More Meta Commentary

Things I truly appreciate:

• The idea that we're cycling together (We're in love! Plus, I get to picture us all on a giant tandem bike with dozens of sets of pedals.)
  
• Tips on stain removal [Deleted parenthetical comment about the state of the author's undies]
  
• Suggestions about menstrual products (The Keeper! The Liza Minelli! The Moonbeam! The Spongebob Period Pants! Who new? Well, besides every last one of you guys.)
• When dissenting voices do not post anonymously (For real! Thank you!)
  
• The fact that so many of you are so naked so much of the time
• The fact that so few of you were paying close enough attention to worry in the first place about anybody driving sloshed
  
• The image of bloody zucchini

And "Celia"'s comment, of course--our beloved friend "Celia":

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Now that's high praise. But really--is anyone looking online to purchase a "homemade bong"? Is it, like, $15 through Paypal, and then you get a box in the mail with a bent Coors Light can in it?

My wondertime column this week is here.

And can I just recommend again that the rest of you Western Mass folks schedule a massage for yourself or a friend with Dr. Hunky? If you already have, I know you haven't been disappointed. We don't call him Mister The Hands for nothing.

Edited

The funny thing is that I had actually written "I" about drinking that wine--but then became self conscious about the lonely sound of it, and so changed it to "we" the better to convey, you know, the fellowship of moderate alcohol consumption there at our friends' house. I didn't want you to think it was somehow just me in the corner with a blanket and a bottle while everyone else sat at the table soberly planning some kind of 12-step intervention.

But then, of course, oops--I made it sound like some kind of DUI/snowstorm situation when really Michael hardly even ever drinks at all.

Because he's too busy huffing ether.

Meanwhile, here's my question of the day: if you were designing a tampon, would you play a kind of menstrual practical joke whereby you appended a string that appeared to be a handy removal advice--but was really a kind of wick to draw blood quickly from body to underpants without soiling the pristine cotton of the tampon itself? This is my question. I would not think to make such a joke myself, but I see that someone has.

And really, I'm just laughing my head off. Because it's funny to see Mama's undies soaking in the sink like she beheaded someone in the night and then mopped at their bloody neck stump with a wadded up pair of Gap bikinis. Really. It's not the stuff of future psychoanalytic emergency sessions, I'm sure. Just good old-fashioned fun.

Talking About the Weather

I don't know what it is with me--maybe it's all the gigondas wine we drank with dinner that had such a gigantic sound to it that I became gigantically tipsy straight away--but I never felt frightened on our drive home: after our friend pushed us out of his driveway, Michael slid elegantly from one side of the road to the other, we drifted into snowbanks, we saw cars shuddering off the road and pitching into ditches--and the whole time I had a cozy winter feeling as if I were underneath a blanket watching The Nutcracker on TV.

I had intended to write this as a happy post about the gorgeous, late-season snowfall, but instead I seem to have revealed yet another of my personality disorders. What's this one? Treacherous Weather Dissociation? Sleet Mania? I'm not sure.

But it really is lovely here. I don't mind it right at the end like this--winter's little parting joke. If it weren't for the fact that we were supposed to see my parents, and must now wait a week, I would be just about perfectly happy.

Also because I'm not living through this.

I have got to encourage you to read the comments on this one. All I can say, with respect to barfing children, is: I'm glad we don't have a dog.

Warts and All

Thank you, as always, for your advice. I wrapped a banana peel around my heel, strapped a potato to it with duct tape, scraped at it with a pumice, an emery board, a microplane zester, and a tea-tree oil soaked cotton ball, dabbed it with plain old nailpolish remover and urine, and voila! I woke in the morning and the entire foot had falled off onto the mattress. I trust it won't grow back.

Wouldn't that be a great short documentary film? "Warts"? Just sped up and spliced together shots of people treating their warts in a million different ways, maybe set to The Sound of Music theme song? If you want to option it, you know how to find me. . .

I have a column here and here. If you're inclined to weigh in on the juggling issue, please do; they're wondering if that's an interesting topic of conversation among mothers. Hope you guys are all thriving.

Glad to Be You

Of course you don't have two warts on your foot in the first place because lovely, kempt people don't have warts is what I'm thinking. You didn't need to Google image-search them and then spend a half an hour examining the divergence of your footprint in order to diagnose yourself with, well, warts. Of course even if you did have two warts on your foot and you bought the Dr. Scholl's Extra-Strength Medicated Wart Removing Pads, you would have understood within at least the first couple of days that something was wrong. You would have noticed the warts persevering unheeded instead of happily applying the sticky cushioning donuts to your sole day after day only to shake the box weeks later and say to your partner, "What's this?" Your partner would not have come over and taken the sheet of dots from your hand, would not have patted your head and said, "Um, honey? Those are the medicated disks." And you would not have groaned, with two wholly untreated warts on your foot and no more cushioning donuts, "Maybe that's why they weren't working."

Then you wouldn't have opened your bread box to find no fewer than 20 molding heels of bread because over time your family would have learned that, if nobody's going to eat them, you should toss them out to the birds instead of preserving them like a museum exhibit curated around the theme of your own ineptitude.

Nor would you have lain in your children's bed while said children piled eleven sticky little glow-in-the-dark bugs into your belly button, holding your tummy in two fists and shaking so that the bugs looked like they were erupting from a volcanic navel.

Because you have a little self respect, right? So you also would never engage in a conversation with your seven-year-old son about how much money someone would have to pay you to throw a poopy diaper in your face. You wouldn't say "It depends what kind of poop," because, of course, you wouldn't do it for any amount of money in the world. A poopy diaper in your face! Who would talk about such a thing with a child? Let alone entertain various sums! You would certainly never say, "A thousand bucks? Just a regular turd, but sealed up inside and the tabs stuck down and everything? Sure." And when your daughter finally chimed in, jumping up and down on the mattress with excitement and glee, "What about poop smeared right in your nostrils for fifty dollars?" you wouldn't need to draw the line there because you never would have had the chalk in your hand to begin with. Even if your daughter fell to the ground laughing and cried, "I would do it for free!"

This daughter, here.

Wabbit Season

Hey, for a great debate on cartoons check out the comments going on over at wondertime. Oh, I do love a great debate.

But holy clam and cuttlefish! (as Boris would say in Amos and Boris.)

Go weigh in, please.

And your comments on Birdy's valentines are cracking me up--thank you. Also be sure to check out other people's links to their own craftstravaganzas. You guys rock.

xo

Why You Might Not Want Your Preschooler to Make Her Valentines Out of Mexican Bingo Cards

Why not, right? I mean, they're so beautiful and also hip--perfect for every occasion. Which ones will she choose? you might wonder: the beautful green pear? A juicy slice of watermelon? A bird or tree or the "Sirena" mermaid? No. Give her some blank cards and a glue stick, and she will think romantically of hearts:

Happy Valentine's Day, fellow three-year-old! Enjoy these antique buttons and blibs and blobs of glue, and also this picture of my bulging and veiny corazon stuck through with an arrow like something you might get as a shish kebob at a Brazilian barbeque restaurant. I especially like her elegant touch of trimming the heart with fancy scissors. Or:

Sweet Valentine! You're so cute you make me think of the cutest little frog EVER! Also, oddly, of a pioneer bonnet. Oh--and of el Diablo, chipped apart with a pair of scissors into tiny, devilish, decapitated pieces. I love you! And you! I love you so much that

I thought immediately of Death! La Muerte, arriving with his romantic and murderous sickle! With also some scrippy scraps of paper, a die, and a wedge of doily. Happy Valentine's Day, my dear, doomed one.

Nothing Makes Me Feel More Like My Own Grandma

than when one of my kids complains of a stomach ache and I hear myself say, "Maybe you need to use the bathroom." All that's missing is the Russian accent. Also the expression "move your bowels." "You khev to move your bowls?" That would be more like it. And maybe the diagnosis: "Too much stuffed cabbage."

I have columns here and also here.

And I don't think I actually can reprint that NYT bread recipe here, but I swear it's worth the $4.95. I swear it. And you guys? The ones who said that it sounds like too much work? It's not. I actually put up some dough on the weekend, but then around the time I should have been baking it, made a plan with my friend Nicole to take the kids to a concert. So she--she, goddess of breadmaking--said, "Bring it with you. We can bake it at my house later." And so it sat in my car in the arctic morning for 5 hours. And then it sat in her house for another 3. And then, after its allotted rise time, was found mysteriously smashed flat with fingerprints matching those of her rascal two-year-old. And then her oven wouldn't turn on--not even after several whackings with a wrench and/or screwdriver. And then I finally dumped it back in its (dirty) bowl and drove it back home, like a yeasty hostage. And you know what? I baked it and it was fantastic. Don't you love a dough story with a happy ending?

The YouTube Video

I want to make would be of me hunched in front of a YouTube video of the hands of a lady crocheting. And I'd be casting on my first stitches--got it--pausing and restarting the video just a couple of times while I catch up. And then there would be the moment where the crocheting lady turns the needle back towards the stitches, does a kind of lickety-split ally-oop abracadabra "Slip it back through the humunuh zumunuh like so!" And then the moment of me, with my cheerful pink yarn and crochet hook, saying "Fuck." And clicking the play arrow again. And again. And then this would be spliced together with all the other videos of me watching all the other crocheting ladies on YouTube you can see if you type in the words "learn to crochet"--all the other ladies who speak slowly and clearly, this is the way we do it, following along nicely nicely until they get to the presto-magic-oh-sorry-didn't-you-catch-that part where they obscure from view the mysterious humunuh zumunuh that is keeping me on the WRONG SIDE OF THE CROCHET CONSPIRACY. In the background you might see my kids standing in the doorway, alarmed.

Would you watch that video and email it to your friends? Would you please teach me how to crochet? There is something seriously perverted about trying to learn an ancient womanly handicraft off of YouTube. May I should just try learning how to make a bong from a Pringles can instead. Besides--what do I want to crochet anyways? A tea cosy? Hacky sacks? A yarmulke?

Meanwhile, I wanted to mention the Wondertime columns here and also here. And to thank you for saying all those nice things about the plain-Janeness of this blog--those nice things that I trolled for so shamelessly. Oh this old blog? Really? You don't think it makes me look a little pear-shaped? A little frowsy? Thank you.

Pottery Barn Catalogue

I hadn't planned to mention this, but arriving here today I realize that while so many of your blogs are so stylish and beautiful, with the overstuffed armchairs of design and the cozy window seats and the sunny places to lie and read, this blog--which I have had big plans for--remains the college frat boy bachelor pad of the blog world, with the vinyl venetian blinds and the milk crates for furniture and the bare walls. I am sorry for that, and also open to your tactful, low-tech suggestions.

But what I really wanted to say today (besides please go read my wondertime column) is how much I'm just loving your comments. For example, somebody wrote over there that I might consider teaching Michael to be sensitive to the kids' sicknesses, and teach him "with patience," the way you would a child. And I found this to be an utterly radical suggestion. It's hard enough for me to be patient with the children--but with my partner, my god, it barely even occurs to me to try. I don't say that with pride, just realization and a desire to change. Thank you.

Here, you have been talking about your "clothes chairs" which so hilariously mirrors the glide rocker in my bedroom, that I laughed out loud. It's my own special laundry purgatory, where the clothes are neither dirty nor clean: jeans with a tiny bit of mud on the cuff; a running bra worn for a half-mile slog through the neighborhood; a skirt that's too exhausting to hang on the thingy with the clips. I so hear you.

Also I really just appreciate so much hearing that you worry too.

And finally, I seem to have started a rumor that I'm coming to Ottowa, and I wish it were true. I was only expressing to a Canadian blogger here my interest in ice skating down a river, so naturally we got to talking about Ottowa. But I still do often wish I had a river I could skate away on.

Time of Wonder

Happy New Year, dear friends! I wanted to post a quick link to this column at wondertime, and to draw your attention to a comment at the bottom of the page that posts a link to an ebay auction raising money for the Kim family. The art that people have donated is unbelievable: honestly, it's inspiring just to look at those beautiful things. Thank you for posting that.

In related news, things are smoothing out with the comments over there, and I'm still asking you to try it out, and thanking you for trying and/or persevering, and letting you know that the good people at wondertime are eager to hear about your problems! Please send a note describing your problem, along with the e-mail address you are using to sign on, to memberservices@Wondertime.com. I mean, when else do you ever get encouragement to kvetch about your problems? You could even write them about how you, say, finally took your crib apart to put way, only you forgot that every box of memoribilia in the house was stored beneath it. Every box of crap that is now piled up, dusty and exposed, in the middle of your bedroom. I don't know if they could help you with that. I'm just saying you could mention it.

Happy Holidays!

We've been home without internet access for nearly a week now (you'd think our vacationing neighbor would be thoughtful enough to leave her wireless on for our poaching pleasure!) and even though I have missed it, I have also not missed it, if you know what I mean. What do you know--in a week I got emails neither from the MacArthur Genius Grant people (We love your blog! Here's a million dollars!) nor from some old pining-away ex who just wanted to write me a holiday note mentioning how powerfully he still fantasizes about my hot body. Go figure. And I was remarkably able to sit still without that dinging-in feeling haunting me round the clock. But now I wanted to check in and see how everyone was doing, see how the balance of magical/exhausting went for you this year. I hope it all tipped towards the magical.

I also wanted to send you to the new(ish) columns over at wondertime, here. They're both linked from the one page in the new site redesign. Fancy! Also, if I could please encourage you to post your comments over there, that would be awesome! Because they want to see your comments over there! They really really want to! If you run into any kind of trouble, come back here and post, and I'll relay the messages, like the little cyber carrier pigeon that I am.

And finally, thank you to Sarah for reposting that Chex Mix recipe (it's in the comments from the last entry), to "anonymous" for all those viagra links (I should really start deleting the spam, I know), and to everyone who posted a wise nugget about the cheese pumpkin. In the end, I fed the rest of it to our starving garbage disposal, but only because a ginormous turkey needed the spot in the fridge, I swear.

All my best to you and your families for a rich, healthy, and wonderful new year.

xo Catherine

Cheese Pumpkin

Okay, it's as bad as it sounds: cheese pumpkin, like the name of a band that's just trying to be weird by putting two different words together in a gross way. But it was part of our farm share, along with other large and frightening winter squashes, like kabocha and hubbard, and so we took it, and so I spent the better part of the afternoon covered in flour and pumpkin guts turning it into something like empanadas with leeks and thyme and cheese--and yes, they were fine, but believe me: you wouldn't have missed the cheese pumpkin. The kids pressed them flat with their fingers and then finally choked them down but were not buying the whole "pumpkin pie" thing I tried Polyannaing on their small and sorry squash-eating selves. Plus, worse, there is still half of a seeded, peeled cheese pumpkin in my fridge to be turned into--what? Cheese pumpkin relish? Cheese pumpkin meatloaf?

That's why I have no energy to write. I blame the cheese pumpkin. But I wanted to say that wondertime is doing something a little funky with its links--to be fixed soon--but this week's column is here.

You should be able to link to last week's from there--by clicking on last week's date in that right-hand column. I really appreciate you taking the time to look. What with all the eggnog waiting to be drunk. Or "egg mog" as Birdy calls it. Cheese pumpkin nog! Cheese pumpkin Chex mix! Sigh.

My Bodyguards

I feel about you all the way I felt about my high school boyfriend, who used to lean over menacingly on the subway, all 90 pounds of him, and say to various bystanders, "You lookin' at my woman?Are you? Are you, dawg?" (And these various poor men would back quietly away, instead of answering, "Um, no--I actually wasn't.") Which is to say: I am in love with you. "They thought you looked FAT? They did, did they? We'll kill them. Actually, they're dead. We killed them already." But, lovies, I was kidding. The publishers thought I looked great pregnant. They just thought the book would sell better with that other cover, and they were probably right.

But I'm so glad to know you're ready out there, with the riot gear. We will likely need it one of these days.

One-Stop Holiday Shopping

And want to see something that maybe I'm not supposed to show you?


Interesting, no? They switched it in the end because they thought my pregnancy made me look fat. No, I'm totally kidding about that. Although they did photoshop the bruises off of Ben's legs because it looked like maybe we'd been disciplining him with a croquet mallet. And I'm not kidding about that. I mean, the croquet mallet part I'm kind of kidding about--that wasn't their exact worry. Not that we were whacking at Ben's shins with any kind of bat or club, I swear.

Don't buy the book because you think you would like it or because a friend is expecting a second baby or because it offers a holiday sentiment (albeit in the form of Ben's commentary on the Grinch's penis). Buy it because you pity me. After two weeks of coughing, choking misery, the doctor grinned and diagnosed me with a "cold." Then I had to sit there trying not to look like a person who is waiting to be prescribed the cough medicine with codeine in it. You can't look like you want it too bad. "Anything for the cough?" I said, casual as a fig newton. And finally yes, yes there was something for the cough. Last night I slept on the bottom of the ocean floor--the sleep of the heavily, heavenly drugged.

I wanted to thank you for the comments you have already posted about this column at wondertime. Over and over again, that "you are not alone" feeling offers me more relief than you could imagine. And Ben's fine now, of course. It was just a heartachey breeze blowing past.

There was this, too, from last week that I never linked to, busy as I was laughing at your suggestions that I make that pinata photo the cover of my "next book." (If you have any more information about this "next book" please do write and let me know!)

I hope you enjoyed a Thanksgiving filled with thanks and with the great and ceremonious unbuttoning of your pants at the dinner table.

Another Reason Why I Love You So Much.

Another in a Long Series of Reasons, That Is.

Here I am, thinking I'm going to crack you up--that you're going to be like: "Birthday gift. Birthday gift. Birthday gift. Black brassiere! Ha ha ha." And I thought we'd all have a laugh a little bit at the expense, I'm sorry to say, of the folks who used to give me such a hard time about the dolls, the pink, the whatever it was they imagined we were giving Ben: mascara? crotchless panties? a brazilian wax?

And then instead you all made me laugh. So much. Besides the nursings and the Victoria's Secret outing (both brillian guesses), I had totally forgotten about the accidental boob pinata! What's that expression? You know me better than I know myself. (Note to new readers: it was supposed to look like a heart. I swear. But the red pompoms Ben added later really didn't help. I admit we all felt a little creepy when the kids took a baseball bat to it. But still: Candy-filled juggs! It's the wet dream of every fourteen-year-old boy in America.)

For old time's sake, I offer you this, with my deepest, most grateful affection:



And p.s.: I got the spirograph on ebay--the exact kit my brother and I used!--and it has been a tremendous hit. Not that the bra wouldn't have been a great gift in its own special way.

Three of These Things Have Something in Common

Can you guess what it is?

Are there clues here, or here? No.
But maybe here.

Beavers Are Very Sad Animals

Apparently. Because this is the expression Ben is making in every one of our Halloween pictures.

Maybe it's the incessant chewing down of trees, the constant building of dams and lodges, never knowing which are the dams and which are the lodges or what the difference is. Or maybe it's simply that they pity the fearful snakes they run into.

*Note: for your viewing pleasure, I airbrushed in a few extra chins on myself. Just to highlight the difference between Birdy's peach-face and my turkey-neck-face.

For some reason, after trick-or-treating for hours and generating 36 pieces of seasonal candy (but who's counting? Oh, Ben is.), it occurred to Birdy that she would die an immediate snakey death if she did not unwrap and devour her 10-month-old chocolate Santa from last Christmas. And so she did.

Another in the series of non-posts

I know that you guys don't actually have a spare second, what with your incessant brushing of your lips with a toothbrush and also the constant slathering onto your lips of nipple cream and udder cream and heinie cream (thank you for all your great advice!)--

But:

I wrote this.
And also this.

Over at wondertime.

I'm having a hard time keeping up with both a column and a blog, as you have likely noticed, and I wish I were doing better at it. But then again, I also wish that the caulk around my bathtub weren't dark grey and furry. And that Birdy's baby book didn't contain only a one-month photo and a five-month photo. (Is that better or worse than Ben's, which contains about a million pictures of our tabby cat and of me, pregnant--because that's when there's time to d0 the baby book! Before the baby's born!) And that I could figure out a way to get the spices to stick to the Chex without all that yummy butter.

But our gutters are fixed. OUR GUTTERS ARE FIXED. So really, what is there left to wish for? ("You saved my marriage!" I said to the Slavic teenager who fixed them, and he backed away from me and smiled and said, "Voonderful!" and backed all the way into his gutter truck and drove away.) Working gutters, two sleeping children, and a house full of miniature candy bars. Life is good.

Happy Halloween, you dear ghouls and goblins. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

Because I am grateful

And also because, ahem, in all of your fabulous responses to my blog questions, very few of you mentioned "helpful hints" as a reason you come back here and I would like to rectify that, I offer you this pearl: If you have already eaten half a bag of Frito-Lay Naturals Cheetos White Cheddar Puffs Cheese Flavored Snacks, and if you are planning on eating the remaining half a bag, get yourself a pair of scissors and snip off the top of the bag! You will end up with much less cheese dust on your knuckles and wrist. Also, you will be less tempted to, say, put the puffs away, because now there's not even enough bag to rubberband closed, and so you will do the sensible thing and eat every last puff. (Kill me.)

But, now that we're sharing advice like sugar in this neighbor-across-the-fence way, can I ask: when your lips are so chapped that it's like you're wearing another pair of lips on top of your actual lips, and rubbing any kind of balm into them is as effective as, say, spritzing Spray and Wash onto a chain-mail vest to get out the stain on your underwear beneath, what do you do? Can I loofah my lips?

What? You wanted to hear about Ben and Birdy? Oh. There's this. And yes, I took that picture, and yes, that's the yolk of a poached egg decorating her maniac face.