25 Pounds

I am sick! I’m not used to being sick. I have what they refer to as “the common cold.” I never get colds, a fact that I attribute to my drinking of copious amounts of green tea.

I love green tea! I love the diet Lipton green tea with citrus! Thanks to diet Lipton green tea with Citrus, I have a very low chance of getting cancer (antioxidants!), but (thanks to artificial sweeteners and other chemicals) a rather high chance of liver failure. So, I recently switched to regular old tea: I brew a bunch of organic green tea (Republic of Tea has some yummy flavors) and drink it over ice. It’s a little bitter without sweetener, but one gets used to it.

On a somewhat related note, I also use the bathroom about 20 times a day. (Tea’s a unsympathetic diuretic.)

The sickness came upon me suddenly and swiftly late Friday evening and began with achy muscles. So unused to being sick (this is a point of pride with me), I became very certain I:

1) was exhibiting the first signs of a degenerative muscle disease.
2) was coming down with a nasty case of fibromyalgia.
3) had inadvertently joined a fight club, and had so strictly adhered to the first rule of Fight Club (you do not talk about fight club) that I hadn’t even told myself.

The snot factory that has taken up shop in my nose made me rethink these diagnoses.

I feel slightly defeated. Especially because I am on day 6 of my diet. I’m on a diet! A real one! Because I KNOW THE SECRET to losing weight. The secret is- wait for it- to consume fewer calories than you expend. Shocking, I know. You have to burn 3500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat. During any given day, I expend about 2300 calories. My “diet” consists of eating around 1400 calories a day. If I do this, I should burn 900 calories a day. Which means I burn off one pound of fat in 3.88888 days. BUT if I exercise and burn off MORE calories, I can lose weight FASTER. And get a nice tight butt, too, which I feel is important for my self-esteem.

I’ve already lost 4 pounds. My goal is to lose about 25 more. They say that to motivate yourself to stick to a diet, you should post your weight in a public place, like Facebook or your blog or the scoreboard at the local baseball stadium.

I’m not doing that.

I am using CalorieCount.com, which makes counting calories like a fun game. At the end of the day, it gives you a complete nutritional analysis. Vitamin A? Too low! Carbs? Good! Fiber? Always too low. Someday, I’m going to have straight “goods.” Probably not today, though.

Anyway- despite feeling like I’d been trampled by an angry mob at a bagpipe concert (this actually happened to me once), I went off to the Y for the first time in too long. I spent a half hour on the elliptical machine until, fearing for my safety and the safety of those around me, I chose to get off. It was then I realized I’d turned into a jellyfish.

I’d promised the boys we’d go swimming. We changed into our suits in the locker room, though I wore shorts over my suit because I did not intend to actually get in the pool, myself. The stupid lifeguard MADE me get in because Ben was “underage” or some such malarchy. This was a shock to me, since I have not yet dropped the necessary poundage to feel comfortable going full bathing suit in a public setting, and also because I had not properly, um, “groomed” for the occasion. I’ll just leave it at that.

You have never seen a person remove their pants and get into a pool as fast as I did. I made Superman look like moving molasses. And the pool was, not surprisingly, a very nice place for a person who had recently been transformed into a jellyfish to be.

Now we’ve had lunch, I’ve calculated my calorie intake for the day, and I’m feeling pretty pretty good. Except that I’m a sick jellyfish. We’re going to Mario’s tonight with friends (the restaurant, not a random dude named Mario), so careful preparation is in order. I shouldn’t eat the bread. But I love the bread. I’ll probably eat it. But I shouldn’t. And then there’s the butter and the pasta.

Kate Moss said nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

Kate Moss, my friends, is a liar.

East Side West Side

Caleb is on a traveling baseball team, which is SO fantastic, because now we get to attend baseball games 4 to 5 TIMES A WEEK! This is a PRIVILEGE and not a hassle at all. No sarcasm here. Nope. No sir.

We missed the first two games; they were played against faraway towns called Webster and Pittsford. At our most recent game, I asked another baseball mom (I’m so not getting a bumper sticker that says baseball mom. Or soccer mom. I’d rather die. Though if you have one, I think that’s fantastic and super supportive.) what we had missed.

“How’d we do?” I asked her.

“Oh,” she said, “it was bad. When they were at bat, it was like boom, boom, boom- three outs. And then they were in the field forever. My husband now calls them the Bad News Bears.”

Ouch.

“Both games? They were both that bad?”

“Ohhhh yes. And get this- Pittsford’s team? They come out with fancy uniforms, each with their name and number on the back, and they were all wearing matching sunglasses.”

It’s at this point I glance out at our own shabby uniforms and notice that the backs of the t-shirts do not have names OR numbers on the back.

Baseball mom comrade tells me that our rivals were giants, and that she would really have liked to catch a glimpse of their birth certificates. This struck me as funny- competitive moms storming the mound and demanding to see birth certificates.

These kids are 7.

John and Caleb came home last night discouraged. The Chili traveling team has lost 4 games in a row, and Caleb, in tears, fears they will never win. John was upset with the coach on the opposing team.

“He was telling his kids to keep running the bases, purposefully running up the score when our team was already way behind.” Apparently, this is frowned upon- even in the pros. It is not a “classy” thing to do. And when your players are just learning the sport, it is especially bad behavior because you are neglecting to teach fledgling baseball players a valuable lesson: good sportsmanship.

So I’m just going to put this out there- these were all teams from the east side of the city.

Rochester, divided by the Genesee River, is geographically comprised of a blue collar side and a white collar side. The east side is the white collar side. The affluent reside on the east side. (John is one of about ten people from The Firm who do not live on the east side. Not that we are affluent. But lawyers who have husbands and wives who also work and who have little school debt and one to two kids are typically doing okay.) West-siders think East-siders are snooty and uppity and snobby, and East-siders think West-siders are yokels or gangsters. (Not everybody thinks this way, obviously. But everyone knows someone else who thinks it.)

I have now idea how this economic divide occurred:  I only know that I grew up on the west side and feel wildly defensive when anyone disparages it.

So, there I was, feeling very resentful of the East-side coach for running up the score and mad at the other East-side coach for having his players walk out on the field with Tom Cruise from Risky Business sunglasses. Because the last thing the world needs is a bunch of 7 and 8-year old aspiring Barry Bonds’s- players who must Be The Best, Look The Best, Be The Biggest, and have a smug attitude about it.

And then, and I am dead serious, I got antsy. I started thinking about Caleb and how he deserves the best. And I actually said the following to John:

"Do you think we should have gotten a house in Pittsford? You know- so Caleb would have a better shot at baseball scholarships?”

The kid is seven. And he’s pretty small, so they might not have played him anyways.

Still, though. Should we move?

Picture of Genesee River from Sheridan Vincent Photography

A Wedding and Time with Family

We have just returned from a short kid vacation, which is completely different from an adult vacation, where adults come home feeing rested. I admit that a kid vacation has moments of fun, but is mostly full of parents shouting things like, “Quit lollygagging!” and “Why didn’t you go to the bathroom when I asked you to go?” and “Look! Look at the horses! Look! TURN YOU HEAD AWAY FROM THE STUPID MOVIE AND LOOK AT THE HORSES OR WE ARE TURNING THIS CAR AROUND AND GOING BACK HOME! Aren’t they lovely?”

We checked into our hotel on Friday evening. Apparently, kids are not born knowing what a hotel is, and you have to actually sit down and explain the entire concept of a hotel, from the checking in to the checking out parts. As we meandered in to our Comfort Suites Inn in Lancaster County, Caleb and Ben grew wide-eyed as they perused out the lobby area, which was complete with floral sofas, chairs, and a large flat-screen television showing an episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants. We checked in, rode in the elevator up to the third floor, and the kids gathered round as we popped the keycard into room 302. They immediately rushed into the room and predictably began bouncing from one queen-sized bed to the next as John and I became suspicious of the Comfort Inn’s definition of the term “suite.” According to the FreeDictionary.com, a suite is “A series of connected rooms used as a living unit” and not “One large room with two beds and a couch.” Nevertheless, we ultimately opted not to seek larger lodgings and hunkered down in our poorly-defined but pleasantly cool “suite.”

We were foremost in town for my sister-in-law’s wedding, which was to take place the next day at the unholy hour of 10am. We unpacked, found that episode of Sponge Bob on the television, and got ready for the rehearsal dinner. As our time of departure approached, we told the boys to put their shoes on. Caleb stared at me, with a blank expression.

“Where are your shoes?” I asked.

“I took them off by the door.” I looked over by the door. They were not there. I sighed, impatiently.

“I took them off by the downstairs door,” he explained.

“Me too!” said Ben.

Explanation #1: The lobby is not our own personal “downstairs,” but a public gathering area where shoes are not only permissible, but encouraged.

 Day 1:  The Rehearsal Dinner

One of these brothers is not like the others...

The last picture of the "Jennings" siblings- although Carl was coerced into taking Mary's last name, Mary is now an Edwards.

Ella found a box to sit in so she was happy.

Day 2: The Wedding

So this was taken by Lisa because I wasn't there.  Because Ella wanted to talk through the entire ceremony.  She saw her uncle Scott, the love of her life, and threw a hissy fit when he didn't come and sit with her. I spent the majority of the ceremony outside the chapel seriously considering selling my daughter on ebay. 

I'm very proud of my FIL for not bawling like a baby throughout the entire ceremony and reception.  Everyone was concerned about this.  He was quite mature about the whole thing. 

My daughter is a party girl.  She danced to every song.  I was terrified she was going to be trampled.  She did the electric slide, the cha cha, and here she is with Carl, leading the train.  I had to drag her off the floor kicking and screaming when it was time to go. 

Daniel, on the other hand, drank too much wine.  I kid. 

Caleb and his cousin Celeste.

Day 3: A Quiet Day with Family

John and his brother, Mike.   We spent the day at their house.  I hope I didn't offend Mike's wife, my gorgeous SIL Johanna.  I a) was completely ambivalent about the World Cup finale and b) referred to the ladies from Sex and the City as "walking STDs."  I should not have done that.  Especially since I have a mug that says "I went to Maryland and got Crabs."  Johanna made a wonderful barbecue lunch and I got to cuddle with my nephew Julian.

Caleb quote:  In Pennsylvania, they pronounce their J's like H's.  I think Albert Pujols is also from Pennsylvania.

Daniel and Julian.

Ben and Daniel loved their hotel bed.

Day 4:  Off to Baltimore

Caleb

Caleb and his aunt Lisa by the Inner Harbor

I have the world's greatest sister-in-laws. 

I was granted a reprieve from holding Daniel all day.  Grandpa took over.

So the Baltimore Aquarium had an "Invasion of the Jellyfish" exhibit going on.  Ben and I are totally pumped.

Ben's favorite part of the entire trip.

And now for some wicked cool pics of different types of jellyfish:

And  shark.  I am afraid of very few things (with the exception of Niagara Falls, climbing down ladders, those creepy twins from The Shining, and snakes.) But I swear, if that shark had turned toward me and opened its mouth, I would have peed my pants.  Or passed out.  Or both.

Day 5:  We take a train ride through Amish Country

At this point, I'm resigned to his clingy behavior.  And a little train sick, too.

A bucolic farm. Authentically Amish. 

They had a blast.

We had a fantastic time, but I'm ready for a real vacation. Not one where I threaten my kids into sleeping and then sit by the pale lamplight and read a book for two hours until I get tired.

The kids were beat.  Ben had to be continually reassured that no one was going to take our hotel room while we were out. 

Explanation #2:  We reside in the hotel room until we check out.  No one else goes in and out.  Except the maid.  But she is completely not interested in your blankie and your doggie.  And she won't steal your swimsuit, either. 

This was a genuine concern of his, and he was always eager to get back to the hotel to make sure everything was as he left it. 

Final Caleb quote: (We were in a gift store and walked beneath a framed picture of the American flag with the following caption:  America, Land of the Free.)

"Mom.  A long time ago, when America wasn't so free, blacks and whites couldn't sit together on the bus.  And they couldn't drink out of the same drinking fountains.  But then Martin Luther King came along.  And it's a good thing he did. Otherwise, Mary might have never been able to marry Carl."

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails....And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13

Lessons from Saramago

My post last Friday on Scribophile.com.  Remembering one of my very favorite writers who passed away last month.



Jose Saramago died last month. He was believed to be one of the greatest novelists in the world.

We did not get along. He did not know that we did not get along (we never met; he was famous- I am not), so this not getting along business was entirely one-sided. But, I have a feeling he would not have liked me either (if we had met and he had bothered to give me the time of day.) Saramago has been described as “cold,” “arrogant,” and “unsympathetic.” And he was an atheistic communist. Not a granola-loving hippie Marxist, mind you, but a Stalinist.

Saramago was a Portuguese novelist, born to landless peasants in a small village not too far from Lisbon. His father would eventually move his family to the city and become a police officer, a job that required little educational background, and Saramago began his own educational career in grammar school. At the age of twelve, his parents no longer had the resources to keep him in grammar school, so he was pulled from it and put into a technical school, where he was trained in mechanics. Yet, he was drawn to reading and writing and would leave mechanics for a job in the publishing industry.

Growing up, he was exposed to the cruel practices of the fascist Portuguese government. He joined the communist party and is almost as famous for his hard-line communist views as he is for his novels.

Saramego began composing the novels that would bring him fame in his fifties. He would not receive acclaim for his work until he was 60. In 1998, he became the first Portuguese writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Despite our differences, I fell hopelessly in love with Jose Saramago’s writing. (Saramago had a truly spectacular translator who was also a good friend.) I always wonder whether a person’s writing is indicative of his soul: if so, Saramago had a genuinely beautiful, insightful, and sad soul, laden with suspicion and grief and a just a small glimmer of hope beneath layers upon layers of pessimism.

His cynical nature is captured in this quote from a 2007 interview in the New York Times:

Can fiction make the world a better place? “An ethical novel can perhaps influence a reader temporarily,” he went on, “but no more. I write as well as I can, but when my readers say, ‘Your book has changed my life,’ I don’t believe it. Maybe like a New Year’s resolution — for a week you try to be good, then you forget.”

A reader can surmise this belief from his most famous novel, Blindness, which I stumbled upon years ago on a display table at Barnes and Noble. It was unlike anything I’d read before. It’s the story of an epidemic: an unnamed city is struck by “white” blindness- the infected are gathered and quarantined within an asylum. A doctor’s wife remains uninfected, but fakes her blindness to remain with her husband. Fear and hunger end up dividing the patients, and they experience a complete breakdown of civilized behavior. Soon it appears the doctor’s wife is the only one left who can see. She ends up leading a small and eclectic group of strangers on a search for food and for some semblance of civilization. The novel is a blunt but trenchant analogy and it tells a timeless tale. (Please skip the film version.)

Saramago’s prose was unconventional. He had little use for punctuation and loved a good long run-on sentence. (He was the e.e. cummings of novelists! On a related note, Saramago was also a poet.) He had a habit of smashing paragraphs together; a Jose Saramago page could appear most foreboding. One finishes a paragraph and literally gasps for air.

Personally, I am generally critical of avant-garde writing styles: I could never make it through one chapter of a Cormac McCarthy novel. But Saramago’s stories take hold and don’t let go. Reading his novels is like learning to breathe underwater: a surreal revelation.

Saramago had definite opinions about the writing process. Here’s an excerpt from an interview conducted by the Paris Review:

I don’t believe in the notion that some characters have lives of their own and the author follows after them. The author has to be careful not to force the character to do something that would go against the logic of that character’s personality, but the character does not have independence. The character is trapped in the author’s hand, in my hand, but he is trapped in a way he does not know he is trapped. The characters are on strings, but the strings are loose; the characters enjoy the illusion of freedom, of independence, but they cannot go where I do not want them to go. When that happens, the author must pull on the string and say to them, I am in charge here.

Harold Bloom considered Saramago to be the second greatest living novelist (only after Philip Roth.) Now, some other aging writer moves to second place and we remember and commemorate the brilliance of an interesting, eccentric and wholly talented writer.

As I consider his life, I believe that (as writers) we can take an education from Jose Saramago. Five thoughts from the life of this writer:

1. You are never too old to begin writing.
2. You are never so old you must stop writing. Saramago was working on a book during his last days.
3. Brilliance trumps convention.
4. Allegory is not dead.
5. Good writing crosses boundaries: political boundaries, religious boundaries, ethnic boundaries.

So, take a lesson from the deceased: Start writing. Don’t stop. Be unconventional. Be meaningful. Be brilliant.

Rest in peace, Jose Saramago. 1922-2010.

Interested in reading his books? Start here:

Baltasar and Blimuda
The Cave
Blindness

Sources:
http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/1032

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/magazine/26saramago-t.html?pagewanted=6&_r=2

Summertime... and the living is easy (ish)

So I haven't seen a fireworks display in seven years, which is too bad, because I enjoy a good fireworks display.  My children have hyper-sensitive hearing.  They hide when the garbage truck comes around, so you can imagine that fireworks do not go over well.  This is strange to me, because on a daily basis they all make noise that puts a fireworks display to shame and are yet seemingly unbothered.  (It bothers me, however.  I'm just saying.)

Every year we go to our friends' house for the 4th.  They live across the street from the park where their small town sets off what I hear is a really terrific fireworks display. Each year we have dinner, hang out, wait until dusk, and inevitably leave right before the fireworks start because one of the children panics and goes into hysterics.  So, we drive home, which isn't so terrible because we catch glimpses of various displays as we travel through each little town down route 31.

Summer is going by too fast.  So far: countless baseball games, 2 bee stings, 1 near death by drowning in a kiddie pool, 1 month of extremely frizzy hair, 1 graduation, 1 very good end-of-year report card, approximately 100 mosquito bites, 4 stubbed toes,  20sh barbecues, 0 road trips.  We will rectify the 0 road trips this Friday. 

A review in pictures:

The Graduate

One word:  Plastics.

 After Caleb's piano recital.

He's my sweet baboo.

Ben opened his gifts shirtless this year.  Well why not.  He's five now.

  There is nothing Ella loves more in the world than her aunt Joyce.  Except perhaps decorating herself with markers.

That's the last time I show her any Batman films. 

Hop on Pop.

We went to a parade.  Ben was unhappy with the loud noises.  Which is also why I haven't seen any fireworks in five years.  That's my friend Kim.  She's a sport.

We ventured off to Browns Berry Patch :

Ben is more interested in guarding the berries than picking them.  His little friend Ryan is Ella's fiance.  Yes, really.  And I will fight anyone who gets in the way of my plan.

Note the "Silly Bandz."  I hate those things.

My sweet baboo.  Did I mention he made the Chili All Star baseball team?

Ella, who still occasionally eats her oatmeal with two fists, is surprisingly adept at raspberry picking.

Our now annual 4th of July family pic at the Casa de Fisk. 

(Thank you Katie for these pictures.  I'm having an extremely bad camera year.)

The One Where She Admits She Was Probably Wrong

I’m a conservative with some liberal sensibilities. Which maybe you gathered. Like, for instance, my feminist leanings. And I abhor racism- to the point where my I allow my "white guilt" to obscure rational thinking.   And no, I'm not not saying that all conservatives are racists- of course not- nor am I saying that anti-racism is solely a liberal ideology- but there are undoubtedly a lot more "vocal"  racists who happen to be registered in the Conservative and Republican parties than in the Liberal and Democratic parties.  (I will even go so far to say that in its purest form, conservatism is probably the LEAST prejudicial political ideology.)

I hate when people make sweeping generalizations about Mexicans, African-Americans, Native-Americans, Jews, gays, or the Irish. And yes- I have heard people, seemingly decent, generous people with families and church affiliations, make horrible slurs against these groups of people. Even the Irish. (This person had been to Ireland once for three days and was therefore an expert on the people there.)

(It doesn’t bother me when someone makes a slur against the Icelandic people, however. Iceland and its stupid volcano messing up everyone’s travel plans. Keep your volcanoes under control, people. Unacceptable.)

So, anyway, I was peeved when I heard about the Arizona immigration law. I thought it would stir up problems, especially for Hispanic kids in public schools. After all, racist people only need a little bit of perceived backing from a higher authority to act like bigots publicly.

Perhaps this peevishness has stemmed from my own conception of the Mexican “illegal immigrant.” I see them as poor, taking on the jobs no one else can afford to take on, doing grueling work in the fields, living a nomadic existence, moving wherever the crops are ripe. (For an interesting look at just how arduous these jobs are, check out Tom Rivers’ book Farm Hands. And guess what. I KNOW HIM! And yesterday, I told everyone I knew him and that they should buy his book or I would run off with several Vera Bradley purses to sell on the black market when I spotted his books on display at Browns Berry Patch.)
So last night we were watching Training Day, starring the delectable Denzel Washington and the actor turned novelist Ethan Hawke. Denzel Washington plays a dirty cop who does business with drug lords, and Ethan Hawke plays the idealistic rookie cop whose random good deed saves his life.

Excellent film. Washington won an Oscar for it. A little to very violent.

After the movie was over, I determined again never ever to live in Los Angeles. Which probably won’t be very hard for me. There are a lot of gangs and drug dealers in LA. And, according to movies like L.A. Confidential, Training Day, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there’s a lot of corruption within the police departments. These things DO NOT happen within the great state of New York.

John started giving a boring lecture on the two major Mexican drug cartels. I do not know where he stores all of this random information in his brain. I really don’t. I can’t remember the plot of a book I read a month ago.

John asked me if I knew what city ranked number one for kidnappings in the world.

I guessed Mexico City. Turns out I was wrong. (It’s Cartagena, Colombia. I knew Colombia had problems thanks to the movie Romancing the Stone. Which is, apparently, still culturally relevant!) Mexico City isn’t even number two.

Phoenix, Arizona is number two. There were 370 kidnapping cases in 2008. And most all of them were drug related.

This is not something they told us in the MSNBC reports about Arizona’s new immigration law. I did not know they had closed down an Arizona national state park because of this problem. No one reported on the limbs people lost when kidnappers’ demands were not met. No one wrote about how these drug lords walk right across the border and brutally murder anyone who has stood in the way of their drug trade. And I had no idea that the most dangerous cartel, the Mexican Zeta cartel, is especially dangerous because it is made up of men trained by the U.S. military.

So, although I still love that Benjamin Franklin quote about freedom and death and being deserving, I no longer think the Arizona politicians are fascists. I kind of understand. They’re trying to quarantine this increasingly hazardous situation. I was being reactionary, letting political correctness cloud rationality, and was thinking like an uninformed moron.

Now, this is what I think: I think, what a mess. What a broken world. What a broken attempt at a solution. I think maybe Arizona politicians are trying to be brave and are trying to get the rest of us to notice.

Except John McCain. He is a sell-out.

That is all.



The libertarian's creed:

"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security."

Ben Franklin

Good Nights Mean Good Mornings

Remember that commercial where the boy wets his bed in the middle of the night? He undresses quietly in the dark and puts on clean clothes. Ashamed and embarrassed, he finds a thin blanket and curls up in a fetal position on the floor beside his wet bed. He stays there until morning, while his parents sleep, unaware of his trouble.


I wish my kids would do that.

He Leaves Belts Places

John and I do not argue in a healthy way. Which is probably my fault. He accuses me of taking a jujitsu approach when receiving criticism. If John, for instance, implies that the house is messy or that I should put my keys away so I can find them the next day, I retort with something like “YOU LEAVE BELTS PLACES!!!” Because he does. He never puts his belts away. He comes home, takes off his stupid belt, and leaves it in a place that is not his closet.

It is hard to keep a clean house when your husband leaves belts places. Also socks, shoes, and other work-attire accoutrements.

Last evening, we enjoyed a raucous night out with my sister Mary and her husband, whom I will refer to as Nate, because that is his name. We went off to a really wonderful Mediterranean restaurant in the city, Eros, which is behind and to the left of the Little Theatre. Not 2 Vine. Go beyond 2 Vine.

Lest this turns into a restaurant review site, I will just say the following: if you happen to have the chance to go out with friends or your significant other and you choose The Olive Garden instead of Eros or Scotland Yard or DaVinci’s, I think you are making a colossal mistake. I guarantee that the food is better, the service more personable, the atmosphere distinctive, and the wait nonexistent at Eros. And the price is comparable.

The Olive Garden is prosaic.

I ordered a cucumber melon soup followed by an entrée of Mousaka with sautéed vegetables, which I ordered simply because I got the opportunity to say Mousaka out loud. Mousaka. What a great word! The soup was refreshing. Mary tried it and agreed it was refreshing.

John ordered a bottle of red wine which he and Nathan enjoyed. This is one of those restaurants where the waiter presents the wine, pours a little bit so you can swirl it and sniff it, and then waits while you taste and approve it. If you are knowledgeable about wine, you can make informative and arrogant sounding comments about the bouquet, and about whether the wine is fruity or dry or whatever. This is what my husband said when presented with the bottle:

“Look! There are monkeys on the label!” I can’t take him anywhere. And he leaves belts places.

(I don’t drink; I am still a recovering alcoholic.)

After eating, John wanted to show Nate and Mary his office at The Firm. I should now mention that my dad also works at The Firm, though in a different department than John. I should probably also mention that on our way to The Firm, I suggested we go up to my dad’s office and “do something to it.” I was vague on the what. I had this idea that since we were all hankering for dessert, we might eat all of his M&Ms, which he keeps in a container at his desk. But when we got there, there were no M&Ms, so we vandalized the place instead. By vandalize I mean we flipped some pictures upside down. By “we” I mean John and Nathan, who worked while I wrung my hands and fretted about the consequences of such an action. Mary sat grimly and supervised.

I’m not sure that this is going to go over well this morning. I expect a phone call at any time. I might add that my dad and stepmom were watching my kids while we were doing this, so the guilt is somewhat compounded. 

I'm admitting all of this first thing because I have a very hard time keeping secrets.  Not important secrets.  Let's just say I would make a very bad poker player.  Big, personal, secrets?  I'm like Al Gore's locked box.  Your secrets are very safe with me.  And with my twelve closest friends.

John, who is by nature a loquacious being, becomes even more long-winded after a couple of glasses of wine. He has a tendency to give whole seminars on subjects of interest to him: a lengthy history lesson on the Smiley Face murders, perhaps, or a philosophical diatribe against people who don’t take responsibility for their actions.

Last evening, we were all set to watch at episode of Arrested Development before Mary and Nathan disappeared into the fog (because this is what we do), when we were awarded a long, impassioned speech from John.

Which may have led to an argument between me and John. Which I think I won, because we did end up watching some Bluth family hilarity.

So last night, I crawled into bed, feeling a little contrite, when I saw a long, fat belt, sprawled out on my side of the bed like a python. John lay there, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Unjust retribution!!!

I then I found a long, skinny belt, coiled beneath my pillow like a black mamba.

He leaves belts places. And it drives me nuts.

Animal or Food

Ella is very good at labeling things (she will happily point out your ears, hair, nose, eyes, and boobies) but is not very good at categorizing things (do you smell with your nose or your boobies?) So, our speech therapist has her categorizing items she sees on flashcards. We call this game “Animal or Food?” We’ve been practicing this throughout the day. Here’s a portion of yesterday’s edition of “Animal or Food”:

“Ella, is this an animal or a food?”

“Apple.”

“Very good! It is an apple. Is an apple an animal or a food?”

“Food.”

“Good job! Okay, look at this picture. Is this an animal or a food?”

“Kitty.”

“Yes, it is a kitty. Is a kitty an animal or food?”

“Mew!”

“Nice kitty noises. But I asked if a kitty is an animal or a food…”

“Animal.”

“Yay Ella! Okay, how about this one?” I show her a picture of a cow and she stares at it, perplexed, like she’s never seen a bovine creature before in her life. After a moment of contemplation she responds:

“Food.” And I have nothing to say to that because we had hamburgers a few nights ago.

The potty-training is not going well. Ella pooped in her brand new Cinderella panties. Daniel is taking a Custer’s Last Stand approach to the issue. The whole thing has been rather exhausting.

Today is the last day of school. Caleb wants to celebrate. Caleb is very big on celebrations. The other week, he came home and wanted to know what I was planning on doing to celebrate Flag Day.

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything,” I told him. He crossed his arms and scowled.

“You should at least go out and buy a flag.”

I didn’t.

I really want to send the twins to preschool next year. Mainly because I crave two mornings of freedom, but also because I think it would be good for them. But I just don’t think it’s feasible. Twins, you know, are expensive. Twice as expensive as singletons.

And to be honest, I have doubt as to whether or not they will potty-trained by fall.

Last night, Ella and I played "Boy or Girl."

“Is daddy a boy or a girl?”

“Boy.”

“Is Caleb a boy or a girl?”

“Boy.”

“Is Ella a boy or a girl?”

“Boy.”

I think we’ll work on gender recognition before we force the potty issue. Sigh.

Five Years Ago

First, this happened. I blame John entirely.

One afternoon, while folding socks, I got my first owie contraction. I cleaned the house, went to a piano recital, shipped Caleb off my mom's, and stayed up and watched Gaslight (a classic starring Joseph Cotten and Ingrid Bergman. You should watch it) until it was time to go to the hospital. At about 3am. So I woke up John. Ben came after two pushes, and the nurse delivered him before the doctor got there. John nearly missed it because he wanted coffee. Coffee is the devil. But all was well, and Ben came swiftly and loudly into the world at- I totally forget what time. I have it written down, somewhere.

Good times and noodle salad commenced.

Ben was the most beautiful baby in the nursery. I'm not even just saying that. It was common knowledge among the staff in the maternity ward. He had a perfect round bald head. It stayed that way for almost three years. It never flattened in the back like Ella's did, and it never got covered in cradle cap, like Caleb's did. It was smooth and soft and perfect.


This kid is even cute when he's angry.


He's off to kindergarten in the fall. I don't think this is going to go well. He still needs a nap or he looks like the above picture. Full-day kindergarten is a beast for some kids. I said to John- "Maybe I should homeschool him!" John said, "No." I said, "Whyyyyy?" And he said, "You know why." Because I'm unorganized and... well that's it, basically, I guess.

Oh but I wish we could stay together forever, my lovey. Happy birthday.

Under the Lights

There is something exquisite about a baseball game played at dusk under the lights- those ethereal moments right before the mosquitoes come out.

Baseball season is in full swing here in our world, and my son Caleb is most in his element when he is holding his black leather glove and his grass-stained ball. He is the smallest but most enthusiastic kid on his team, raising the roof every time he makes a play or gets on base or runs home.

He is on the yellow team- the coaches still pitch and everyone plays the field, regardless of how many kids show up to play. That means, at any given game, there are between 7 and 9 kids in the outfield, and when a ball is hit, they swarm like bees and inevitably crash into one another, and it all looks like a parody of the sport.

Of course it isn’t. It is serious business. These boys (and girl) are just on the cusp of becoming competent baseball players: when a player actually catches the ball, he acquires a look of astonishment and becomes immediately paralyzed from the face down. The crowd screams adulations while the coaches yell at him to throw the ball to third. He eventually comes back to life and throws the ball to second or first or anywhere but third, but it doesn’t matter.

It’s delightful entertainment.

Caleb hits every time and always slides into the bases. Always. Even when the ball is still being chased in far left field. Then he raises the roof while jumping up and down and hooting- the epitome of joyfulness. He waves his hat - his yellow hat that was lost in our backyard for two games but was found covered in leaves and mud by the sandbox.

Caleb played first base for a while today. He stood there, shouting to his teammates while scratching himself, and I thought- this is baseball. The great American sport. My son is itching himself in front of everyone. I hope the camera’s not on him. There are no cameras here. He is seven. I hope he doesn’t have jock itch. I think those pants don’t fit him right- they ride up in the crotch. Why in God’s green earth would they give them white pants to wear? I should put Scotch Guard on them before we go out. Does he have to go to the bathroom? Caleb STOP DOING THAT! (My mind tends to wander.)

He runs back to the dugout, passing me as he goes, pausing for a brief chat. Covered in dirt from head to toe, he finishes my soda and winks at me as he walks away. I grin at his childish gait, his head swaying left to right as he throws his glove down and picks up his bat, and am profoundly aware that I am looking at my own beating heart.

I didn’t know my heart loved baseball so much.