A Helpful Taxonomy

I drink your milkshake.

At Betty's house Matt and I are sleeping in a queen-sized bed instead of the king we have at home. Today I said, "Maybe we should go back to a queen bed, I like the extra cuddling." And Matt was like, we don't need a smaller bed, we could just turn down our thermostat. It is chilly down there in the basement guest room, and all night long we are plastered together like climbers caught in a storm on Everest.

I lay awake late into the night last night, reading my book and listening to the dog snore. Then I didn't get out of bed until in the elevens. I'm not even kidding and I am not ashamed. Then, a brunch of leftovers, some sitting around, a photo session for our Xmas cards (anybody know how to do a head swap?), then a singles tennis match with my friend the other Becky. Matt and the kids went and got a tree for Betty's front room, and then Matt and I went downtown to dinner with our friends.

These are our Four Loko friends. If you haven't read that post, I can't recommend my own work highly enough. LOL jk but really. 

The other three of the party all went to high school together, and talk between Matt and Sloan turned to the topic of Who Was An Asshole. The game went that one of them would say, "You know who was an asshole? [Name.]" And then the discussion would proceed and the exact nature of the assholery would be decided, illustrated, and amplified by the company. I was very absorbed in their recollections, and I gathered that there are the following types:

Secret Asshole
Funny Asshole
Asshole but he was okay
An Asshole to me
Surprisingly, an Asshole
An Asshole but he came by it honestly
A Certified, Card-Carrying, Dues-Paying American Asshole

I was like, you guys have already named more people who were assholes than all the people I remember from my high school class.

Then we asked the waiter to get the bartender to make a White Russian milkshake, and the waiter was like, that's not on the menu but it sounds like a really good idea. And we were like, go see what you can do. And it was delicious. Unsurprisingly.

I've got to get home because I can't go on eating like this. I haven't even told you about the ham tacos.

Anyway, I hope there was a treat of some kind and/or some useful analysis in your day. xoxo

Hot Friday Night Action

Right. In the midst of our Friday evening, children asleep, ice cubes melting in drinks, everything cozy, Matt leapt to his feet as though jerked by a string. "My fantasy football draft is in ten minutes," he hollered. Then he ran from the room. Now I know how Jessica Simpson must feel.

So here I am, Reader. Before I go to bed, I offer you a few moments from my day.

1) Today I was driving the kids somewhere. In the backseat, Laura mused, "I wonder if I will ever love anyone as much as I love myself?" That made me smile, there in the driver's seat, though she couldn't see my face. I thought of several different things I wanted to say in response, like, "You know, I used to wonder the exact same thing," or "It makes me really happy that you feel such love for yourself." But I just went with, "I am pretty sure that you will." And she said, "That's hard."

2) Later, with Laura away at a friend's for a sleepover, Hank was slightly drunk on the undivided attention of both of his parents. He said, "Raise your hand if you want to do something awesome!" Matt and I shot our hands into the air. Hank just sat there looking at us. He had nothing. Little buddy's not so good with follow-up.

3) I mentally composed an open letter to TJ Maxx. It was this:

Dear TJ Maxx,

I wanted to let you know, about that Polish pottery you sell back there in the dishes, you know, this stuff?

Yes, it's lovely, yes, I have the little pitcher with the Christmas tree motif, I like it very much. But what I wanted to say is, you've been carrying this stuff in every TJ's I've ever been in for about 12 years now. Everyone who wanted this pottery has now purchased it, I promise you. Seriously. So if you could be an angel and either show us something new, or demote this to the bottom shelf, I wouldn't have to get down and put a knee on the floor to look at the Denby.

Your friend,

Becky

4) This morning I got confused for a minute and forgot that Jude Law and Chris Martin of Coldplay aren't the same person. Does this happen to you with celebrities? And I was thinking about how Jude Law has knocked up a girl from Pensacola, my hometown, and I was feeling sad about it on Gwyneth Paltrow's behalf. Then I remembered that she's married to a totally different person from Jude Law. So then I just felt kinda proud of Pensacola. I mean, who ever thought that one of us Panhandle girls would get impregnated by the likes of Jude Law? He's so sophisticated! I mean, now that we're on the map, who knows where this could lead? Maybe somebody from Okaloosa County could get groped by that Edward Cullen guy.

Obviously I need to go to bed now. We're home for the first weekend in a while. Hope y'all enjoy yours!

Thirteen Things I Gots To Gets Done

Hello friends. We spent the weekend up in Chattanooga at Matt's mom's house. Wintry, lovely and a nice change of scene. And this Friday afternoon, we're heading down to Florida to stay with my parents for a long weekend. But before then, I have to turn this mother out. Bust a move. Put my shoulder to the wheel. Shake a leg. Swink and sweat. Make hay. Accomplish several pressing tasks.

1) Prep for a job interview I have at the end of the month.

2) Have solo fashion show to figure out what to wear for that interview and the conference surrounding it. The black suit or the tan suit? With what shirt(s)? Pointy-toed boots or sensible pumps?

3) Get my hair done. And while I'm at it, get my eyebrows attended to. But when to do this on a weekday? I could get it done at Lifetime Fitness, but the two-hours of childcare per day they offer would not cover the cut and highlighting. I know, First World problem. So I could arrange some kind of thing where I take the kids there and Matt pics them up while I'm still getting worked on. HAIR: DONE

4) Consider going to Lifetime Fitness to actually work out.

5) Figure out if all the food for the second-grade class party is covered. Parents are beating down my door to bring more stuff, so this shouldn't be a problem. DONE

6) Ask co-room mom to go get the gift card for the teacher. And ask if she will make goodie bags from her copious supply of trinkets. (Most of being a room-mom, for me, is asking people to do things. No sweat.) DONE

7) Get supplies for the Dress Your Santa party game. Maybe test-drive this game by having Laura dress Matt. Could be fun.

8) Make 7 sets of slacker fudge for neighbors and assorted people. Find cellophane bags at Michaels and package all the fudge in these cute felt buckets I got at Target. Deliver Fudge.

9) Go by and chat with Frenemy Neighbor to catch up and deliver the message, "Hey, I know we're estranged because of the election and all those "Obama is a Muslim" emails you sent me every day, but can't we put it behind us because our girls miss each other and here's some fudge."

10) Go to Laura's class party which is at 8:30 in the freaking morning. No siblings allowed. Joyeux Noël!

11) Get the dog bathed before we take her with us to Pensacola. And Mom, is it okay if we bring the dog with us?

12) Pack for everybody.

13) Round up and wrap Christmas gifts for people we'll be seeing in Florida.

Okay, I'll probably keep adding to this list, but it feels good to start to get it down in writing. Things have been so crazy lately that I have this constant sense that there's something I'm forgetting that's really important. Like goodie bags for the second graders, or my eyebrows. You know, important.

For lists that are a little more profounder, check out ABDPBT:

6 Elements of a Happy Birthday

One more trip around the sun, y'all, and boy are my arms tired! Oh, I am hilarious. Yesterday was my birthday. When I was a little kid, I knew that my birthday was also Pearl Harbor Day, but I didn't know what that meant. Somehow, I formed the idea that Pearl Harbor was that woman on "Hee-Haw" who had the pricetag hanging from her hat. I thought December 7 was a day dedicated to a national celebration of her. Later I found out the real story, and I thought, "Wow, that's much grimmer." So, a day which shall live in infamy. But a good day for me. Here are a few highlights.

1) We had some friends over Friday night, and Matt surprised me with cake. He got up with the kids both Saturday and Sunday, while I slept late. Then he raked leaves in the backyard and supervised Hank at the same time, while I sat on the sofa and read magazines. Or I think that's what I did--it's kind of a pleasant blur.

2) We took the kids to the mall to ride the merry-go-round. It had been so long since we were there--like almost a year--that I don't think Hank remembered the carousel. He was awestruck. He just sat and stared. Like this.

3) Unbeknownst to me, the real reason for our trip to the mall was so Matt could go to the Apple store and get my present. Hello, Lover.

4) I realized that my age is now a perfect square. It really is the little things.

5) I loved hearing from my Facebook friends all day.

6) These little goodies arrived in the mail.

Six napkins, each with a different cookie on it, from our friends David and Michael. LOVE THESE. I am already imagining different table settings for them. I think they will work great for Christmas, too.

Thanks for indulging my birthday scrapbooking. I hope your weekends were cozy and warm!

And Anna has an excellent list today at ABDPBT:

3 Things Standing Between Perfect Contentment and Me

Because even though everything is fine, life could always be better.

1)I spray painted three of my fingers just now. This is my trouble with crafts: I have a great interest in homemade and crafty stuff, but I lack expertise, so I try to half-ass it. Yesterday I picked up a little framed needlepoint of a very 70's turtle at Goodwill, priced-to-love at $1.91. It is adorable and I'm sure you will see it, just like you will eventually see everything in my house. But I can't show you yet because I'm trying to spray paint the frame. It's out in the garage. I was too lazy to take the frame, glass, and needlepoint apart properly, because probably thirty years ago, someone put masking tape all over the back of the frame. So I did a quickie job of covering the glass with paper and post-it notes (really, I should put all these tricks in a book), and then when I got out to the garage, part of the paper started peeling up, so I grabbed a pencil and poked it down while I sprayed, and then I sprayed my fingers. They are a pretty celery green, and so far neither soap nor vaseline will get the paint or the sticky feeling off. Spray paint is not like regular paint. It is nasty. Why did I think vaseline would help? Oh yeah, because I was raised to think it was the cure for anything.

2) The house is a mess, and so far today, limited progress has been made, though Matt is valiantly blowing leaves right now. (I know, I know, leafblowers are a nuisance and they are bad for the planet. The first Fall we lived here, we raked. But you would not believe the biomass of leaves we're talking about. Now we blow.) We've got a busy week ahead, but I thought it would be more fun to spray paint my fingers than pick up Legos and do laundry. Matt's mom and brother are coming early in the week for a little pre-Thanksgiving house party, and I need to get my act together quick. Also I guess I'm dealing with some leafblower guilt.

3)I know I'm killing you with this Room Mom stuff, but late last night, I got this cry for help from my co-room mom about our auction basket:

UGH!!! You should see the PATHETIC amount of stuff that was donated. I’m going to have to make a little go a LONG way!! This is going to be embarrassing! :( What do you think we should do? Jan

I told her that I think she needs to stop being a crazy person, wait a little longer for parents to send things in (because the auction is not until December 6), and that she needs to not botch her every email communication with the class, because probably people didn't read her auction basket emails, and that the way she listed each little wooden spoon and bamboo skewer individually probably made people think we had a long list of stuff, but ABOVE ALL, she needs to wait a little longer for items to trickle in. This morning she responded

You’re right, parents must have thought we had enough stuff but I guess I assumed they would each STILL send in an item or separate $$. That’s why I think I screwed up by not being specific about class money. I bet most parents think that it’s for the basket too. I will add my stuff to the basket that I had bought for my husband for Christmas (I was making him a BBQ basket, that’s where I got the idea). I have all the receipts but I will “donate” most of it since a lot of it I bought awhile back and on sale this past fall. I got my husband a great gift yesterday to take the place of the Basket. Did you know you can have a regular photo turned into a painting? It’s all done by computer! I’m having a picture of my kids walking on the beach at Disney made into one. It’s big but it only cost $160. I can’t wait! I almost forgot, I had bought a whole set of dishes at CVS for almost NOTHING. I think it was 90% off. I can’t pass up a deal! They are plastic ones for a picnic or BBQ and I think they have a fish or shell shape. Can I add them to the basket? I still have a whole set of Christmas plates (from CVS) that I bought 2 years ago for 90% off. Do you know a needy family or where I can donate them? They are breakable so I don’t want to put them in a donation bin. Don’t worry, I’ll get the basket done today and it will be fine.

Does this email seem totally ADHD to anyone else? I do think she is very sweet, but she has a touch of The Nutso, and it's contagious. And apparently she didn't hear me at all when I said DON'T DO THE BASKET YET, WAIT A LITTLE LONGER.

So, fingers are green, house is a mess, co-room mom is a little kooky. All else is well, and I hope you had a lovely weekend.

For more list lovin', head over to ABDPBT:

3 Reasons The Internet Needs To Be Over Now

1) Yesterday, someone came to this blog by Googling "hot pregnant women doing yardwork." I told those search terms to Matt, and he got this look of delight on his face. I think because he thought it was funny. Or maybe because those words do in fact conjure up a delightful mental picture. I don't know if there is p*rn out there for that particular predilection, but a glance at the first search results page would seem to indicate that there is not. So Mr. Dude (?) in Lewisburg, Ohio, I hope you eventually found what you were looking for, and I'm sorry I could not be of more help, but now I know what the next name of this blog will be.

2) That couple that got married in the online game Second Life is now divorced, because of an adulterous liaison that OCCURRED IN SECOND LIFE. Story is in the link, but the short version is: couple met in an internet chat room, married in real life and in a ginormous Second Life ceremony in 2005, wife grew suspicious, hired an online private detective (a what?) to snoop on husband's activities, wife sees husband's avatar having sex with a prostitute avatar, and they are getting divorced. Now the woman has taken up with someone she met in World of Warcraft. Good grief, Charlie Brown! Now, I know lots of women do consider it cheating if their husbands look at naughty pics online, like maybe those hotter-than-hot pictures of pregnant chicks pulling weeds and raking. I know this because Oprah says many women consider it cheating--I don't actually know any women who think that. But divorcing over that one incident of. . . whatever that was with the pixels and the avatars. . .is that kind of extreme? I don't know, but the whole thing gives me a pain in my head. I think these people are weirder than the pregnant yardwork porn people.

3) The insanely-detailed Dora the Explorer Wikipedia page. Here's how I came upon this. You see, I was pondering the question of whether the geography of Dora the Explorer is internally consistent. Like, if you collated all the maps from each episode, would you have a coherent and consistent map of Dora Land? For example, in the Boots's birthday party episode, they have to get to the party at Dora's house by going over the Troll Bridge. And, in the flap-book Super Silly Fiesta, the Big Red Chicken's party is also over the Troll Bridge, but it must be in the other direction, because they're starting in Dora's house. The Chicken's party is in a nondescript meadow, which I guess could also be the starting location for the Boots's birthday party journey. So they could be making the same trip in reverse. Except in Boots's birthday party journey they don't have to go past the Mixed Up Farm, like they do in the book.

Or is it unfair to compare the geograpies of the book and the TV show? I mean, the creators of "Lost" manage to keep the island geography consistent across TV and web features, but maybe that's a lot to ask of Nick Jr? Also, Dora's cousin Diego appears from time to time in Dora's world, with all it's weird, lollipop jungle topography, but on his own show, he doesn't have to deal with any of that whimsy crap. He just ziplines around saving animals. I wonder if Dora is actually crazy? And what Dora experiences as the Sneezing Snake Lake is just a little puddle to Diego? With no sneezing snakes?

So in pondering this, I did a quick search to find out if anyone has reproduced images from all the maps in the shows. And I found the Dora wikipedia entry, which is obviously not written by the PR people who produce the show, but by an amateur enthusiast or enthusiasts. It goes on and on and has way, way, a lot of information. So this is not really a reason the internet needs to be over, but more of a "Wow, that internet is really. . .something." I am thinking that the adult who authored that Dora page needs to spend more time looking at yardwork fetish pics. I hear that stuff is huge.

I am sure there are about 97 other reasons I'm forgetting, so feel free to add yours. Also, it's List Lovin' Monday at ABDPBT. Check into it, sister.

Three Surprisingly Enjoyable Things About the Drive from Atlanta to NC

We are up in North Carolina spending a couple of days at Mom and Dad's mountain house. But you betcha I'll be home tomorrow night in time to watch the election returns with two of my favorite dudes, Matt and Anderson Cooper. For now, a list of things I have to admit I enjoy about the two-and-a-half hour drive up here from Atlanta:

1) As you go north on 441, almost to Clayton, there's a place by the road called Goats on the Roof. It is a few buildings with earthen roofs, with goats on top. Real live goats, enjoying little footbridges, shelters, windmills, and other goat-sized follies. I don't know what it is, maybe a store? Some kind of attraction. But when we pass Goats on the Roof, we are exactly one hour, to the minute, from pulling up in front of the mountain house. This timing calibration has been tested and normed over many trips. I like that our most reliable way of marking time to our destination is some goats. Goats that are inexplicably on a roof. The kids don't read mile markers, but they know some goats when they see them.

2) All the touristy "gem mining" places, with bushel baskets filled with giant hunks of colored glass out front. I like to look at them, and I like to think of one day pulling in there to mine for gems, though this will probably not happen. Also, ticky-tacky shops and antique stores along the highway. I have never visited one of these places, but I would somehow be disappointed if they all went away.

3) As we drive, Hank eats little snacks in his seat. I don't know what becomes of most of these--whether he eats them or drops them. So when we pull up in front of Mom and Dad's house, and they're waiting on the front porch, they open the car doors to see the kids. For some reason, I really enjoy the moment when they greet the kids and marvel at what a mess Hank is. Usually he's covered in crumbs or a juice-crumb-banana paste. I enjoy knowing that his grandparents will clean him up so they can hug on him better.

And finally, not a surprisingly enjoyable thing, but just a straight-up awesomely enjoyable thing: this morning, I heard Hank start to wake up in his crib, and then I heard my dad go and get him up, while I got to sleep in. Totally worth the drive!

Check out some list loving at ABDPBT:


Have a great Monday, y'all, and I will see you tomorrow, when, as Mr. Rogers says, you'll find things you want to talk about, and I will too. Happy Election Eve!

Aspects of a Weekend: Three Pictures

Here we are heading to our party. Matt thinks Vikings don't smile much. Sadly, this pic doesn't show my parrot and the adorable red flower pin on the feather side of my hat. We had a great time doing all the normal party things, plus our friend Kelly and I totally crushed us some Rock Band.

Croc haters, this next one is not for you. Laura got these cute Croc slides, and they came with a big, brown grosgrain ribbon bow on each toe. The grosgrain didn't stay tied, and the ribbon was too short to tie a double knot, so I got some Halloween ribbon from the dollar-bin at Target and dolled 'em up. I am not going to be wearing shoes with ribbons myself, but I love them and I think they're great on a little girl.

And an open letter to the makers of Velveeta Rotini & Cheese with Broccoli:

Dear Velveeta,

What the heck? This is what came in the little pouch of "broccoli florets" you included in my box of mac n' cheese. Not enough to fill a thimble. Even allowing for significant rehydrating, this greenish powder is not going to magically turn into the lush veggies shown on the box. If this is the "broccoli," how am I supposed to feel good about myself while serving boxed mac n' cheese to my kids? You are not helping.

XOXO--B

Also, Laura and I loved HSM 3. If you like musicals and you like good-looking people, you will like this movie just fine. It was so wholesome and adorable that it made ME more wholesome and adorable after watching it. For like, an hour. So those were the high points of our weekend. What did y'all get up to?

And for more easily-digestible Monday lists, check out ABDPBT:

Three Things I Should Have Seen Coming

1) This morning Hank dumped the whole jar of goldfish food into the bathroom sink, plus some on the floor. It smells like sea monkey sex in there. How did he finally figure out how to unscrew the top? And why, six months after we buried the goldfish in the backyard, did we still have their jar of food under the bathroom sink?

2) After we came in from our walk tonight, the dog barfed on the carpet at the top of the stairs. Major barf. Then I remembered that the hour before, as I’d been standing chatting with Normal Neighbor in her backyard, I’d noticed the dog nibbling on grass. Then I had promptly forgotten, because my neighbor handed me a beer in a little koozie that had a grosgrain ribbon tied around it. I was so charmed by the koozie that I forgot the dog had an upset stomach. I think she ate some deer poop or something.

3) Like three years ago, when we lived in California, it dawned on me that lots of people I knew were getting riskier mortgage loans, and that underwriting standards at banks were slipping. Around this time, Wells Fargo told us we could “afford” to borrow a truly stupendous amount of money. I thought, “Hmm, that is whack,” and we didn't take them up on it. Then I got distracted by life, work, and childrearing, you know how it goes. And now we’re in a global financial panic. My bad, y’all! I totally should have said something.

For more edifying lists, check out ABDPBT's listing action:

Our Front Yard: 3 Landscaping and/or Personality Problems

Today I was standing out in the street talking to my next-door neighbor Mindy. I am not kidding when I say that every time I run into her outside, the first words out of her mouth after “Hi” are an apology for her front yard. Usually she begins with, “My yard looks so terrible,” or “My poor roses! I haven’t been taking good care of them.” Like, this is her conversational opener, I guess the same way that some people complain about the weather. What is weird about this is that her front yard always looks tidy and beautiful.

She has seasonal plantings, with flowers blooming for a lot of the year, and she has a yard service come every week and mow, edge, and clean up. So her yard is by any definition, just great. This picture was taken in early spring, when the azaleas were blooming. Right now in the same area, she has rosebushes. The little patch of pinestraw by her driveway turns into a huge Lantana bush in the summer. Her grass is like a carpet. And up by her front door, her boxwoods are trimmed into little topiary bubbles--you can see if you enlarge the pic. Looks nice.

Now, we’ve had our own yard issues, sometimes involving a letter from the Home Owners' Association, so depending on my paranoia level when I’m talking to her, I am prone to think, “Is she saying our place looks terrible? Is she trying to give me a gentle hint?" I was getting a complex about it. We have some pretty stuff growing in our yard, but unlike Mindy, we don't pay to have it professionally maintained, AND we're not much into yardwork. Matt keeps the grass mowed pretty well, and edged, and in the late spring growing season, I pulled a lot of weeds from around the things I wanted to cultivate. But hedge trimming and shaping, and mulching, not so much. The whole thing looks a little overgrown now, and it's weighing on my mind in a sort of low-grade way.

All of this was on my conscience when I was talking to Mindy. Then she told me that she had gotten at least three letters from the HOA in the last month. I was like, huh? She said that one of them was because they left their garbage can within sight for more than 24 hours. Okay. One was a complaint that her Lantana bush needed to be trimmed. And another was about an empty concrete urn up by her garage. (If you have a planter out, it's supposed to have something growing in it. But this thing is completely unnoticeable.) I was amazed that she had gotten all that flack while we have gotten one letter in the last several months. Our yard presents so, SO many more opportunities for a "friendly reminder" from the Garden Committee. So the poor woman is always apologizing for her yard, I guess, because she's always getting castigated for it. The HOA has given her an inferiority complex, while letting us, in my opinion, skate.

There are three theories for why this is so. One is Matt's, one is mine, and one is Mindy's:

Matt's: our house is set farther back from the street, and when the garden cops do their monthly driveby, they just don't notice much.

Mine: they don't send us a letter for every "violation," because their expectations for our yard are very low. In the last two years, we've taught them what level to hold us to.

Mindy's: the Garden Committee has a grudge against her personally, because for years, she was on that committee, and she was one of the garden cops. So now it's payback time.

Mindy is prone to craziness in other aspects of her life (that's a story for another day), so Matt thinks her theory is overly paranoid. I'm not sure what to think. But we are facing some challenges of our own in the yard right now.

1)The first thing that needs to happen is that our shrubs need trimming. This is daunting to me.

That hydrangea bush has now reached the top of the window, and the laurel could use some cutting. I'm not sure really what size the laurel should be, though. How much can you prune a shrub without killing it? The topography is tough here. This side of the sidewalk slopes off to a retaining wall, with about an 8-10 foot drop below it. I can't figure out where to put a ladder to cut this monster. But it really needs it. And do we need a fancy gas-powered or electric trimmer? We have old-fashioned loppers, like big scissors.

2) Also, and this hurts my soul, something is slowly killing the azaleas. Like one side of the bush will be blooming and the other side is dead. Likewise the boxwood on the other side of the driveway. I think it might be spider mites, but we've nixed the idea of putting some kind of major pesticide out in the yard. So I need to do some research or consult an expert.

3) The planted, treed area to the right of the driveway has pinestraw on the ground, pinestraw that needs to be renewed a couple of times a year. This was the planted area that the spelling geniuses at the Garden Committee said needed to be "redifined." So we need some more straw to "redifine" it, I guess. Two dudes with a truckload of pinestraw appear every now and again in the neighborhood, and I've paid them twice to clean up that area and spread straw, but I think they charge too much, so I want some new dudes.

So angst, people. I've got yard angst. There are several tons of biomass around this place that are all under my custodianship. Underlying all of this, if you haven't figured this out, is that we are CHEAP when it comes to the yard. Matt, especially, doesn't want to pay anyone to do anything because he thinks he should do it. (Remind me to tell you about when he got up on the roof to try to clean a rust stain off the chimney cap. The roof slopes at a 45 degree angle. He was wearing kitchen gloves and sneakers, and toting the garden hose and a bottle of CLR. He did not get far, but he was up there long enough for me to decide that a money market account was the best idea for the life insurance settlement in the short term, and that I shouldn't use some of it to pay off the house. I decided I would wait six months before making any major financial decisions. Then he made it down alive.)

If you are still reading, thank you. This was therapeutic for me. Same time next week?

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A Delightful Potpourri

Fact: I am making bread while lying on the couch. How, you ask? It seems that there are machines that make bread, automagically. It is a brave new world, y'all. Today is Matt's and my 13th wedding anniversary, and he brought me one of these contraptions. It is shiny and serious looking, and it has a little window in the top so you can spy on the dough. I haven't tasted the bread yet, but through the window it looks like it will be tasty. I'm hoping that I can save some dough (oh ho!) by making bread for sandwiches. Anybody know if this will actually be cheaper than buying store bread? There's some kind of "bread machine flour" that the thing likes, it may be more expensive, I don't know, but the manual says all-purpose flour is okay too. We'll see! If I get brave I might try it with the fruit and nut dispenser.

Opinion: John McCain looks tired. While my bread friend is toiling in the kitchen, I'm watching the repubs. He just finished his speech. I know all the commentators have been going on and on about how boring a speaker JM is, but wow. I feel like somebody slipped me a roofie. And not in a fun way. Then they dropped the balloons and confetti, and all the McCain and Palin family members were standing up on that black stage while crazy lights flashed around them, and the whole effect was just. . .mournful. John and Cindy and their kids looked like people in a bar when they turn the lights back up at 2am. And I thought, they're not feeling great about this. At that exact moment, Wolf Blitzer intoned, "Well, when you drop that wonderful confetti and balloons, Anderson, it just really gets the party going." Only, his tone sounded like he was saying, "I will never feel joy again."

Extracurriculars: We are getting our back-to-school activity schedule lined up. Laura has an art class on Thursdays (she thinks it's called "mixed-up media"), and she's about to start Jump Rope Club at school. This will be cool, I think. On Mondays, they get together after school and learn "individual and group rope techniques." The club runs the whole year and only costs $15. Woot! For this they get a t-shirt and a jump rope, and they can perform at school functions. I am not huge on having lots of extra activities. We try to keep it to one thing at a time. Do y'all try to limit these things? Last fall Laura did soccer (ugh), then gymnastics through the county parks and rec, then we started up swimming again in February. She's also taken gymnastics at a private gym. But around here it seems like, unless your kid gets to be on an invited gymnastic team at one of the gyms, the classes just don't really do anything. And I don't think she will be the next Nastia Whatshername. So we're trying some new things--I'm excited! My Frenemy Neighbor has also offered to give her piano lessons, so I'm considering that, kind of.

Sorcery: The other day, Laura took her new thermos to school for the first time. When she got home, she said, "When I drank my milk, it was like it just came out of the fridge! How did you do that? Are you some kind of wizard?" The answer is YES.