Hey Kym, I dunno if this will work for you, but it makes me feel better. It makes me cry sometimes, but in a good way. Because my mama loves me like a rock, and I know yours does too.

Look up the lyrics, I bet you'll like them.

Love to you.

Me: (After warming my freezing "mouse hand" on son's neck.) I think I'm going to turn the oven on and climb in.
My child-whose-days-would-be-numbered-if-he-weren't-both-cute-and-funny: (Pats me gently on the arm, looks at me sincerely while shaking his head): But that's how your sister died. You remember, those nasty children Hansel and Gretel?

Some things I want to mention:

We had Ethan and Chloe's parent/teacher conferences. They are both nice, caring children. (who have snowed their teachers! Yes!) They're doing fine. The best news I got was that Chloe has tested out of Title reading (the "special" reading program) and is reading at her grade level! yayyyyyy!!!!  Her math scores were good, too. This is the first year she was to take the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning--our little piece of No Child Left Behind standardized testing hell)  and I was worried for her.  The WASL has been replaced by a new test, but I'm not familiar with it yet. I'm hoping for a huge revamp of No Child soon. No one should have to pass a standardized test to graduate from high school if his/her grades and body of work show he/she is qualified. I have friends who would have struggled with that in spite of being successful and productive adults.


So, the kids are alright. :-) They DO save the drama for their mama, apparently. I can't think of any other song lyrics or cliches right now, so I guess I'm done with that part. :-)

Preschool is a typical slice of frustrating, amusing, frenzied awesome that comes with 3 and 4 year olds. Gods I love 'em. We're talking about farms right now, and we made papier mache chicks. Take 5 3- year- olds of varying levels of ability and attention spans, sit them down, and instruct them to dip colored tissue paper squares in liquid laundry starch and apply it evenly over  the entire surface of a small balloon. Go on, I dare you! ;-) Crazy times. Becky is one determined teacher. The table has been starched into submission and is ready to be pressed. It's going to be sooo much fun cleaning all that stuff off on Tuesday.  There was no point to doing it Thurs. because those balloons were still dripping at the end of the day.  But the older class finished theirs and darn they're cute. :-) Googly eyes, feather wings, paper beaks, and pipe cleaner feet. 

Our numbers are low, though. Cross your fingers that we find some more  mommies who are untroubled by the economic downturn and want to send their children to preschool. Please.

In other news, I saw our community theater's production of The Full Monty Thursday night with a friend. It was soooooo funny, and those guys were so brave. My companion grabbed my hands at one point because I was clapping extra long and hard at the end of a scene in which two of the men realize they are heading towards being more than friends. I turned to her and said "I'm applauding the bravery, it's a heck of a lot harder to be gay in this valley than to take your clothes of onstage." I was glad they left that scene in, and the one in which the same two gentlemen hold hands at a funeral and the lead, who was commenting about "fairies" in earlier numbers,  says "Good! Good for them!"  Indeed.

Anyway, the whole thing was mostly so funny I laughed myself into a near coughing fit a few times. I was so glad I went. I was also glad I didn't personally know any of the main actors. if my friend Jake had been in it, for instance, it would have maybe been awkward. Soooo, Jakey, whom I've known since you were 10, I saw you naked last night. Awesome job!!!" So, Jake, thanks for giving that production a miss. :-)
You would have rocked it, but yeah. :-)

Ok, back to the crickets who usually live here.

Ethan's friend Nate is over again, having spent the night. I made him breakfast. His favorite dinner at home is "fried ramen with Spam" which he explained, but I don't think I could recreate. So we always have pizza when he comes because I know he likes it. Usually when he stays over I make cinnamon rolls from a tube or french toast for everyone in the morning. Today we were nearly out of milk, so no french toast. But, I bought a small tin of Spam recently because Ethan and Chloe didn't even know what it WAS. Travis and I grew up in the 70s in working class households, so we grew up eating Spam. My dad used to make spam and eggs and my mom would put spam in our mac and cheese (I'm tired of capitalizing Spam. deal).  I haven't eaten any in 20plus years, though.  So, knowing that Nate (unlike my children and husband) likes scrambled eggs with cheese (a household specialty when I was growing up), I made some. I fried some diced spam first and then added the eggs, then the cheese. I split it between Nate and I and also made us toast. Everyone got hot chocolate with whipped cream.  Holy goodness, spam is salty! But it was delicious, a yummy blast from the past. I tried to call my dad to ask if he fried the spam first or just put it in with the eggs,  but when I was editing his phone number to add the "1" I accidentally erased half of it!  I hope I still have it here in my pc.

Oh, and when I opened the spam I showed it to Chloe and she had no interest whatsoever in tasting any, but she did ask if she could poke it. :-) That's probably the more sensible thing to do.

Tonight we introduced Ethan to "Don't Fear the Reaper" because he heard it was on the original Rock Band game. I havne't listend to B.O.C in a long time, and Agents of Fortune remains one of my favorite albums. Everyone rocked out to that  and "Vera Gemini" (I have a CoV alt named after that song).

Then we played a few rounds of Beatles' Rock Band. Ethan on guitar, Travis on drums, and Chloe and I on vocals (she is a master at getting the vocals to go into "Beatlemania"). Now Ethan's playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the sound off and the soundtrack of Amadeus in its place. It's actually pretty cool, like a videogame ballet. Chloe was doing some random dancing (thanks, iCarly, for that term).

Sometimes it is so way cool being in this family. I love them like crazy.

over the Wii console.

YES, we bought Beatles Rockband. Are you kidding?  We got the "value package" which comes w/ the generic Rockband instruments instead of Paul's bass and the Beatles drum kit. For nearly 100 dollars less, it was the right choice for us.  We set it up after dinner (we being Travis, master of game set up) and after Travis tried every instrument himself,  we got down to serious Beatles business.

I totally suck at Guitar Hero, so no one made me play guitar (bless them). I tried the drums a couple of times, but they're HARD. So mostly, I got to sing. I LOVE the Beatles, and I know a lot of their later music by heart (we pretty much all do) so it was good fun. We just kept it on easy "no fail" mode and hit random song after random song. The animation is beautiful, and we all had a lot of fun. We need more microphones, I think. We found that the Guitar Hero guitar works with the game, so we can have a real 4 piece band. Chloe's enamored of Meg White of the White Stripes, so she wants to learn to drum. I cannot sing, but thank goodness the game doesn't judge vocal ability, just accurate phrasing. I had a ridiculous amount of fun last night, When the kids went to bed, Travis and I took the band on tour, starting story mode. We're halfway through "Budokan '66" but his hands were getting tired, and I was losing my voice, so we quit. Ethan and Chloe didn't mind listening to us play after they were in bed, because it's THE BEATLES, duh. :-)

This was only a test. Had this been a real post, it would have included more substance and first day of school pictures. /gushing about video game.

You know what's cool (besides nice people who validate your feelings about cranky ladies in McDs)? Being able to call someone in Kentucky you have never met in person and ask her a cooking question, because you know she'll know, and having said question answered. Sometimes this global village thing totally rocks! BTW, my meatball stew was yummy with potatoes instead of parsnips. Maybe next time I'll actually plan ahead and BUY parsnips, fresh parsley, and balsamic vinegar, and it'll be even better. But I won't skip the tablespoon of brown sugar I added. If you're going to have a ketchup/broth/splash of vinegar base, you need some brown sugar says me.

Today we are making paper! :-) So far so fun. We've mastered a method and now it's all about the volume, baby. Except we need more dry felt. Our paper is turquoisey/gray/sparkle paper. :-) Mr. Blue has made paper jillions of times at school, so it's all a bit old hat for him; he's mostly sitting it out.  Miss Thing is stirring in more blue coloring and some blue glitter as I type. I have an errand to run before Goodfriend's children get here, and I think it's going to include a stoppage at Joann for more felt.  And glue, because now that I dragged the cool parent book out, I'm dragging out the cool concoctions book and we're making flubber, and a crystal garden before summer's up in 2 weeks. So there!

Twin flying elephants, twin Piglets, or fairies having a drink at the same flower. A little bit like a foxhead, too.

I was looking for Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing their rain song, because it rained tonight and I was happy. But, I found this instead, and this song always makes me think of my beloved. And because I always want to kiss him "nice nice" before he's going (but I'm asleep)  I wanted to give this to him.

I love you.  I hope you'll meet me at the station. I won't meditate. :-) The end.

Today started out with a big old dose of downer. I woke from a very vivid dream in which my parents were still married (they separated when I was 26ish) and my mom had left my dad. I was still living at home in my dream, and I wanted to go with her. Normally I would have, but for some reason she'd left me, too. My dad was really worried about finances and where the money was going. I was just sad. I went to school, which was a combination of high school and college. It was my high school, but there were bedrooms there like dorm rooms. I went into a couple but none were mine. I couldn't remember what my classes were or where they were. It was nearly noon and I was very late and very sad about my mom leaving. I wandered into one room, and there was qaratani . She was younger, too, like me, and had her hair in pony tails (I do not recall seeing teenaged Cody with pony tails, ever, her hair was short, but let's just go with that, shall we? In the dream they symbolized her joyful nature and cute dimples.) I think she was a cross between herself and my good friend Heather. Anyway, I was so happy to see her, to have stumbled into her room. I explained about my mom and she said we should go have lunch at Pizza Hut and I should just take the rest of the day off. I thought that seemed like a good idea, so I checked in with the principal, who was my old store manager from when I worked at Best, Harriet. She gave me the rest of the day off. Other things happened, but when I woke up I was so sad, because of course my mom HAD left me, and I couldn't go with her, because duh, she's dead. I just missed her so much right then, and my sister, who is my biggest firmest tie to my mother, being the only other person my mom gave birth to. My mom's been in my dreams a lot. Mundane ones, mostly. I think I prefer them to the dream in which she was painfully NOT present.

Anyway, it got better. I couldn't talk about my dream when I woke up because it was too near the surface, but Travis managed to make me feel better anyway. We got up and went fishing early. Chloe caught her first rainbow trout on her first cast, and was pretty much done fishing after that. :-) How could it get better, I guess. I caught two fish yesterday afternoon, but this morning no one else caught anything the whole time we were out there. It was still nice to be with my family, though.

Other highlights of the day included a nap, a dinner lovingly grilled by my beloved, and a long, contentious game of Sorry that Ethan finally won. We don't play board games with all of us very often, so it was extra cool as far as Ethan and Chloe were concerned. They love doing things with their dad. I played some City of Villains with Travis and some City of Heroes by myself (but sitting next to T. who was playing his own CoH game).  I made coconut cream pie for dessert and we ate it in the backyard  watching the fireworks while the dog ran around the yard like a maniac repeatedly finding, chasing, and then losing walnuts that he kept pulling off the walnut tree. I think he thinks it's a dog ball tree. The sound track for the fireworks is interspersed with presidential quotes, and I used to plug my ears during some of them, (cough, GWB, cough) but this year, there were segments from Obama's "Yes We Can" speech. Hurrah! I don't know if GWB's quotes were in there still. I heard Reagan and JFK, but not him.  Also, Ray Charles' "America the Beautiful" which is one of my favorites.

Everyone's in bed now, and I'm going there too.

This is for my beloved, who knows the proper response to "Well I don't wanna rule the world."

Ok, I'm done.

This is one of my all time favorite Pacific Northwest bands of the early 90s, the amazing Blackhappy. Unfortunately we were unable to go to Greenstock that year, but someone did, and they kindly posted it on YouTube. 
 
Ladies and Gentlemen, the one and only Blackhappy! They started out as a Christian Rock group, but then they got "Horns! Horns! Horns!" and also a broader range of music that still said something but was fun as all heck. If my recent (five minutes ago) research is correct, their lead singer is now a Lutheran Minister.

kitty.

Ethan's was "thank you!"
Chloe's was "Uh-oh."

Happy Birthday to my husband Travis!

So he wouldn't miss out on two days of special, we celebrated his birthday yesterday so we could celebrate Father's Day today. The birthday man enjoyed Fazzari's pizza take out and homemade Wacky cake with peanut butter frosting. For those of you not in the know, "Wacky Cake" is an eggless cake made by combining flour, sugar, cocoa and leavening, then adding oil, vinegar, vanilla, and water.  It's supposed to be mixed right in the pan with the wet ingredients poured into wells made in the dry ingredients. I mix them in a bowl, though, because the pan method makes it hard to get any lumps out. Anyway, it's really just a holder for the peanut butter frosting.  I was so glad SOMEone wanted me to make their birthday cake. Lately E. and C. just want ice cream cakes from Baskin Robbins. :-)

I bought three silly birthday balloons and tied them to T.'s chair, because I wanted him to feel special. :-) No really.  His presents weren't very varied; four cds, but music is one of his favorite things, so I didn't feel bad about that.

Anyway, Happy, Happy Birthday to my beloved. I think you are more handsome now than when we met, and I KNOW I am more crazy in love with you than ever. (No, not just crazy, thank you.)

Happy Father's day to you as well.  We hope you liked your Father's Day present.

Well what do you know, the Eman DID live to be 11 after all! Photographic evidence to follow.

I have to say that my boy greatly impressed me today.  Though I wanted to beat him for bounding into my bedroom at 6 a.m. singing happy birthday to himself, he was a tremendous help cleaning the house and did everything I asked cheerfully and without any whining. All voluntary, too--he approached me repeatedly asking what else needed doing. .It was awesome. Then when MissThing heard me thanking her brother over and over, she asked what she could do to help, and then pitched in beautifully. I told them that if they're willing to help me like that every morning, we'll have tons of time for fun all summer.

I made one today.  Rhubarb custard. Delicious even to one like myself who is not a rhubarb fanatic. It's still cooling.

After waking up early every day, I expected to wake up early today, too. Sun shines brightly through my window. However, I was restless in bed last night, couldn't fall asleep, and danged if I didn't sleep until the alarm went off, and for a few minutes after that. Now I have to move quickly to get all the stuff done I thought I'd do when I woke up before my alarm!  I am indeed a dork. A big dork, because I'm posting this and not moving. I am having trouble focusing today, does it show?

Happy Anniversary to my Sweetlove who was crazy enough to marry me 17 years ago today.  I was going to write a bunch of mushy stuff about how much I love him and how glad I am that we're married, and how lucky we are that we have so far managed to keep it together and got 2 fabu children in the bargain. But he knows all that.

Go us!

Last night I told Ethan and Chloe the short version of how we met, and how Travis remembered me from the Young Writers Scholarship Competition banquet we'd both attended the previous spring. (Our good friendqayne , who along with khalja  was responsible for our meeting, actually  won said competition that year) Upon hearing that we had initially seen each other, and had our picture taken together at a scholarship competition, Ethan said "Of course, you met because of your smarts! Oh yeah, I'm a genius! I inherited it from both of you!"  That Travis was a fellow writer and drama person WAS cool, but it was how protective of me he seemed,  how just plain "real" he was, and how my stomach did a little flip flop on August 2nd, 1986 when we hugged for the last time as just friends, that had the biggest part in my loving him so much.  I spent that night at khalja 's house, and she pronounced him a "stretched out version of  Mr. Wonderful." for me as we sat in bed eating chocolate chip cookies from Albertson's and I wrote him a letter in orange felt tip marker (our mutual least favorite color in the universe at the time--It should only exist in nature--pumpkins, leaves, fire.)  By the end of August 3rd, we were a couple, and we've been so ever since.