123! 5! 4!

Profgrrrrl brought this Meme out of mothballs. Y'all remember the rules. Nearest book. 123rd page. 5th sentence. Post 4 sentences. No cheating.

To the left of me: Blindfold Game by Dana Stabenow.

"Very big boom." Kyle relaxed a little. "Is that realistic?" "You tell me, Kyle," Hugh said, his voice hard."

To the right of me: Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy From Mars by Daniel M. Pinkwater.

"Absolutely, yes sir, this very day sir," Samual Klugarsh said. "Can I run out and get you som more hot chocolate? A cheeseburger? The contents of my savings account?"

Ooooh, books!!!

Since school let out a week and a half ago, I've read:

Alice in Wonderland (re-read)
Holes
Freak the Mighty
The Great Gilly Hopkins
Classic Fairy Tales
Zel
Blindfold Game
Danse Macabre

The first 6 are for my Children's Lit. class in the Fall, I'm trying to get ahead of the reading. I'm amazed that I missed reading Holes, Freak, Great Gilly, & Zel before. They are really fantastic. Zel is my least favorite of this group and Holes is my favorite. This is the class where we've been assigned HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I'm taking that one to WDW next week.

Blindfold Game and Danse Macabre have been sitting on my shelf awhile, awaiting a free moment to read something non-school related. Blindfold Game is a thriller by Dana Stabenow: terrorists threaten an American city with a dirty bomb. Really quite good, though I prefer her straight mysteries. Danse Macabre, by Laurell K. Hamilton is...well...basically it's her usual fare: Anita Blake, Vampire Executioner gets it on with her 7 or so boyfriends. Fun and sexy, but not a whole lot of story going on. But you know I'll buy her next one.

This post really should have lots of links, but I'm not feeling the linky-love tonight, mebbe I'll update tomorrow, m'kay?

Okay...

According to the TSA website, baby's bottles are being allowed through security and on the plane, as are laptops, pdas, and cell phones.

However, I would check their site before you leave to go on a trip and print out what they allow. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the screeners don't necessarily comport with what the official policy is.

Hold everything.

Profgrrrrl has a post up about the newest security screenings at airports which brought up a comment which is leading to this post.

How many parents with infants and young toddlers are rethinking their plans to fly with their kids now that no liquids are allowed? I mean, what are they going to do about milk bottles?

Do the math: you get to the airport at least 2 hours early to get through the security check. If your flight is on time and you have the world's shortest flight, that's still an hour in the air. A half-hour to get out of the airport on the other side. Does anyone have an infant or young toddler who's willing to go nearly 4 hours at a minimum without milk? Does this mean only nursing babies can fly?

Yeesh.

B is for Bummed

Oh well, with 3 A's and a B I still make the Dean's List.

Lovely week - Now with Bloggy Playdates!

On Monday I went into DC to meet Liberal Banana - who is just as lovely as her picture and just as funny and smart as her writing. We talked over lunch about everything under the sun (that we could fit into her lunch hour).

Today, I met up with Mrs. Coulter and Lyra at Nearby University. And we talked about everything under the sun while sitting in the sun watching Lyra play in the fountain. Oh! The cuteness that is Lyra! She's so smart and funny and athletic. And oh! The cuteness and niceness that is Mrs. Coulter!

Best exchange between MC & L:
MC: May I have a bite of your blueberry muffin?
L: No. It's MY muffin.
MC: Are you going to eat the whole muffin?
L: No.
MC: May I have a bite please?
L: No. It's MY muffin.
MC: Okay.
L: You can have a bite of my muffin, Mommy.
MC: Thank you for giving me a bite of your muffin.
L: Yew welcome. (pause)
L: Thank you for taking a bite of my muffin, Mommy.
MC & Me: (Cracking up)

Next time, I'm bringing Muffin Man along (he had school today).

Waiting...

...for my final summer grades. Three out of four are posted...A, A, A+ (but the plus doesn't count.) The fourth one is the one I'm worried about. I'm hoping I got at least a B. Please, please let me have gotten at least a B.

Stinky Feet

Muffin Man's Land's End sandals are pretty, hard-wearing, and abuse-loving but BOY HOWDY are they ever stinky.

MM has never had a problem with stinky feet before. Not ever. So I know it's the sandals that make his feet smell like a cow barn.

Seriously. Smelly, smelly, stenchy, yucky. Foot odor not even a mother could love.

So today we went sandal shopping and...sadly...found nada. The stores don't seem to care that it is still 100 degrees in the shade. It's Back To School time and that means no more sandals to be found.

Once again, his stinky peyooey sandals are in the wash.

Anyone got any advice on fighting foetid foot odor?

I am so proud

I am the number one result on this search. Yeah.

Verklempt

Luau day today in Muffin Man's class.

One of his teachers is Hawaiian and she brought in food and has been teaching the kids to hula. So today we got to eat delicious dishes and watch our kids do beautiful meaningful dances while their teacher said things like, "Okay now! Look at your pretty, pretty shells! Now throw out your nets! Be a fish! Pull in your nets! Look at all the fish you caught! Wave Aloha! Again! The other way! Now be a fish again!"

And I watched my little man dance in his "grass skirt" (streamers on construction paper) and I got all choked up.

Mahalo, KindBeautifulLongHairedHawaiianTeacher.

Bullets of School's Out

• I have off until the 28th. Yay!
• Tomorrow: Lunch with Dad, Luau at Muffin Man's school (he's gonna hula!)
• Saturday: Birthday party for MM's classmate at (groan) Chuck E. (bleah) Cheese.
• Monday: Grades?
• Coming up in the Fall Semester: Intro to Bio (plus lab); Children's Lit (HP 4, Alice in Wonderland, Holes, Great Gilly Hopkins, Hobbit, Amulet, and assorted others); Analysis and Interpretation of Psychological Data (plus lab); Research Methods in Psychology (plus lab); and Religion.
• So far I've spent over $440 on books (used) and will be spending at least $30 more (backordered). Just for this one term.
• I got my hair cut. I'm now sporting a chin-length bob. Had to get the hair off my neck. It was just. Too. Hot. It'll be easier to grow in now that it's all one length.
• Still with the pimples. Hate them, hate them, hate them.
• We went out with friends tonight and their daughter sat for MM. He charmed her socks off and she would like to sit for us again. We are loyal to SoccerPlayingBabysitter, but she's often busy, y'know, playing soccer. So we're going to keep friend's daughter as a sitter too.

And that's it for tonight. More meaningful posts coming soon.

Proof (a haiku)

Proof: life is not fair;
I have three great big pimples
And lots of grey hair

Fives Meme

I'm seeing it everywhere...

Five things in my 'fridge:

1. Leftover Annie's Shells and Cheese from tonight's dinner.
2. Leftover taco meat/bean mash from dinner/lunch/dinner over the weekend.
3. Skim milk.
4. Jack cheese.
5. Truffle butter.

Five things in my closet:

1. Muffin Man's prize bag (for, y'know, potty prizes).
2. Boxes of wool and knitting needles.
3. Shoes.
4. A beautiful green jaquard corset that I will never, ever fit into again.
5. A sweater I started knitting for Mr. Spock when we still lived in NYC.

Five things in my car:

1. Three pairs of sunglasses (one is a clip-on for my regular glasses).
2. An ice scraper.
3. A travel sewing kit.
4. The Dog Train cd.
5. A pink noodle.

Five things in my purse: NOTE: My purse is 4"x4"x9"

1. My cell phone.
2. My Palm Tungsten E.
3. A small FRS radio.
4. My wallet (a bi-fold, with a long pocket for cash).
5. A change purse.

Banging my head on the desk

This happened in my district. Y'know how you always think it can't happen here? Well, it can.

Coming up for air

1500 wd paper due 8/3, Social Psychology final same day.

I'll be back soon.

Four going on Fourteen

Muffin Man stands before me, hands palm up at his shoulders. A very valley-dude voice says:

"Mooooom. The printer's not working."

Hands move to his hips, arms akimbo:

"It's a real problem."

Where did this teenager come from and what did he do with my son?

Guess what?

I just bought my books for Fall term using Nearby U's on-line bookstore and there's one book I don't need to buy 'cause I already own it:

Aren't you jealous?

Conversation at 5:42 AM

"Mommy?"
"Mmgrrwha?"
"Mommy? Can I watch some TV?"
"Whatimeisit?" (I take a bleary look at the clock). "No. You have to wait until the big hand is on the 12."
"Mommy? Can I snuggle in with you?"
"No, love, you have to go back to your own bed and wait until the big hand is on the 12."
"But I want to snuggle! Or watch TV!"
"Little hand on the 6, big hand on the 12, kiddo. That's the rule."
"Oh alright."

At 7:30 I had to go and wake him up.

Memory Avenue Revisited

Last year I took a stroll down Memory Avenue. I gave y'all the grand tour of my neighborhood through the years. Today I'm going to do something a little different, I'm going to show you an actual picture of what it looks like today:

7th Avenue & 2nd Street, looking Northeast, click on the backcover link to see the Southeast view.

Looking Northeast you can see a little cafe and Tarzian Hardware, which has been there forever. I truly thought that all hardware stores looked like that. Imagine my surprise when I saw my first Home Depot.

Looking Southeast, you'll see the weird defunct bar, Met Food, and a Maggie Moo's in the spot where there used to be a newstand until the owner was shot. Next to Maggie Moo's is Pino's Pizzaria (greasy, but oh-so-good) which used to be next door where there's now a strange sort of diner/burger joint.

Anyway...I used to live about a hundred yards to the West of where that man in the plaid pants is standing.

Seriously, I should get a commission.

SoccerPlayingBabysitter LOVED Nearby U.

She wasn't planning to. She was looking forward to being in real college classes and getting a college professor's perspective on the book she's reading for AP English which we covered today. But Nearby U is...well it's nearby. Lots of kids from her school end up going there and she thought that she really didn't want to hang with them anymore.

But that was before she saw how big parking lot K is. And then the 5 minute walk through the lovely, tree-covered outer campus, past the Cultural Center and the Performing Arts Center and up the hill to the Large Building with the food court and gourmet coffee shop inside.

"I had no idea Nearby U. was so BIG." she gasped.
"30,000 students." I replied.

After coffee and an eclair for me and a hot chocolate and a croissant for her, we went to class.

"He'll spend about an hour talking about the author and the context of the Vietnam War," I had told her in the car on the way over, "and then he'll have one of us read a paragraph or two and discuss it. We'll get through maybe two stories today." She was so impressed when he came through as expected.

My professor was really kind to SPB, and made sure she had a chance to join in on the discussion and even had her read a paragraph.

Then we went to our second class. In the car I told her about what this professor would do. "He'll talk about [his google-able hobby] and he will emphasize at least once the definition of the concept we're talking about today [I quoted him to her], and he'll talk about the Yankees." Again, right on every point.

This professor is really great, his class is always fun and he explains concepts clearly. He did a great job of including SPB and spent 10 minutes talking to her after class. Come to think, he should get a commission too.

After class we went to meet Mr. Spock for lunch in the Large Building and then I gave a tour of the campus. I showed her the student union buildings and the libraries and the computer labs and the exteriors of the dorms (I've never been inside the dorms myself). There are MANY dorm buildings and we looked at the construction sites for 3 more that will be adding 1000 beds.

"It looks like I'll have lots of opportunities to make new friends here, huh?" She said.
"Yup."

We ended the tour at the bookstore, where Mr. Spock bought her a Nearby U shirt she was about to buy for herself.

"Wear it in good health." He said.
"I will."

I think we may have made the sale.

I hab gad a code

Ad I hab a sidus idfecshud. I ab tryig nod to ged an ear idfecshud.


In short, I feel like shit. And I couldn't get through to the doctor today. Ah well.

Tomorrow, I'm taking SoccerPlayingBabysitter to visit Nearby University and she's going to sit in on my classes. I arranged it with my professors and she's read the assignments. The book we're discussing tomorrow is one she's also reading for AP English in the Fall. So now, she'll have a bit of a head start on her classmates. She's a rising senior and she's so excited about going off to college next year! Tomorrow I'll let you know how she liked her taste of college.

That little leap of faith

Today was Muffin Man's last swimming lesson of this session and...he didn't pass into the next group up. He won't hold his face in the water for 3 seconds. Actually, he will. But he's never done it for his teacher, the little imp. He's got everything else down pat. Ah well. Out of his class of 6 kids, only one was allowed to move up. His teacher says this is pretty normal, that most kids need 2 or 3 attempts at the beginner's class. So he'll be a Waddler again in the fall. Thank goodness for indoor pools!

His confidence in the water has gone up amazingly, I'm going to be practicing skills with him for ten minutes a day a couple of times a week at our local pool and every day during our vacation in Walt Disney World. That way, when class starts up again in the Fall, maybe he'll be ready to take that leap of faith of holding his face under water just long enough.

Why?

Early this afternoon, a child I know died of a brain tumor. He was diagnosed in November and fought hard. He was four.

Excuse me while I go hug my son.

How to make a Frankenfurter outfit

For the Googler who found me while looking for one:

Ingredients:
1 pr. VERY high-heeled shoes. Platforms are best, chunky heels are preferred, but stillettos are acceptable (and affordable, they sell them at Pay-less)

1 pr. Fish net stockings. NOT panty hose.

1 black garter belt with red trim

1 black leather/pleather vest that laces up the front. If you can't find one that laces, buy one without and add the laces yourself

1 black corset. You will have to sew on your own sequins and stuff to make it match.

1 operating gown, green.

1 pr. pink rubber gloves.

Makeup:

2 black eye pencils (one for your face, one for the tattoo). Let's not infect our eyes, m'kay?
2 red lip pencils (ditto)
Mascara
Blue eyeshadow
White grease paint (just a touch!)
Red lipstick

And don't forget the attitude.

Good Housekeeping can kiss my...

The blurb on the current issue says Rachel Ray talks about her weight. Her weight? She has FOUR popular shows on the food network and they're asking her about her weight?

I don't particularly like watching her shows (except for $40/day, that's pretty cool), mostly because I get a little nauseated by her cutesiness, but I seriously hope she doesn't have any problems with her body image because she looks really healthy and happy.

I shall now commence banging my head on my desk.

Musical musings from yesterday morning's commute

These songs were playing unrelatedly between 7:30 and 8:30 on various stations yesterday morning. What do they have in common? Am I right to feel freaked out?

Suite Judy Blue Eyes, by CSNY
Hungry Like the Wolf, by Duran Duran
Take a Walk on the Wild Side, by Lou Reed
Tom's Diner, by Suzanne Vega

The weather today is swimming with a chance of listening.

Raining? You guessed it!

Muffin Man did a great job of listening on Monday and is looking forward to listening again today. Dinner and ice-cream at Bob Evans if he does a good job of listening to the teacher, who wouldn't sit still for that?

It's so fun to watch him floating with the big pink noodle. On his back he relaxes to let the water get in his ears. On his front he "swims", kicking his legs and having a good time.

His favorite part is playing "Ring-around-the-rosie" and blowing bubbles.

Today is his penultimate class. I'm signing him up for the next class up that starts in September.

Ants...and how they led to a cute thing Muffin Man said

We were straightening the living room and I was putting two of Muffin Man's cds away in the carosel when I noticed a little movement under the DVD player.

We have ants.

They're carrying crumbs and marching in a little line out from under the rug to under the DVD player, out from under there to a clump by the wall. We see that they have some food back there and Mr. Spock diagnoses the food source. "Tortilla Chips." he says.

Muffin Man says, "I ate some tortito chips the other day. They were magic tortito chips. The tortito chips had wings and the tortito chips could fly and I ate the tortito chips and they flew ooooooout of my tummy and I ate the tortito chips and then I could fly too."

So, at the same time that I am completely grossed out about the ants (getting traps ASAP!), I am complete plotzing from the cuteness of my son.

Life is pain*

We just finished reading some stories by Flannery O'Connor. Holy guacamole is she ever depressing. Life sucks, then someone shoots your whole family.




*Bonus points if you know what movie that's from.

If it's Wednesday it must be raining

Because Wednesday is swimming lessons and there hasn't been a single lesson day where it hasn't rained. Thank goodness for indoor pools, eh?

Muffin Man did great at his lesson during the parts where he was an active participant, the waiting parts? Not so much...we need to work with him a bit on listening and waiting patiently. Yeah, I know...he's four. And he wasn't the worst offender in his class, but he certainly was in the top three.

But he's blowing bubbles and putting his whole face in the water and dunking his whole head under water and leaning back in the water and floating and kicking with the help of a bright yellow noodle. I'm really very proud!

In other news, today was the first day of my new classes. Lots of reading to do. Three short stories and a textbook chapter due by tomorrow. Night all.

Blogger Playground Playdate!

The players: APL along with AB and NSAH; Crunchy Granola along with Politica and Curious Girl; and yours truly along with Mr. Spock and Muffin Man.

The locale: Most truly excellent picnic area with more playground equipment than I've seen all together in one place.

The food: Delicious.

The talking: Copious. Isn't it amazing how you can just start right in the middle when you meet someone whose blog you read all the time? You already know quite a bit of the backstory and the jokes and all that's needed is a little of the fine detail. I feel like I've known these women and their families all my life.

The playing: Rambunctious, infectious, and totally hilarious. AB ran after Muffin Man who ran after Curious Girl who ran after AB...and wow! Curious Girl can really climb! And AB can run fast!

Politica took lots of pictures, including a few bloggable ones. Coming soon to blogs near you.

Words he read today

Watermelon
Red
Canteloupe
Book
Oven
Door
Floor
House
Horse

There are others he read with help, but these he read on his own.

I invented a game! I made little strips of paper with one word printed on each and then put them in a hat and asked him to pick them out one-by-one. As he picked out each one, I asked him to read the word and go find something in the house that matched it. His best one was definitely book.

"Buh...uh...uh...kuh. Buhk. Buhk? Book!! It says BOOK!" He taped that one to the largest book we own: The Oxford American Dictionary. Quite the book indeed.

Er Eh Duh

Muffin Man (looking at a balloon from a nearby eatery): "Er...Eh...Duh. Erehduh. RED! It says RED Mommy!"



My big boy read a word all by himself!

And right after it, he said this: "Er...ah...buh...in. Erahbin. ROBIN!"

He's starting to READ!

I love my new swimsuit

It's a Land's End tankini. The top actually fits, which is practically a miracle. And the bottom is skirted so I'm not playing tug-of-war. And I can swim in it! Though I admit it took me a few minutes to get used to the feel of the skirt.

BTW, the virtual model on the Land's End web site is pretty cool, but they are unable to translate what she's wearing into bathing suit sizes yet, so somewhat limited in utility.

My big boy

I went to pick him up at school today. "Swimming lessons!" I said, and immediately he jumped up and followed me into the bathroom to pee and then get his swim trunks on. After only three lessons, he's got the routine down pat.

Hop into the car, say "Hi!" to Daddy. Drive to the (indoor! Beach entrance!) pool nearby. It's raining of course, so I let him and Mr. Spock out at the door and find a parking spot. I go in to find the lesson in progress: blowing bubbles, submerging completely, jumping into the pool like bunnies, kicking while holding onto a dayglo green noodle.

Lesson over, change, go to Panera for dinner (meh), go to Bob Evans for dessert (meh), drive home. POURING RAIN. Deluge. Buckets. "No talking." I say, holding onto the steering wheel for dear life.

I bypass our usual exit because the road I often take was closed last night due to flooding, I'm guessing it will be again. I take the slightly-longer-but-less-likely-to-be-under-water route. I pull into our drive way and look at Mr. Spock. It's still pouring. Sheeting really. He looks at Muffin Man and nudges me to look too. Muffin Man is sound asleep.

Sound. Asleep. In the back seat. He hasn't done that in a really, really long time.

Mr. Spock and I sit and watch our little man sleep and wait for the rain to stop or at least slack off. We notice how the rain makes weird shadows on our shirts. It looks like snake skin or a really cool lava lamp.

Finally it slacks off. I run to unlock our front door and turn off the alarm. Mr. Spock releases MM from his car seat and carries him indoors. He's still sleeping.

Mr. Spock slips off MM's sandals and puts him in bed. Covers tucked up to his chin.

Two hours later I check in on him. He hasn't moved.*

My sweet baby. My big boy. My little man.





*Oh dear. He hasn't peed since 5:45. I'd better get a change of sheets ready.

Things I love about Wegman's

Ah, Wegman's. My favorite "date" place. During this short respite between Summer Session A and Summer Session C, Mr. Spock and I have been heading there after dropping off Muffin Man at Posh Place (formerly Posh New Place, but after 6 months of attendance I think we have to drop the "new").

When we arrive a smidge after 8 AM, the parking lot is nearly empty. We go inside and choose a pastry or two from their patisserie (I generally choose their pain au chocolate, which is actually a traditional size (ie: it doesn't look like it's intended to serve three) and is truly delicious. Then we go over to their coffee counter and get some really good coffee. Two coffees and two pastries ring up to $5.88 with tax. And they're better than Starbucks.

Then we carry our goodies upstairs to their seating area and schmooze away a quiet half-hour.

After the last bit of chocolatey goodness has been consumed, we return downstairs to browse their fish counter (their soft-shelled crabs are still wiggling when you buy them), and their meat counter (I told you about their prime rib, right?), and their vegetable market (organic bananas! black truffles! bagged baby carrots!) and their gourmet frozen foods, and their wines, and their cheeses....

And they also sell regular grocery stuff.

And they have prepared yummy foods.

And they have a play area for potty-trained kids ages 3 and up. With better security than the old daycare we used to send Muffin Man to.

And their bathrooms are clean and pleasant.

And did I mention that most of their stuff is cheaper than Nearby Regular Grocery?

So, that's where I'm spending my early mornings this week. Heaven.

Blogger meet-up. Now with fewer Muppets!

Commenter Extraordinaire Genevieve, her son - BoyWhoBegsMomToBlog, Mr. Spock, Muffin Man and I all met up at the National Museum of American History today. My family would have been on time, except we couldn't find a place to park and so we were circling the area for half an hour, a task made more difficult because of the National Barbecue Battle that was going on.

Anywhooooo, we went to the museum to see the Muppets! Exhibit! and we were so excited! And then we saw them. And it was 5 glass cases with a total of about 15 muppets. Seriously. However, they do have the first-ever Kermit. And he's pretty cool.

But hanging with Genevieve and her son was lots of fun. Muffin Man ADORES BoyWhoBegsMomToBlog and wants to be him when he grows up. BWBMTB is six. That is a Very Big Boy. After the museum (and a donut) we all went for Tex-Mex food and chattered about the world. And we plotted how to get Phantom Scribbler and family down here for a real-life pixie party.

And then we came home and put MM straight into bed. Not even the Very Loud Thunderstorm we're having tonight will be able to keep that boy awake.



In other news, Muffin Man is taking swimming lessons and doing rather well at blowing bubbles and putting his whole face in the water. Next up, learning to kick and float.

Also, I will not have to take IT 103, as I passed that test (Thanks Mr. Spock for helping me study). Wouldn't you think that 10 years spent as a computer programmer should have gotten me out of the class without having to take a silly test?

Thanks, y'all, for the nice comments on the Dean's List post. If you'd asked me a few years ago, I'd never have guessed that I'd be doing so well in school.

DEAN'S LIST!

[insert happy dance]

That is all.

Quick Lost post...

We just finished watching the 8th episode (so we've finished the first two discs of Season One) and I just wanna ask y'all:

Sawyer - top pick for the Gilligan/Dr. Smith Award, right?

Almost done

Linguistics final - done!
Linguistics paper - done! done! done!
Psychology final - done!

IT exam for credit - studying for the exam on Saturday. I need to get at least a C to get credit and not have to take the frelling class.

Talk to you all later!

Fizzy brain, so here's a list:

My list of the best children's literature, in no particular order.

A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy all by Frances Hodgsen Burnett
Anne of Green Gables (and most of the other books by L.M. Montgomery)
Little Women
Jane Eyre (what? you don't think of this as Kid's Lit.? She's nine when the book begins!)
The Borrowers
All the Harry Potter books
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
All-of-a-Kind-Family (the whole series)
Five Children and It
Half Magic
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Shoes Books by Noel Streatfeild (all of 'em. Heck, anything she wrote. Don't ask questions, just go to Amazon.co.uk and buy them all.
All of Paula Danziger's books - but my favorite is The Pistachio Prescription.
Nancy Drew (the earlier, the better)
Judy Blume, natch. But I think my favorite is Then Again, Maybe I Won't.
All of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Indian Captive and Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
Everything ever written by E.L. Konigsberg.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - and the rest of the series.
Heidi
S.E. Hinton's stuff.
The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown, and Beauty all by Robin McKinley
Eva, and King and Joker by Peter Dickinson (he's married to Robin McKinley)
Dragonsinger, Dragonsong & Dragondrums by Anne McCaffery
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Diary of Anne Frank
4.50 From Paddington (also known as What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!) by Agatha Christie
The Boggart
Ghosts I Have Been by Richard Peck (his other books are good too!)
Happy Endings Are All Alike (older readers - contains some hard themes like rape).
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
The Windmill Summer


Younger Readers:
Maurice Sendak. Who needs to say more? Anything he writes or illustrates is worth reading.
Lyle, Lyle the Crocodile (the whole series)
When Ira Sleeps Over
Katy No-pocket
Olivia
Corduroy
Blueberries for Sal
One Morning in Maine
Make Way for Ducklings
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
The Snowy Day
Goodnight Moon
The Going to Bed Book
Peter's Chair
Many Moons
If you can find them, One Eighth of a Muffin and Apple Pigs are excellent.
Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom.
Anything Dr. Seuss.

Well, that's it for tonight. I know I left some fantastic ones out. I'll worry about it later.

Do you like my hat?

DoYouLikeMyHat
Originally uploaded by Mystery Mommy.

My hat, my sun glasses, my boy.

Check out the dimple!

Batman!

BatMan
Originally uploaded by Mystery Mommy.

Even my camera phone can't hide how happy he was with this face paint.

Free Gone to good home: UPDATED

Children's footwear

1 pr. Sandals, Navy, size 7.5-8 (European size 24) - Jacadi
1 pr. Sandals, Brown, size 8.5 - Payless Smartfit
1 pr. Sandals, Spiderman, size 9 - Payless
1 pr. Slippers, Navy and Green plaid, size M (7/8) - LL Bean?

If you are in the Northern Virginia area and you want any of these let me know in the comments. The cleaning ladies took them for their grandkids.

What? Already?

Y'all remember that I started my first Summer session of school back there at the end of May? Well, I've got one more class day and then it's finals. Finals!

Woof. That went fast.

Most interesting items so far: Definitely phonemes.
z --> s/C[-voice]__#
z --> ez/C[+affricate]__#
Thus z, s, & ez are all allophones of the same phoneme. Cool, right? Oh...it means that when we are speaking and pluralize a word, such as dog or nose we make a z sound at the end. The z sound is almost universal except for words that end in an unvoiced consonant such as cat or mop where we use the s sound. Words that end in an affricate such as church or fish get an ez sound added to them.

What's truly interesting about this both phonetically and morphologically is that you don't have to teach children these rules, they just absorb them. And they know that the rules are there because they over generalize them (gooses, childs, foots). Not to mention goed and comed.

Really very cool.

The second half of Summer classes (Social Psychology and Recent American Fiction) starts July 5.

I won't be around much this week due to studying for a CLEP exam I'm taking a week from tomorrow.

Who?

So my mom calls me up the other night. "I've got a message here on my machine from someone calling for you from your old university. Do you want his name and number?"

"Sure." Hmmmm. I don't recognize this name. But the last name is the same as my old English teacher, maybe it's about him?

So I call the number and this guy answers, and slurs the name my mom gave me.

Right then, I should have hung up.

But did I? No. That would be rude.

"Hi." I said, "My mom called me with this number. I used to go to Old University. My name is Liz?"

What followed was really sad. It's this guy who I have really no memory of. He's drunk. And what he remembers about me is my height and my...shape. Specifically the shape and size of my rack as it was then. Which was quite large for someone of my height. Even larger now, but let's not tell him that. And did I mention he's drunk? Eighteen-year-old-boy-at-first-frat-party kind of drunk. And I couldn't place his name, or his description of his long-ago self. Or anything else about him.

"I'm truly sorry. I really don't remember you. It was 19 years ago. I'm very flattered that you remembered me, but I can't recall you at all. Goodbye"

Gah.

Really liking Lost

Truly. 4 paws up as The Bears would say.

So far it's quite odd. Sort of Myst meets Jurassic Park meets Castaway. Lots of mystery and intrigue.

I can't wait to see what happens next!

As seen at Angry Pregnant Lawyer's

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti
(Though, of course my real favorite is Inigo Montoya.)

She also has a quiz up about which RHPS character one might be. As y'all know, I'm Janet...and Columbia...and Magenta...and Frank.

Political stuff

Y'know, I hardly ever talk politics here. Partly because I talk politics quite often IRL, and partly because there are so many other people who do it: Bitch PhD does it rather well, as does Phantom Scribbler, and lots of other folks to the right here --->

But there's a primary coming up in a few days here in Virginia and two pretty good candidates are goin' head-to-head for the chance to run against George ("Health Care Crises? What Health Care Crises?") Allen.

I think both Webb & Miller are good, strong, electable candidates. I'd be fine with either of them in the Senate, but I'm voting for Miller in the primary and here's why:

While both Webb and Miller agree on many, many topics, Miller has been a strong Democrat forever and will help bring the Democratic faithful to the polls which we need desperately if we're going to defeat the homophobic, bigoted, and misguided amendment to the Virginia constitution that's on the ballot in November. The Amendment not only would ban same-sex marriage (disgusting enough on its own), it also would ban any contract that bestows the privileges of marriage: so if your Aunt Laura wants you to have her Health Care Proxy, it probably wouldn't be legal. If you want to form a company in partnership with your friend Josh, and you set it up so that each of you has survivorship rights in the company, no can do. Many lawyers say that it could void most contracts and Wills.

Webb used to be in Reagan's cabinet. He voted for Bush against Gore and for Allen the last time around. He'd probably get the votes of moderate Republicans and maybe the Independents, but he's unlikely to get core Democrats motivated and seriously unlikely to get highly Liberal folks out for him. And they're the ones we need to defeat that Amendment.

I like Webb. I think he's a good man. He's been against the invasion of Iraq since before the invasion. That's great. But...He voted for Bush 6 years ago. Back then we all knew certain facts about Bush: he was against gay marriage, he was for lowering taxes for the wealthy, he was for cutting services, he was for conservative (aka anti-choice) judges, he was for prayer in schools, he spoke at Liberty College. Does any of that sound like a platform a Democrat should vote for? And yet he did. Six years ago.

I am close to several people who have made that conversion: people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal who voted for the Republicans (and for Bush against Gore) because they saw them as the party of fiscal responsibility and didn't see the creeping social conservatism fostered by the religious fundamentalists. Those folks are now the hardest of hard-core democrats because their social values are under siege. And I hope that Webb is one of these. I do. But I fear he may not be. And I wonder if others share that fear and may not be motivated to go out and vote in November when we need them.

With Miller, we know what we're going to get. A strong Democrat who's going to push to fund education and health care. He'll back Warner for President and he'll push to bring the troops home. If we get enough Democrats like him voted in, they might even impeach Bush, wouldn't that be a hoot?

So, on Tuesday, I'm voting for Miller.

But if Webb wins that'll be okay too.

Either way, I'm voting against Allen and the Amendment in November.

Yahoo!

I am the number one search result for "mmr tetanus shot arm hurts"!

I'm so proud.

My brain is frozen

One of our local radio stations has an "eclectic lunch" every day. And every day has a different theme; on Tuesday, it was songs about the devil (06/06/06).

A few days ago, it was a theme inspired by the National Spelling Bee and all the songs had to do with spelling. The eclectic lunch started at noon, which is just when I had to go into my Linguistics class, so I have no idea what songs were played.

For the life of me I can't come up with an hours worth of music for this theme, can you?

So far, I've got:

• Gloria
• Respect
• Saturday Night (Bay City Rollers)
• Lola
• I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am
• Rocking in the USA

Any more? What am I missing?

So far so good.

As I said to Mrs. Coulter, it looks like there might be some excellent opportunities for snark in that there television show.

I can't remember why we didn't catch on to Lost in first run, I think it may have conflicted with one or another of our televised addictions. But that's okay, 'cause we're in the summer doldrums so we can catch up!

The images of the downed aircraft were disturbing and I'm wondering how they discussed that at Di$n3y.

Next episode on Thursday. We're rationing 'em to two a week.

I may not come out alive, but I'm going in there...

Mr. Spock and I are about to watch the first episode of the first season of Lost.

I hope one of you wrote this

In Gene Weingarten's chat today, there was a discussion of shopping cart shame. I seriously hope one of you was the one who started the discussion with the mention of the "'til menopause box of tampax".

I snorted and nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

We have brownies!

Cooks Illustrated. Delicious. Fudgy. Excellent glossy top crust. Non-cake-like brownie consistency.

Ingredients:
2 oz unsweetened chocolate (chopped)
5 oz semi-sweet or bitter-sweet chocolate chips (chopped)
8 oz (1 stick) unsalted butter (diced)
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
3 eggs
1 & 1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour

Equipment:
1 8x8 pan, sprayed with PAM or equivilent and then lined with two pieces of tinfoil cross wise to each other.
1 sauce pan.
1 heat-proof bowl.
1 medium mixing bowl.
1 wooden spoon.
1 large whisk.

Preheat oven to 350.

In the saucepan bring some water to a simmer and then place the heat-proof bowl over the saucepan and in the bowl, melt both kinds of chopped chocolate along with the butter, stirring occasionally until smooth. Add the cocoa powder and whisk briskly until smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

In the medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Add the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture, whisking briskly. Add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined (IMPORTANT, DO NOT OVER MIX.)

Pour batter into prepared 8x8 pan, making sure the batter gets into the corners. Shake the pan a bit to make a smooth surface. Bake for 35 minutes.

Cool on a rack for 2 hours. Cut out 1 inch slices as needed, don't cut slices until you are about to eat them (to prevent them drying out). Cover the remainder with plastic wrap.

Ugh

Thursday night I felt like I'd been pummelled in the kidneys. I had been an uber-bitch to my son. I felt like shit.

Friday morning, blood draw for cholesterol, breakfast with Mr. Spock, get to Nearby College for my Linguistics class and...

On my way to the classroom I feel queasy and weak, so I go to the bathroom and find that I have had a good reason for my testy, crabby, crampy behavior.

The tidal wave has hit once again. Mystery Mommy is on the rag.

Now normally, I know when it's due. I pay attention to these things. Truly. But for some reason this month I let it totally blind-side me.

And, of course, it's worse than usual. Cramping. Nausea. Headaches. Bitchiness. Quick temper. Sensitive sense of smell so I feel stinky too. And the constant damp, gooey feeling (even with a tampon!) is just squicky.

When I'm prepped for it, it's less of a drain. I usually dose up on some ibuprophen for a couple of days before, and stock up with the chocolate. The squick factor is less when I'm prepped, because I have a tampon with me - this time I had to buy a pad from the dispenser at school and even though I've showered since, I still feel sticky. And if it were just about the old blood and gunk, it wouldn't bother me. Why in the world does it also have to drain every ounce of energy AND make me hurt AND turn me into the Holy Hag from Hell?

I hate me like this. I feel like the World's Worst Mother and the World's Worst Wife.



A point in my favor: I made a killer batch of Baked Shells (formerly known as Baked Ziti) last night and we had leftovers.

A point against: I ate the last brownie...and didn't share.

Bands I haven't listened to in years...

& yet can come into the middle of a song and sing every word in perfect time:

Hall & Oates ("Kiss on My List", yesterday while going to school)
Nena ("99 Red Balloons", yesterday coming home from school)
Aha ("Take on Me", this morning on my way to meet Mr. Spock for breakfast)
Peter Schilling ("Major Tom", a few days ago)

So what is it about this week that the local radio stations are all playing these songs from my very distant youth? And what is it about me that I STILL know all the words?

A Book About [Muffin Man]

Each phrase has a photograph accompanying it. Muffin Man in tiger make-up, dressed as a pirate, banging cymbals, riding his bike, sleeping, with his artwork, playing with his friend, cuddling with me.

[Muffin Man] is a tiger.
[Muffin Man] is a pirate.
[Muffin Man] makes noise! BANG!
[Muffin Man] rides his bicycle.
Shhh! [Muffin Man] is sleeping.
[Muffin Man] likes to draw.
[Deep Voiced Toddler] and [MM] are friends.
Mommy loves [Muffin Man].


It was a big hit.

Weekend: Short form

Saturday: Soup-and-Bread, Pool. (View of Fireworks from my window)
Sunday: IHOP, Wegmans, Playground and Pool with Deep-Voiced-Toddler and his mom.
Monday: Soup-and-Bread, some quiet contemplation, Mr. Spock and Friend come home, Lunch out, Pool, Wegmans, Dinner and Brownies.

I think something's not quite right with my oven. The brownies (recipe from Cooks Illustrated a couple of years ago) got a leetle over-cooked. They were still delicious though. Next I'm going to try the ones that Brooklyn Girl describes.

Tomorrow: Class and hanging out with Friend. Also homework.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Front row seat

Memorial day fireworks, right outside my window. I'm watching them as I type. Beautiful.

So glad I got Muffin Man to bed early tonight!

Countdown

In 15 minutes, I am leaving to pick up Muffin Man from Posh New Place. Today was a big day for him. He had his very first dentist appointment (and did very well, cooperative and no cavities) and his first full day of Pre-K.

This weekend he and I are on our own. Mr. Spock is out of town shmoozing with a friend. They will both come back here Monday afternoon so that Muffin Man and I will also have a chance to schmooze with said friend. This is important because soon our friend is moving to Canada to live with his new bride, also a friend (and frequent commenter, Hi Jenn!). She lives about as far away as you can get and still be on the same continent.

But the point is that MM and I are going to be on our own. The communtity pool is open this weekend, and it's going to be in the 80's, so we're probably going to spend quite a bit of time splashing about. We're going to bake those brownies I've been wanting to try and we're going to maybe eat a strawberry if it gets ripe enough.

We'll probably color and play with Tt(F)TE and almost certainly watch some movies. And I will try to focus on him and not get too irritable when he tries to weasel out of having some quiet time in the middle of the day.

And I will give him a book that I made for him today. A book that he just might be able to read all by himself. Maybe. Because I used words I know he can recognize even though he's not really reading yet.

So I'm going into the forest of short-term single parenthood. Don't send out a search party if you don't hear from me until Monday. I'll be back!

Today's class...

Was about the physical and cognitive development of children ages birth to 3 years. So naturally we discussed childbirth. And big news! I'm not the only mom in the class!
The teacher asked the moms in the class to give our opinion on natural vs. medicated childbirth and I said, "If I hadn't already been married, I would have proposed to my anesthetist. But then, I had pitocin." And the other mom said, "Pitocin is the pits." And we both did the surfer nod. The one so aptly demonstrated by Crush the sea turtle in Finding Nemo.

And then we watched movies of cute little babies being confused by trains that didn't stop when they should have (object permanance).

And my Linguistics class was notable for the amount of blue language that flew around as we were talking about infixes. In English the only examples of infixes are when an entire obscenity is placed in the middle of another word (ie: "Fan-fucking-tastic" or "Abso-bloomin'-lutely"). Great fun!

New News re: Nous.

Big scholastic news here at Chez Mystery!

Muffin Man is starting Pre-K! He visited for a few hours yesterday and today. Will do the same tomorrow and Thursday and then Friday they're going to do a big to-do about moving his name tag and folder to the new classroom. He's uncertain as to whether this is a good thing. On the one hand, the Pre-K kids get to do some stuff that the mere pre-schoolers don't. On the other hand, Deep-Voiced Toddler is not yet ready to make this move and will be left behind in the old class. Muffin Man doesn't like leaving DVT behind and doesn't really want to change teachers. But we're making promises about play-dates and his teacher actually spends part of each morning in the new class so things are proceeding.

The director of Posh New Place says they normally don't move kids into Pre-K this early, but that Muffin Man is "quite advanced". Thus ends the bragging portion of this post.


Yesterday also marked the start of my Summer classes. I'm taking 4 classes this Summer, 2 in the first half (May/June) and 2 in the second half (July/August). Each session is four weeks long and the classes meet more often for longer periods. This first half I'm taking Developmental Psychology and Linguisitics. So far in DP, we've covered research methods and ethics (briefly); Cognition and Learning; and Fetal Development. (Extra special thanks to Andrea from Beanie Baby for her in-depth analysis of how genetic counselling can be seen as eugenic in nature. I was able to take the "con" position in a pros and cons debate in class today. Also thanks to so many of you who have described CVS on your blogs so that I could helpfully point out that it carries a risk of miscarriage.)

In Linguistics, we're reading about Morphology. I am now going to get my (actually, Mr. Spock's) copy of the Oxford American Dictionary so that I can make an approximation of how many words I know. (Open a dictionary. Count the number of words you know on several pages chosen at random. Divide the full number of words you counted by the number of pages you found them on. Multiply that number by the number of pages in the dictionary.) I'll report the number later.


UPDATED: And the number is.....a little under 70,000. However, my teacher pointed out that there is no real way to tell how many words you know. When you factor in the family of numbers (1 through infinity), you actually know an infinite number of words.

A, A, A-, A, A+

That is all.

Past, Present, Future

As seen at Angry Pregnant Lawyer.

20 years ago: I was 17. Dating this guy. Hanging out with this guy.

10 years ago today: I looked like this.

5 years ago today: I looked like this. And conceived this.

1 year ago today: I wrote this.

So far this year: I've started and finished one semester at college. And I'm loving every minute of it. And am so grateful to Mr. Spock for working his butt off so that I can go to school full-time. I love you, sweetheart. Happy Tenth Anniversary.

Yesterday: I wrote most of this post.

Today: I celebrated our anniversary by taking my car in for an oil change, aren't I romantic?

Tomorrow: The three of us will take the train up to NYC to see my parents and grand-parents.

Muffin Man: Trend Setter.

Scene: Posh New Pre-school.
Personnel: Muffin Man, me, all his beautiful little classmates, and his teacher.

Muffin Man and I sweep in at 8:45. He has not yet had breakfast (bad mommy!). We put his jacket and backpack his hook in the cubby area and head for the breakfast table.

Me: Oooh, look! Waffles! Would you like one?
MM: Yes, please.
Me: Syrup?
MM: Yes, please.

I serve him. I look up. There is a herd of beautiful little pre-school girls surrounding him.

BLPSG1: Can I have a waffle, too?
BLPSG2: And me?
BLPSG3, 4, & 5: Me too!

Teacher: Wait a minute! Ten minutes ago you all said you weren't hungry!

BLPSGs: {silent}
BLPSG1: Muffin Man is having one. I want one, too.
BLPSG2, 3, 4, & 5: Me too!

I left them still trying to sort out how to split 2 waffles among 5 girls. They may have had to order up extra rations.

Tests are over. Now in other news...

Mr. Spock and I weeded a bit and planted some flowers in our front yard and some strawberries, tomato plants, and rosemary in our side yard. Gardening! I'm hoping that the strawberries and tomatoes bear fruit for us to eat. I've never eaten anything I've grown myself. This is exciting!

I placed an order from Amazon for some books for my Recent American Fiction class that I'll be taking the second half of the summer. Seven books, two of which I've read before. I've read parts of the others in the past as well.

Authors include: Cisneros, Walker, O'Brien, O'Connor, Vonnegut, DeLillo, and Carver. Turns out, "Recent" means "Since WWII". Which is fine. But seriously, our whole country's only 230 years old, pre-1960 counts as recent? Not that I'm complaining. I'm looking forward to the class.

Interesting discovery: when ordering more than a few items from Amazon, it makes fiscal sense to buy the books new directly from Amazon, even if you can get them cheaper used from their "marketplace". You save more on shipping than you pay for the books.

ROAR!!!!

DSC04789
Originally uploaded by Mystery Mommy.

Muffin Man formally dressed for dinner last Wednesday. Tiger face paint courtesy of the restaurant which has a "kids eat free, get balloons, and face painting" night each week.

He is also sporting his Summer uniform shirt from Posh New Place.

Brownies

Muffin Man and I made brownies yesterday. We used Moosewood's recipe and they came out really well...if what you want is very good chocolate cake. Which I love, but it wasn't what I was going for. Cakiness included: consistancy and a matte top crust.

So as soon as my Women and Work final is over, I'm going to try the recipe from Cook's Illustrated several years ago, which goes into great detail about how to avoid cakiness and get that true brownie panache. According to them, the secret is fewer eggs and a mix of semi-sweet and unsweetened chocolate with a bit of cocoa powder. Also, more vanilla and less butter. Hmmm. I'm looking forward to trying it.

Still. The Moosewood recipe comes out deeply chocolatey and is really scrumptious with frosting. It just may be the best recipe for chocolate cake I've ever used. The question is, do I go down for one more piece before bed tonight? Or do I have some for breakfast in the morning?

(shhhh! don't tell anyone!)

But Muffin Man earned a huge reward today.

Huge.

It's been a full week. A week I tell you! Every poop he's made during the past week has gone into the toilet without prompting from me or Mr. Spock. But...I don't want to jinx anything. You know how our children are. Blog about it and it's gone.

So he's earned his reward and he's oh-so-happy being a veterinarian. With a lab coat. And a stethoscope. And bandages. And an emesis tray.

But....shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone!

Happy Mother's Day!

To my two moms: QuiltsAlot and SingsLullabyes. I love you both. See you next weekend!

To my sister and my grandma: Love to you too!

And to all the other moms I admire: You are all there on my blog-roll except Chris, and I'll be adding you soon. PS, APL, YT, Andrea, Susie Sunshine, Mommy D., Elswhere, Marla, Jody, CCW, Lawmummy, Anne Glamore, Lucinda, Suzan, PK, Susan, Jo(e), Klee, Angie, and I'm leaving people out, and, and, and especially Moreena. You are all sources of inspiration to me. Thank you for sharing your lives and your mommy-hood with me.

Two down - UPDATED

One to go.

I got an A on the Communications final, and an A in the course. Yay! That's two definite A's, one probable A, and two I don't know about yet.

UPDATED: I just got my final grade in Statistics: A!
So that's three definite A's and two I don't know about yet.

One down

Two to go.









Finals, that is.

Mama's got a brand new bag...

New backpack, that is. It is so sweet. It's a laptop bag, but it'll comfortably hold books. Which is mostly what it'll be carrying except for those rare times when I have presentations. Like yesterday, when I was hauling my laptop in one bag and my books in another.

Also, I bought a new binder which hopefully will actually bind. And paper. Ooooh.

What is it about new school supplies that get a person all giddy? I feel like I should put brand new pennies in my loafers.

Classes are over

I just posted my last assignment to our virtual class. I'm done with classwork.
Now I just have 3 finals to get through.

I've really enjoyed this semester. Even the parts that weren't so fun were interesting. I worked hard, never missed a class, sat up front-and-center in every class, and participated (maybe too much at times).

Excuse me if I'm not around much the next several days...finals...must...study...

Another Void

Yankee Transplant-

So much wit and wisdom. Two gorgeous daughters. Philosophy and insight into human nature. Anger and joy. Smart and funny. Whimsical and loving.

I'll miss your postings.

I wanted to know so many things: OD's prom and graduation and first days of college. YD's high school adventures.

Your life with The Attorney. Front porch photos.

Big hugs to you.

We'll miss you, YT. It's not fair to lose you and Corndog in the same week.

This Space Intentionally Left Blank

Corndog has taken down his site.

We may never know the story of his time in a fraternity.

We may never find out the end of the top 100 of 1978.

I miss him already.

Come back soon, Corndog.


We'll miss you, Corndog. Come back soon.

Well, that's a relief

The term paper, she is done. Not just done, but delivered.

Here is what my professor wanted included with the 13 page (including References) paper:

• Copies of all the sources I used (since my References ran a page and a half, you can imagine the heft). Fortunately, I only needed to copy the pages I cited from the two books I used, but I had to include complete copies of all 12 artucles.
• Copies of three previous drafts with peer reviews and the professor's notes.
• Copies of the draft and final version of my in-class presentation slides.
• and...I know I'm forgetting something, but it's in the folder, you can bet on it.

Thank goodness, I am able to use most of the paper for my W&W class (due tomorrow). So all papers for this term are DONE. DONE!!!!

On the down side, I did putridly on my Stats test today. But that's okay, he's going to drop the lowest score and I'm going to studystudystudy for the final next week.

Phew.

Only 4 days more of classes, then 4 finals, then Spring semester is over. And the Summer semester starts 3 weeks from today.

Anyone have any chocolate?

Zoo!!! Now with Blogger Meetup!

Went to the petting zoo with Muffin Man, Angry Pregnant Lawyer, and Angry Boy (who's not so much with the angry, by the way. She really needs to think of changing his pseudonym to Angelic Boy)

Much fun was had feeding and petting the goats and donkeys and singing to the ring-tailed lemurs ("I like to move it, move it..."). Beautiful day for it.

Then we came back here for lunch. And now APL and AB are off back home and MM is having quiet time.

Stop the Presses!!!

Muffin Man woke up. Went to the potty and made a poop! Without waking us up! (he woke us up to wipe his butt)

He's so proud of himself.

Unbeknownst to him I had a special prize waiting for just such an occasion. He's playing with it now.

Freaky Friday - Now with Blogger Meetup!

1. Communications class cancelled. I didn't find out about it until I got there and saw the note on the door. Couldn't leave to go to blogger meetup early because of...

2. Study session scheduled for after Communications class. But I should have left anyway because both study partners stood me up.

3. The printer system at school wasn't working until the very last minute for me to print out directions to get to Dupont Circle to meet up with...

4. Profgrrrrl! Who is even funnier and nicer than she is on her blog, and was very kind about me being late. Oh, AND she's gorgeous, which she never says on her blog. And we attracted a flock of sparrows who coveted our food. She rescued my day....seriously. I hope I didn't make her think I'm always as flaky as I must have seemed today.

Glad you got home safely, Profgrrrrl!

5. And then I had to get home, dress up in my finest toggery (I looked mahvelous, as did Mr. Spock), go pick up Muffin Man (oohs and ahhs on the toggery), drop him off at my SIL's, and go with Mr. Spock to a local political shindig. Mingled. Sat with a former co-worker and car-pool partner and his lovely and intelligent wife. Left as early as we could after the last of the speeches. Retreived a sleeping Muffin Man. Got home. Tore a hole in floor-length skirt. Thank goodness, it can be rescued with a bit of judicious hemming.

At pick-up today...

Muffin Man comes running to me shouting, "Mommy, Mommy! SweetPrettyGirl and I got married today!"
SweetPrettyGirl (whose mom is standing right beside me) says, "Yeah! He's my prince and I'm his princess!"
Muffin Man: "She's my bride."

Every letter makes a sound...

ABC meme

Most recently seen at Jo(e)'s, I've also caught sight of it at Phantom's and Raising WEG.

Accent: My linguistics professor at First College couldn't place my accent closer than "somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic States." He got everybody else within about 10 miles.
Booze: Allergic. Sigh....
Chore I Hate: Cleaning the bathroom. I hate scrubbing and I never get it as clean as I want it to be.
Dog or Cat: Both.
Essential Electronics: Hmmmm....probably this laptop. Otherwise how would I catch up with you all?
Favorite Cologne: None. Ugh.
Gold or Silver: Gold jewelry, silver hair.
Hometown: BROOKLYN!
Insomnia: Rarely. Unless I've got some big deadline the next day.
Job Title: Mommy. And Full-time Student.
Kids: One.
Living arrangements: Single family house 10 miles west of Dulles airport, with Mr. Spock and Muffin Man.
Most admirable traits: Smart-alecky, Good Hugs.
Number of sexual partners: My parents read this, so I will just say "More than Mother Theresa, Fewer than Messalina."
Overnight hospital stays: One. Muffin Man's birth.
Phobias: Small high spaces.
Quote: "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Religion: I put the "ish" in Jewish.
Siblings: One sister.
Time I wake up: Generally whenever my alarm clock awakens me.
Unusual talent or skill: I can read while walking.
Vegetable I love: Artichokes served with breadcrumbs sauted with garlic.
Worst habit: Chewing on or picking at my cuticles.
X-rays: Teeth, chest (whooping cough), nose (broken at camp), foot (broke small bone walking dog while wearing high heels), neck (car accident), wrist (stupid mistake).
Yummy foods I make: Osso Bucco, Ham, Prime Rib.
Zodiac sign: Pisces.

Spoiled Rotten

As seen at Purple Kangaroo's:

Tick the ones that are true. If you tick 40 or more, you're spoiled. And I am.

Do you have...

X☑ your own cell phone
☐ a television in your bedroom
☐ an iPod
☐ a photo printer
☐ your own phone line
X☐ TiVo or a generic digital video recorder
X☑ high-speed internet access (i.e., not dialup)
☐ a surround sound system in bedroom
☐ DVD player in bedroom
☐ at least a hundred DVDs
☑ a childfree bathroom (Mostly)
X ☑ your own in-house office (does a corner of the bedroom count?)
X ☐ a pool (It's an inflatable one, does that count?)
☐ a guest house
☐ a game room
X ☑ a queen-size bed (we actually have two of these, one in our room that we made and one in the guest room.)
☑ a stocked bar
X☑ a working dishwasher
X☐ an icemaker
X☐ a working washer and dryer
☐ more than 20 pairs of shoes
X☐ at least ten things from a designer store (if Nordstrom's counts.)
☐ expensive sunglasses
X☐ framed original art (not lithographs or prints) (Both my father and step-father are artists)☐ Egyptian cotton sheets or towels
X☑ a multi-speed bike
☑ a gym membership
X☑ large exercise equipment at home (an exercycle in the bedroom, which I often hang clothes on.
☐ your own set of golf clubs
☐ a pool table
☐ a tennis court
☐ local access to a lake, large pond, or the sea (lots of water within an hour's drive of here)
☑ your own pair of skis
☑ enough camping gear for a weekend trip in an isolated area
☐ a boat
☐ a jet ski
X☐ a neighborhood committee membership
☐ a beach house or a vacation house/cabin
X☐ wealthy family members
X☐ two or more family cars
X☐ a walk-in closet or pantry (closets)
X☐ a yard
☑ a hammock
☐ a personal trainer
X☑ good credit
X☐ expensive jewelry (5 nice things)
☐ a designer bag that required being on a waiting list to get
X☑ at least $100 cash in your possession right now
X☐ more than two credit cards bearing your name (not counting gas cards or debit cards)
X☑ a stock portfolio (small, but we do have a few shares of mutual funds)
X☑ a passport
☐ a horse
☐ a trust fund (either for you or created by you)
X☐ private medical insurance
☑ a college degree, and no outstanding student loans

Do you:
☐ shop for non-needed items for yourself (like clothes, jewelry, electronics) at least once a week X☐ do your regular grocery shopping at high-end or specialty stores
X☐ pay someone else to clean your house, do dishes, or launder your clothes (not counting dry-cleaning) (if hiring a teenager for a few hours every now and then counts)
X☐ go on weekend mini-vacations
☐ send dinners back with every flaw
☐ wear perfume or cologne (not body spray)
☐ regularly get your hair styled or nails done in a salon
☐ have a job but don't need the money OR
X☐ stay at home with little financial sacrifice (my husband is carrying the freight while I go to school)
☐ pay someone else to cook your meals
X☐ pay someone else to watch your children or walk your dogs (Posh New Place)
☐ regularly pay someone else to drive you
☐ expect a gift after you fight with your partner

Are you:
☐ an only child
☐ married/partnered to a wealthy person
☐ baffled/surprised when you don't get your way

Have you:
☐ been on a cruise
X☑ traveled out of the country (France)
X☑ met a celebrity (Dude! Native New Yorker!)
☐ been to the Caribbean
X☑ been to Europe
☑ BEEN TO HONG KONG
X☐ been to Hawaii
X☐ been to New York (Dude! BORN in New York!)
☐ eaten at the space needle in Seattle
☐ been to the Mall of America
☐ been on the Eiffel tower in Paris (Too tall, too small)
X☐ been on the Statue of Liberty in New York (This is why I didn't go up the Eiffel Tower)
☐ moved more than three times because you wanted to
X☑ dined with local political figures
X☑ been to both the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast

Did you:
☐ go to another country for your honeymoon (We honeymooned at my mom's house.)
X☐ hire a professional photographer for your wedding or party
X☐ take riding or swimming lessons as a child (swimming)
X☐ attend private school (elementary school)
X☐ have a Sweet 16 birthday party thrown for you (I had about 10 friends over for a Roaring Twenties party)

A conversation...

With a friend from grade school. She's in Florida now...a musician. She sounds mellow and happy.

It's hard to believe that I haven't seen her in over 15 years.........

Stolen from Overread

Who I've just added to my blogroll over here-->
Hi Overread!!!

The list is Ebert's 101 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Bold the ones you've seen.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) Stanley Kubrick
"The 400 Blows" (1959) Francois Truffaut
"8 1/2" (1963) Federico Fellini
"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) Werner Herzog
"Alien" (1979) Ridley Scott. (Ick, ick, ick. )
"All About Eve" (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz (still on my DVD shelf. I'll watch it after finals are over)
"Annie Hall" (1977) Woody Allen
"Bambi" (1942) Disney
"Battleship Potemkin" (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) William Wyler
"The Big Red One" (1980) Samuel Fuller
"The Bicycle Thief" (1949) Vittorio De Sica
"The Big Sleep" (1946) Howard Hawks
"Blade Runner" (1982) Ridley Scott
"Blowup" (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
"Blue Velvet" (1986) David Lynch (also ick)
"Bonnie and Clyde"(1967) Arthur Penn
"Breathless" (1959 Jean-Luc Godard
"Bringing Up Baby" (1938) Howard Hawks
"Carrie" (1975) Brian DePalma
"Casablanca"(1942) Michael Curtiz (God, I love this movie.)
"Un Chien Andalou" (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
"Children of Paradise"/ "Les Enfants du Paradis" (1945) Marcel Carne
"Chinatown"(1974) Roman Polanski
"Citizen Kane" (1941) Orson Welles
"A Clockwork Orange"(1971) StanleyKubrick (icky, icky)
"The Crying Game" (1992) Neil Jordan (Jaye sat next to me on the subway once. I saw him reflected in the window opposite. I nodded at him. He nodded back. I went back to my book.)
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) Robert Wise (soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann)
"Days of Heaven" (1978) Terence Malick
"Dirty Harry" (1971) Don Siegel
"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) Luis Bunuel
"Do the Right Thing" (1989) Spike Lee
"La Dolce Vita" (1960) Federico Fellini
"Double Indemnity" (1944) Billy Wilder
"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying andLove the Bomb" (1964) StanleyKubrick ("What is the good of a Doomsday device if you don't tell anyone about it?")
"Duck Soup" (1933) Leo McCarey
"E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) StevenSpielberg
"Easy Rider" (1969) Dennis Hopper
"The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) Irvin Kershner
"The Exorcist" (1973) William Friedkin
"Fargo"(1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
"Fight Club" (1999) David Fincher
"Frankenstein" (1931) James Whale
"The General" (1927) Buster Keaton & ClydeBruckman
"The Godfather," "The Godfather, PartII" (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
"Gone With the Wind" (1939) Victor Fleming
"GoodFellas" (1990) Martin Scorsese
"The Graduate" (1967) Mike Nichols
"Halloween" (1978) John Carpenter
"A Hard Day's Night" (1964) Richard Lester
"Intolerance" (1916) D.W. Griffith
"It's A Gift" (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
"It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) Frank Capra ("Hotdog!")
"Jaws" (1975) Steven Spielberg
"The Lady Eve" (1941) PrestonSturges
"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) David Lean
"M" (1931) Fritz Lang
"Mad Max 2" / "The Road Warrior" (1981)George Miller
"The Maltese Falcon" (1941) John Huston
"The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) JohnFrankenheimer
"Metropolis" (1926) Fritz Lang
"Modern Times" (1936) Charles Chaplin
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) TerryJones & Terry Gilliam ("Help! Help! I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!")
"Nashville"(1975) Robert Altman
"The Night of the Hunter" (1955) Charles Laughton
"Night of the Living Dead" (1968) George Romero
"North by Northwest" (1959) Alfred Hitchcock (sigh)
"Nosferatu" (1922) F.W. Murnau
"On the Waterfront" (1954) Elia Kazan
"Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) Sergio Leone
"Out of the Past" (1947) Jacques Tournier
"Persona" (1966) Ingmar Bergman
"Pink Flamingos" (1972) John Waters
"Psycho" (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
"Pulp Fiction" (1994) Quentin Tarantino
"Rashomon" (1950) Akira Kurosawa
"Rear Window" (1954) Alfred Hitchcock (sigh)
"Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) Nicholas Ray (Is there anyone out there who didn't cry at the end?)
"Red River" (1948) Howard Hawks
"Repulsion" (1965) Roman Polanski
"Rules of the Game" (1939) Jean Renoir
"Scarface" (1932) Howard Hawks
"The Scarlet Empress" (1934) Josef von Sternberg
"Schindler's List" (1993) Steven Spielberg
"The Searchers" (1956) John Ford
"The Seven Samurai" (1954) Akira Kurosawa
"Singin' in the Rain" (1952) Stanley Donen &Gene Kelly
"Some Like It Hot" (1959) Billy Wilder ("I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop")
"A Star Is Born" (1954) George Cukor
"A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) Elia Kazan
"Sunset Boulevard" (1950) Billy Wilder
"Taxi Driver" (1976) Martin Scorsese
"The Third Man" (1949) Carol Reed
"Tokyo Story" (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
"Touch of Evil" (1958) Orson Welles
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) JohnHuston
"Trouble in Paradise" (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
"Vertigo" (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
"West Side Story" (1961) Jerome Robbins/RobertWise
"The Wild Bunch" (1969) Sam Peckinpah
"The Wizard of Oz" (1939) Victor Fleming

On my way...

...to becoming a Psychology major. I've got my sign-off from the Psych. Dept., now I need to get one from English Lit. then I hand the change form in to the Registrar's office.

I'm feeling...odd...about this. My self-conception for years - heck my blog's name! - is that of a reader, a Lit. major. Even for those two decades when I was between schools, I never questioned that if I ever graduated, it would be with a degree in English Lit.

But I'm feeling really excited about the decision. It feels right. It feels good.

I knew I had to change when I was looking at the Fall catalog and most of the classes that really interested me were psychology classes. Many more of them grabbed my attention than the English classes (though I am taking one that really got me - Historical Criticism of Children's Literature. Doesn't that sound yummy?). And I admitted to myself that the same thing had happened for the Summer schedule as well.

And another plus is it won't take me any longer to graduate.

I can't wait for the Summer session to start! Developmental Psychology, here I come!

Odd coincidence

My driving instructor (I'm taking a refresher course, because I'm somewhat of a distracted driver) was born the same day as me. The exact same day. And she didn't learn to drive until she was 27 - exactly the same as me. How weird is that? That we both were born at the same time and were learning to drive at the same time and that we met because of driving????

I am...

This is an exercise from my communications class. Write 20 sentences that start "I am..."

1. I am a mother.
2. I am a wife.
3. I am a daughter.
4. I am a sister.
5. I am a (good) student.
6. I am an avid reader.
7. I am a blogger.
8. I am a good friend.
9. I am better at math and science than I thought.
10. I am a good cook.
11. I am short.
12. I am Jewish.
13. I am easily distracted.
14. I am taking refresher driving lessons.
15. I am a pretty good navigator (navigatrix?)
16. I am a sports jinx.
17. I am having a hard time giving up foods I shouldn't eat.
18. I am often disorganized.
19. I am a procrastinator.
20. I am sometimes very silly.

Holy Guacamole, Phantom!

Phantom Scribbler is a goddess.


Go congratulate her, if you haven't already.

Yipes! I've been gone a while!

Busy, busy, busy...doing end of term crap. Almost finished with a paper for one class (need feedback from Prof.), then need to adapt it for another class. I've been researching for another paper in another class - due next Friday with a presentation. Good news? It's on how leadership roles are shown to good effect in Casablanca. Bad news? Reading scholarly articles on leadership.

Bought a book today for a class I'm going to test out of. Good news? I could probably pass the test today without reading the book. Bad news? The book cost $100!

Lots of other homework and reading assignments...yadda, yadda, yadda.

But I'll leave you with this thought.
My opinion: Casablanca has the highest number of best lines of any movie ever made.
"Play it, Sam"
"I'm shocked, shocked! to find gambling going on here!"
"Here's looking at you, Kid."
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she had to walk into mine."
"Round up the usual suspects."
"This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
"I'm only a poor corrupt official."
"We'll always have Paris"
"The problems of three little people doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Discuss.

D'oh!!!

This blog is one year and 2 days old. I can't believe I missed its birthday.

I've gotten an enormous amount of enjoyment from being here and knowing you all. Last year had a lot of changes, I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Recurring Nightmare

When I was little I had a recurring nightmare. I would be in the house in Truro standing in front of that window looking out toward Fisher Beach. And I could see a wave coming, taller than the hill the house was on, rolling over the sand, up the hill and crashing through the window.

I would wake up panicking, unable to breathe.

I didn't even know then that there were such things as tsunamis. The wave that destroyed everything in my dream as a child was a product of my own imagination, my own anxieties.

I don't know where I was going with this. I was going to say something deep and meaningful, but it keeps coming out trite and self-centered.

The Words Meme UPDATED

As seen at Bookworm

Words that always look misspelled to me:
Definite
Independent

Words that look nicer in italics:
Serving size: 1

Words I enjoy saying:
Douchebag
popover

Words I enjoy hearing:
I love you
Mommy

Abbreviations I dislike:
OMG

Proper nouns I enjoy:
Hackensack
Mashpee

Words I associate with happiness:
Book
Casablanca
Cozy
Comfy

Words I always misspell:
See above (words that always look misspelled to me)

Words I enjoy spelling correctly, every time:
Schedule (long story involving piano lessons. Perhaps I'll tell it one day.)
Arctic (I enjoy saying it correctly, too.)

Words that, though I love their meaning, I'm too embarrassed to say out loud: I can't think of any. Not much for word embarrassment.

Edited to Add:
Words I can't spell out loud without getting a song stuck in my head:
Mickey
Mouse
Saturday

As seen at Phantom Scribbler's - the Women Writers Meme

Instructions: Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've been wanting/might like to read. ??Place question marks by any titles/authors you've never heard of?? Plus I'm adding this, as Turtlebella noted that the choice of books by each author is a mite idiosyncratic: put an asterisk if you've read something else by the same author.

Allcott, Louisa May–Little Women (Have any of you read "Work"? Waaaay ahead of its time.)
Allende, Isabel–The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
*Atwood, Margaret–Cat's Eye
Austen, Jane–Emma (and everything else she ever wrote)
Bambara, Toni Cade–Salt Eaters??
Barnes, Djuna–Nightwoodde ??
Beauvoir, Simone–The Second Sex
Blume, Judy–Are You There God? It's Me Margaret (I don't think they should have taken out the belts, either.)
Burnett, Frances–The Secret Garden (And everything else I could get my hands on. I agree with PS, those potatoes sounded delish.)
Bronte, Charlotte–Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily–Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S.–The Good Earth
Byatt, A.S.–Possession
Cather, Willa–My Antonia
Chopin, Kate–The Awakening
Christie, Agatha–Murder on the Orient Express (and everything else she wrote.)
*Cisneros, Sandra–The House on Mango Street
Clinton, Hillary Rodham–Living History
Cooper, Anna Julia–A Voice From the South??
Danticat, Edwidge–Breath, Eyes, Memory??
Davis, Angela–Women, Culture, and Politics
Desai, Anita–Clear Light of Day??
Dickinson, Emily–Collected Poems (a few of them anyway.)
Duncan, Lois–I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne–Rebecca ("I dreamed last night I went to Manderly again...")
*Eliot, George–Middlemarch
Emecheta, Buchi–Second Class Citizen??
Erdrich, Louise–Tracks
Esquivel, Laura–Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie–Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty–The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne–Diary of a Young Girl (and it still haunts me)
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins–The Yellow Wallpaper
Gordimer, Nadine–July's People
*Grafton, Sue–S is for Silence (why this one and not the best of the series, "G is for Gumshoe"?)
Hamilton, Edith–Mythology
*Highsmith, Patricia–The Talented Mr. Ripley (I think she either ties or wins for most books or stories made into a movie by Hitchcock. I think she has 3, DuMaurier had 2)
hooks, bell–Bone Black
*Hurston, Zora Neale–Dust Tracks on the Road
Jacobs, Harriet–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl??
Jackson, Helen Hunt–Ramona??
Jackson, Shirley–The Haunting of Hill House
Jong, Erica–Fear of Flying
*Keene, Carolyn–The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them)
Kidd, Sue Monk–The Secret Life of Bees
*Kincaid, Jamaica–Lucy
Kingsolver, Barbara–The Poisonwood Bible
Kingston, Maxine Hong–The Woman Warrior
Larsen, Nella–Passing??
L'Engle, Madeleine–A Wrinkle in Time
*Le Guin, Ursula K.–The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper–To Kill a Mockingbird
*Lessing, Doris–The Golden Notebook
Lively, Penelope–Moon Tiger??
Lorde, Audre–The Cancer Journals??
Martin, Ann M.–The Babysitters Club Series (any of them)
McCullers, Carson–The Member of the Wedding
*McMillan, Terry–Disappearing Acts
Markandaya, Kamala–Nectar in a Sieve??
Marshall, Paule–Brown Girl, Brownstones
Mitchell, Margaret–Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy Maud–Anne of Green Gables (and, once again, all her other books and stories that I could get my hands on.)
Morgan, Joan–When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost??
Morrison, Toni–Song of Solomon
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu–The Tale of Genji??
Munro, Alice–Lives of Girls and Women
Murdoch, Iris–Severed Head
Naylor, Gloria–Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey–The Time Traveller's Wife
*Oates, Joyce Carol–We Were the Mulvaneys
*O'Connor, Flannery–A Good Man is Hard to Find
*Piercy, Marge–Woman on the Edge of Time
Picoult, Jodi–My Sister's Keeper?
Plath, Sylvia–The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne–Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie–The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn–The Fountainhead
Ray, Rachel–365: No Repeats (Again, agreeing with PS here. Rombauer yes, Ray no.)
Rhys, Jean–Wide Sargasso Sea
Robinson, Marilynne–Housekeeping??
Rocha, Sharon–For Laci??
Sebold, Alice–The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary–Frankenstein (Kind of. I got 3 chapters in and had to give it up. Dull. Dull. Dull.)
Smith, Betty–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie–White Teeth??
Spark, Muriel–The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Spyri, Johanna–Heidi
Strout, Elizabeth–Amy and Isabelle??
*Steel, Danielle–The House
Tan, Amy–The Joy Luck Club
Tannen, Deborah–You're Wearing That
Ulrich, Laurel–A Midwife's Tale (Mark me down as another fan)
Urquhart, Jane–Away??
*Walker, Alice–The Temple of My Familiar
*Welty, Eudora–One Writer's Beginnings
Wharton, Edith–Age of Innocence (parts of the movie were filmed at my mom and stepdad's friend's house)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls–Little House in the Big Woods (and the rest and the cookbook. I even cooked the goose for Christmas the year I was 10)
Wollstonecraft, Mary–A Vindication of the Rights of Women
*Woolf, Virginia–A Room of One's Own

There are an awful lot of authors that could be on this list, and aren't. Such as Georgette Heyer, Dorothy L. Sayers, Josephine Tey...and those are just the 1930's British Mystery Writers!

Who do you think is the most glaring admission?

Laughing until my face hurt.

Red-haired Friend and I went out for dinner. We haven't seen much of each other lately due to work (her) and school (both of us) and what not.

We ate at an Italian restaurant while she vented about her employer (where I used to work) and I told her about my score on my latest Statistics test (cough, 97, cough) and we both bitched about things we bitch to each other about and then we went for dessert and talked some more and then we went to DSW.

Have y'all ever been to DSW?

Rows upon rows upon rows of shoes. Sneakers, sandals, boots, pumps, slingbacks, slippers, and everything in between. And while they do have some really nice shoes they also have some doozies.

Like the pump that was made of a horsehair upper, dyed in a leopard print that someone went a little too crazy with the Bedazzler on. And the bronze lame loafer. And the rose tapestry print number that had a pink snake skin toe and heel and was finished off with a lavender suede bow in back. Ooooh! And the VERY high top sneaker that was frayed along the edges and had an embroidered dragon up the side. And let's not forget the sandal that had a monkey climbing a palmtree on it. And the pumps made of orange gum-boot rubber. I only wish that DSW had an on-line store so that I could show you how truly hideous these shoes were.

And then there was the selection of purses. There was one that looked pretty good. Black. Basic. But....then we turned it around. It was covered on the other side with loosely sewn on pieces of abalone. HIDEOUS!

We couldn't stop laughing. "Here!" we'd say. "THIS is the shoe you've been looking for!" We'd discuss the shoes that almost worked and what would have made them not atrocious. Like the linen sandal that was nice and normal looking from the front and had this truly abominable 4" high narrow cork wedge.

I love Red-haired Friend. I especially love that she appreciates the power of an amazingly ugly shoe.

Mr. Potato-head comes to our house

After months and months of stubborn refusal, Muffin Man made a poop in the potty. At school. With witnesses.

This deserves praise and a prize.

I've stocked up on other prizes in the hopes that this isn't a one-off.

I'm hoping this is the end of diapers for the Mystery household...keep your fingers crossed for us!

And, I'm going out for dinner tonight with Red-Haired Friend. Could this day be any better?

Oh well...

...it was fun while it lasted.

Apropos of nothing...

Can someone please explain to me why Muffin Man was up four times last night?

Last Night's Dinner and a Muffin Man Update

Yesterday, after my Statistics study group was over, I drove to our nearby Wegman's. Inside, I bought:

• Fruit (strawberries and bananas, both of which Muffin Man will eat greedily)
• Spinach (intended for last night's dinner, but in the end not used)
• A package of sliced miniture portabello mushrooms
• A package of coiled sweet italian sausage (I wanted to buy bulk, but they didn't have any) and
• A small container of ricotta cheese (Mr. Spock is not a fan)

When I got home, I rummaged through the 'fridge and took out 2 tennis-ball-sized onions. I opened up our little clay jar and got out two cloves of garlic. I went down into our cellar and found a small can of tomato paste and a large can of crushed tomatoes. From the freezer, I took a small ziplock bag of shredded mozzarella (this is a good tip, btw. If you do your shopping at a place like Costco, you can buy their monster-sized bag of shredded mozzarella and divvy it up and freeze the cheese)

I diced the garlic and the onions and cut the mushrooms smaller.

In our Calphelon chef's pan (a wedding gift and, after our cast iron skillets, the most-used pot in the house), I sauted the onions in olive oil until they were translucent and starting to turn gold, then I added the garlic and when they were also translucent and starting to turn gold, I added the mushrooms and sauted them until they started giving up their liquid.

Then I took the coil of sausage and squeezed the sausage out of its skin into the pan. As it browned, I salted it and dumped in some dried oregano and basil. I stirred it and broke it up, I'm not going for meatballs here.

When the sausage was completely browned, I added the cans of tomato glop and kept stirring. I tasted--a bit acidic, so I added some sugar. Tasted again...added some chili powder (just a touch, for a little zing). Tasted again...pretty good. I made sure the coast was clear and added a secret ingredient. Tasted again. Delicious.

Mr. Spock tasted. Agreed it was delicious.

I started some water boiling. And preheated the oven to 350.

At this point, I went on a search for ziti. I absolutely knew we had some in the house. Nope. So I used small shells. Cooked 'em, drained 'em, added them to a cassarole dish my mother gave me recently.

Poured on the sauce, mixed thoroughly, topped with cheese. Put the whole mess in the oven for a half-hour. Where upon we went to pick up Muffin Man.

Got home.

Served the baked shells.

Ate out on the new screened-in porch.

Delicious.

-----------------

Mr. Spock just finished reading all of Winnie-the-Pooh to Muffin Man. Now they're starting on The Little Prince. Can Farmer Boy be far behind?