Linksville

New wondertime columns are here and here.

I have to admit, I regretted things about that gymnastics one. The whole poor-me-without-my-granite-counters-waah thing really rubbed me the wrong way, for instance, despite the fact that it was I myself who wrote it! There's something about gossiping about people gossiping that's extra grotesque. So, I'm sorry about that. And also my apparent lack of compassion for what must be a ridiculously hard job: the shepherding of a dozen little leotarded people safely through chaos and incomprehension and various potential catastrophes. I do understand how hard that must be, I really do.

And in that second column, the link to Caleb Potter's blog is here.

And finally: babycenter has fixed the link to all the old "Bringing Up Ben and Birdy" columns, which are here now. Because I know you really want to go back and read about the fermented yak cheese we found in Birdy's neck folds that one time.

But did you really want to make nasturtium capers? Really? Oh, you're too good to me. Just pick off some combination of unopened buds and seed pods (or one or the other--but I used both), rinse them off, soak them in very, very salty water for a day or two, changing the water which will start to smell like one of those horrible sulphury hot springs (but with capers!), and then drain them, pack them in a very clean jar, and cover them with boiling vinegar. After a week, they are salty, pickly, spicy, and delicious. Perfect for pizza!

Mystery Solved!!!

Oh you dears! I loved all those birthday messages! I also love when everyone's like, "I'm a libra too!" because that's just what I'm like. Thank you so much.

Now, only Keryn Page has solved the mystery of the Bjquatrocinco and she's solved it here
which is also where the latest Dalai Mama column is. Thank you, Keryn Page! And the rest of you with your "Bj" dirty minds and your dirty, dirty thoughts: get a room! And then I can send Ben over to talk to you through the door about various candies.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

xo Catherine

p.s. If you wanted to here about either a) my foraging for autumn olive berries, or b) my pickling of nasturtium seeds to make fake capers, let me know. I think that I should stop posting my weird homesteader practices here, though. I hear the crickets chirping out there. Also the loudly unspoken suggestion that I am losing it to my pioneer aspirations, which may be true.

. . . and I'll blog if I want to. . .

It's my birthday! And it has been since 12:03 last night, when Michael got up out of bed to make me a plate of Corn Chex nachos. Sure, necessity is the mother of invention: I'm not saying you're likely to make Corn Chex nachos if you've got, say, nice, whole, fresh tortilla chips instead of a few rubber-banded scrumpled-up bags of stale crumbs. But still. If you've never had dill havarti melted over a plate of cereal, you're missing out.

That's my little gift to you on this day!

It's been lovely, honestly. If you were to read my journals from 1982-1996. . . well, first you'd die of boredom. The melancholy! The broody obsessions! The seeing or not seeing him as I walked to or from my locker or the cafeteria and the subsequent exchange or nonexchange of greetings! But after they'd defribillated you back to life, you'd notice that I used to like to spend my birthday hurting my own feelings about how poorly understood I took myself to be. And I'm happy to report that I may be over that. "You're the best Mama that igzists" was enough to make my day. As was a little special attention from my main squeeze, even if it was accompanied by Ben's standing outside the door asking, about the Pinata treat bags he was filling for his own birthday later this month, "So, three pieces of gum and one peppermint patty?" And us answering breathlessly, "That's right sweetie!" Ah, life.

Thank you for those amazon reviews, and your wagon-circling indignation more generally. Only as I was hitting "post" last week did I realize I was trolling for a response, which you offered me so graciously. I appreciate it more than you can imagine.

The latest at wondertime is here, and also over at family.com. Where not one person has responded to my question about BJquatrocinqo. Really? Nobody? Anybody? No?

xo

Journey Cover Band, The Photo

Hey, how are you guys?

New wondertime columns are here and here. You will notice that there's a link there to family.com, where the column is also going to appear. If you comment over there--well. I'll owe you. Swistle, remember how you asked if it matters to be, about the commenting? It does matter! Next round's on me!

No more grapey outbursts from me this week, no more cannedventures. It's just back to business. You know, like plugging up the cracks in the beams whence tumble the varmint turds onto the children's bed. The usual. But I'll tell you this, if it's bats: I like the word "histoplasmosis" even less than I like the word "guano." Which isn't saying much. Not that I'm neurotic. Even if that's what someone wrote on Amazon. Which hurt my feelings despite the fact that it's in the actual book title. Sigh.

And the winning reassurance is. . . .

"It's very unlikely that you will get botulism!"

That actually made me laugh out loud. As long as it's unlikely, well then.

But so far so good. I have now canned nearly a gallon of wild grape jam, which nicely combines my fear a) that they're not really grapes but in fact deadly nightshade masquerading grapily, and b) that, unlikely as it is, we will get botulism.

Oh, but the grapes! You can smell them everywhere right now. And when you mention them to anyone, they say, "Oh! So that's what that grapey smell was!" And yes. That's what it was. It was the grapes. The smell of grapes combined with the rust-colored afternoon light is catapulting me into fall. It feels good.

I responded to some of the comments on the last post. I'm sorry about your fish troubles, honestly. Keep me posted.

Hope you're all well and happy. New wondertime columns are here and here. Please read and comment over there, if you can!

Obsessive Pioneer

All I can say is that if Pa could see me now, well, Ma Ingalls might have something to worry about. Because our shelves our now lines with rows of glass jars: blueberry jam, wild grape jam, pickled beans, bread and butter pickles, Kosher dill chips. (About those last: did the Jews actually have time to can anything? I can't imagine. Maybe we just put our pickle barrels on wheels and fled with them across the desert.) Eat your heart out, Pa. I'm all sweaty in my canning frock.

What I am is totally obsessed. Also totally going to die of botulism. Because I'm careful? But I'm not that careful. I'm kind of new to this whole canning thing, and part of me wants to do something called "the open kettle method" which is how my mother makes jam. Which all the books warn you against doing because you don't pasteurize the jars and will surely botulize your entire family. But it just seems so honest somehow. But part of me wants to eat pickles and live to tell.

Hey--wake up! We're still talking about canning!

No? Are we done talking about canning? Were you less bored when I merely waffled on and on about freezing peaches?

Okay. New wondertime columns are here and here. And thank you so much for your kind words about our fish. Both fish. Our fishes.

Summer

feels, oddly, like it's already ending, doesn't it? Or is that just me and my usual preemptive melancholy? Everything is flying by.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

Be well!

Some Clarification

So, the latest wondertime posts are here and here.

And I just thought I should mention that--well, you know all that Thanksgiving food I wrote about? That's what I was working on for one of my deadlines! (And they are killer recipes, by the way--you just wait until November comes! You'll fall to the ground, aswoon over the blessing that is your own leftover turkey.) I hadn't realized it was unclear until some of you wrote in kindly to say: "If you've got so much work, then maybe skip the whole gravy thing until you're a little less busy, you crazy head!" And I slapped my forehead. Because I am crazy. But I'm not that crazy. In my parallel magazine writing life, Thanksgiving comes in July. Hence the big deadline. Q.E.D. (A little geometry-proof humor for you there. I'm sure you all love a good geometry-proof joke as much as the next chortling nerd.)

I also wanted to mention that my friend Peter is now recording the posts, and if you listen, please weigh in on the sound quality, okay? (And by "weigh in" I mean, of course, "rave about his techno-studliness.")

xo

Hello!

I hope you're all eating lots of buttered corn and blueberries.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

More soon. . .

The Dress I'm Not Wearing to the Party

The most recent wondertime column is here, though another one should go up later today.

I also wanted to let you know that I was reading online reviews of local alteration places, and I decided against Julius the Tailor. Why did the reviewer give him only two out of a possible five stars? She explains: "I called and the person who answered said he passed away in march."

Now if somebody is actually just plain not alive, I'm feeling like two stars is kind of an odd rating. I'm feeling like zero stars would make more sense. Or maybe five, just out of respect. But two? "Eh. He's kind of a mediocre tailor. On account of being dead."

I was hoping to put a zipper in my dress with the long, busted zipper. (Marked down at Marshall's! Ten bucks is a great deal for a dress with a busted zipper, but only if you ever put a zipper in it. Currently all ten bucks has purchased me is a wad of unwearable fabric that sits accusingly on my bedroom chair, hogging up the air space.) But forget about the dress, I'll wear something else. Because we're leaving today to join my family in New York, where we'll celebrate my mother's 70th birthday. This mother, who is, believe me, more heart-stoppingly gorgeous now than she even was then. (I also can't help noticing that I am actually descended from a long line of baby-hair sniffers.)

A Placeholder

For the longer post I want to write. Thank you so much for your well wishes, about everything. I have felt so cheered by your comments, here and at wondertime.

Monday's column is here.

Somewhat predictably, my end-of-an-era sentimentality turned out to be a teeny bit premature, since the children seem to be migrating back to their queen bed. Which is fine with me. It's just the kind of thing I like to be wrong about.

I hope you're all enjoying the summer so far. xo

Come and See Me Some Time!

If you happen to be up in the Berkshires. This Saturday, June 23rd. At 7 pm. Which is when I'm reading with my dear, frighteningly talented friend Jennifer Mattern and my virtual, frighteningly talented friend Jennifer Niesslein. Jenn M's blog Breed Em and Weep is on some kind of sabbatical, which I completely disapprove of, but you can still go there and read all her stomach-achingly funny posts from before. Jennifer N's book Practically Perfect in Every Way is out now, and there's a fantastic excerpt here. Here's the information about the reading (below) from the site of our hosts, Inkberry, which looks like a wonderful organization. Did you know that I'd written for the New York Times? Me either! But I'm totally psyched about it. Maybe that's what I'll select my reading from! Come if you can. Party at the Holiday Inn!

A reading on Parenthood and the Pursuit of Perfection
North Adams Public Library, 74 Church St., North Adams
Saturday, June 23rd at 7:00 PM
Free
Jennifer Niesslein, Jennifer Mattern, and Catherine Newman will read from their writings on parenthood and the pursuit of perfection. Jennifer Niesslein is the author of Practically Perfect in Every Way: My Misadventures Through the World of Self-Help—And Back (Putnum, May 2007) and the co-founder of Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers. Jennifer Mattern is playwright, freelance writer, and author of the blog Breed ‘Em and Weep, which won best parenting blog in the Weblog Awards in 2006. Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir Waiting for Birdy and the weekly journal Bringing Up Ben & Birdy at BabyCenter.com. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and the anthologies The Bitch in the House, Toddler, I’ts a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons and It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters.

Meanwhile, there are columns on wondertime here and here.

I didn't write a Father's Day post, because I was too busy being a total crab apple, but here's photographic evidence from our friend Pengyew's birthday party on Saturday, taken by the extremely talented Sam Masinter:


Maybe my piece for the Times was about how hunky and delightful Michael manages to be, even with crab apples dropping all around him.

A Gift

So I don't mean to keep on and on about it, but I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I wanted to share something from it that I loved. Have you heard about the book? It describes the year that Barbara Kingsolver and her family tried to eat only local food, most of which they had grown and farmed themselves. But of course I read it as a book about gratitude and parenting, because that's just how I am.

Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus. No matter where I was in the house, that vividly resinous orangey scent woke up my nose whenever anyone peeled one in the kitchen. Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sat cross-legged on the floor one morning in pink pajamas, with bliss lighting her cheeks, I thought: Lucky is the world, to receive this grateful child. Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing. (page 287)

The latest wondertime column is here, and a new one should be up later today.

The Voice

Which is like a cross between Miss Long Island reading her shopping list and a goose honking by frantically after the rest of the V has taken off. And you can hear it here. It is, truly, worse than I thought. Like Meg already said here: "I imagined it a lot deeper." I'm going to smoke a few more cigars before the next taping session.

Last week's column is here.

I'm sorry to always be asking for advice, but does anyone know of a good resource (A book! What problem cannot be solved with a trusty book?) for kids who appear to be pathological nonswimmers? You know what I'm saying here? With the flailing and the dread and the torso craning itself out of the water? Thank you as always.

Allergy Relief

does not seem to be obtained from rogue biofeedback. Ever since Michael completed his massage program, I treat him like an all-purpose health-care professional: "Look at my wart," I say. I say, "Why is my knuckle sore like this?" Mostly I say, "What about this painful part of my back/foot/leg/bottom?" and so hands are laid on, groans of satisfaction are groaned, and I am grateful. But last night, as Michael was drifting off to sleep, I said, miserable, "Honey, help me with my allergies." Our pine trees have started their annual molt, and while the curtains of pale green dust blow in the windows, I am sneezing and red-eyed and scratchy-throated. When Michael said "How?" I said "I'm so susceptible to the whole mind-body thing, so psychosomatic. I'm probably a perfect biofeedback candidate. Try that." And so Michael put his hands on my chest, looked into my eyes, and said, "Take a break from your self, you crazy, overreacting immune system. It's just eensy particles of pollen! Mere molecules! Nothing to get hysterical about." And lo and behold, I laughed out a sneeze and wasn't cured at all.

Speaking of spring things, I wanted to thank you for your advice about shade perennials! We have hostas, bleeding hearts, lilies of the valley, vinca, violets, and ferns--all of which I love--and now we are the proud parents of a dead nettle, a primula, and a bugbane thanks to your wise counsel. I also have virtual sticky notes all over my computer screen that say things like "lamium: orchid frost." But I think I forgot to mention that I am an appallingly ham-handed gardener. I should be good at it: I'm crafty and a happy, capable maker of food. But I have no patience for plants unless they're dropping their gorgeous fruits and vegetables right directly into a basket that I'm holding out without even really bending my knees or putting down my beer. Alas.

And speaking of growing things, this book--Barbara Kingsolver's latest--is so fantastic that I read it every night before I even get into bed, while I'm still brushing my teeth. I am waiting patiently for her to invite me over for some of that asparagus bread pudding.

The latest wondertime columns are here and here.

Also, I seem to have waited until it was off the newsstand to mention that I've got a piece in the May O Magazine--this one about my bitchy wrinkles.

I hope you're all well and enjoying everything there is to enjoy.

The Annual Mother's Day Pimp-My-Book Post

I am writing the annual pimp-my-book post to say that this

might make a nice mother's day gift, no? Although I managed to wait long enough that now you'd have to triple-fed-ex it, which means that for a mere, uh, 35 or so dollars you could send one person a paperback book detailing another person's waxing and waning anxiety, which, as I write this, seems kind of like a bad deal compared to a nice gift certificate for sushi or botox or, ahem, a massage.

And speaking of Mother's Day! Perhaps, if you live in the Boston area, you could take your mum to the DeCordova sculpture park, and the two of you could reminisce about how cute you were when you were just a wee thing (Big Baby, by Nina Levy)


So cute and tiny, in fact, that your mother might have felt more or less like flinging her head over the balcony (Headlong, by Nina Levy):


The new post over at Wondertime is here, and there will be another one up later this afternoon.

Happy spring to all of you! If you have any advice about hardy shade perennials, please write!

Rock-a-bye

I had this idea for a post that I was going to call "shame" and it was going to be a photograph of the snow pants Ben wore all winter: the knees patched with thick strips pink duct tape and a close-up of the size (4-5) and also, maybe, of the chart on the wall where you can see that he has grown about 8-10 inches since he was 4-5. I was going to invite you to post your own shame photos in response (not that you would have any, right?).

But then I got sidetracked by this:

And because it is more or less the antithesis of shame--because every cell in Birdy's body passes through the loving and unsullied organ of her beautiful, blessed heart--I thought that maybe this photo would be better suited to a perfect early spring day, this perfect early spring day, when we are leaving the winter and its peculiar shames behind us.

p.s. The new wondertime column is here.

P.S.

The whole reason I wrote today was to check in with you about the shootings yesterday, but then I wrote something weird and deleted it and then, shy, said nothing at all. But really, it is one thing to have an abstracted apocalyptic sense of things, the way I do these days. And it is another to live out a flesh-and-blood tragedy, a grief of senseless and unfathomable proportions. Which is how grief always feels, of course. But this--this is something else. I am so sorry is all I really wanted to say. Or maybe something dumb, like "Kiss your kids."

My Thyroid Has Great Self Esteem, Thanks to You

Here's why I love you: when I post a paranoid column about my hypochondria and psychosomatic exhaustion and neurotic wasting of doctors' time and also my vague personality disorders, your write me lovingly to say, "Maybe you should get your thyroid checked!" It's like a virtual community of mothers. "They're just jealous!" you say to me. You say, "It's only because you're so passionate!" and "We would have done the same exact thing!" Thank you for that. I see why they call it "support." You know?

Meanwhile, an April Fool's Day post--of all the repulsive things--has lingered here for weeks. Malingered. Forgive me. I can only send you to this column and this one instead. And scare you with the very fierce and frightening Caped Growly Girl King.

I Wish I'd Thought

to switch my kids' underpants with their dad's! Boy would that have killed them. It makes me laugh just to think of it now, so I will have to file that bit of lingerie hijinks away for next year. (It's not called "lingerie" when it's a man's, now, is it? I see that it looks a little too Liberace for Michael's Fruit of the Looms.)

I have two columns over at wondertime that I haven't linked to: one about Birdy turning four, and one about her great and sudden love of Yiddish.

Happy Passover to you dear ones. And happy Easter. Happy Spring-interrupted-by-the-pouring-down-of-snow. And happy days of melancholy, if you know what I mean. And I know you do.