still so young! Fifteen seems like a significant number, at least in our base ten numbering system. I guess an ancient Babylonian would be like, "What's all the hoo ha?"

Here's my post commemorating our anniversary last year, with pictures.

And here's the post that is probably most representative of our relationship.

Also this one.

Matt has a habit of, whenever I say the words, "fifteen years," bursting into some hip hop song that goes, "Fifteen years! Fifteen years! And then he found out that the shorty wasn't his!"

Yes. If it sounds like that would never get old, you are wrong about that.

That's my man. Infuriating and hilarious. Hilariating?

So to celebrate all this stuff that needs celebratin', we are heading up to the mountain house tonight, THEN we are leaving the kids with Mom and Dad and slipping away to Asheville for a night. We're going to stay at the Grove Park Inn, 'cause I've always wanted to check that place out.

I'm going to insist on the room that Barack and Michelle stayed in. Or, failing that, the room John Edwards and Rielle Hunter stayed in.

Or wait, maybe those are the same room and I could get double credit. Plus like nine other presidents have stayed there so the place is probably haunted. I will let you know.

I'm also going to cogitate about how our book club could work. Y'all have a delicious long weekend! All my loving! xoxox-B

Suburban Matron, Ph.D.

Y'all! I finally finished my Ph.D. in British Literature. I filed my dissertation last Friday. That errand was the reason for my sudden trip to California last week. It just all came together: my professors approved it all right as the deadline for a September degree was approaching, so I saw my chance to skedaddle out there. Did you guys know I was working on a Ph.D? Probably only if you've been around here a while.

And even though it required crazy last-minute travel arranging and logistical wrangling, somehow it all worked. I had to meet different professors in different cities at different times and using different modes of transport. I had to collect their precious Original Signatures for my title page, in accordance with the extensive, subtle, and baroque thesis submission guidelines set out by the UC graduate system.

It's my diss in a box!

My awesome friends in California helped me at each point in the mission, providing schlepping, gossip, advice, lodging, encouragement, and then, after it was a done deal, champagne.

Oh yum.

And lucky candles can't hurt.

And why not a celebratory wig?

Friends, would you believe me if I told you that I started that Ph.D. program just shy of nine years ago? Laura was a baby. I so clearly remember being anguished about leaving her with a baby sitter so I could go to my classes. And now she is a big tall sassmouth. Amazing. Actually, if you know anything about the stats on Humanities Ph.D.'s, you know that nine years isn't that long, but it has been a whole season of my life. A whole, full, joyous, complicated, formative, and crazy season.

My friends who have finished their degrees warned me that the actual moment of turning it in would be anticlimactic. You hand your dissertation to a person in an office and then you walk out the door. There is no brass band to play you on your way. But I just felt pleasure, pure relief and contentment. The campus of UC Santa Cruz had never looked so gorgeous or seemed like such a charmed place. It was a happy day.

Now I'm back and I think it will take a while for my brain to figure out that I don't need to feel slightly guilty at all times that I'm not working on my dissertation. So what am I going to do now that I'm not? I'm going to celebrate for, like, a month. Bring on the dancing girls! Then I'm going to:

• Watch the entire series of "The Wire," which I've never seen
• Play Lego Harry Potter on the xbox with Hank, without feeling like I'm wasting time
• Pick back up a needlepoint project that I started early in the summer as a last ditch procrastination tactic
• Put more energy into this here blog
• Read a ton of stuff for pleasure
• Do some deep organizing of a couple rooms in my house
• Read books that Laura is reading
• Watch HGTV like it's my job
• Look for an actual academic job
• Drink more champagne
• Maybe start a book club, either in my 'hood or on this blog or both--interested?

So that's what's going on over here. Holla!

If you want to come help me watch "The Wire," drink wine, and/or shred, please notify me at your earliest convenience.