two serious questions (no, really!)

Here's a new one: I'm going to answer two serious questions that I found by following the White Rabbit from Twitter to more Twitter to a Chicken Bandit to here. Of course, my answers to two serious questions involve how I no longer take anything seriously, but you should expect that by now.

If you have a blog, I double dog dare you to answer these questions and link up in the comments, as I'm interested in hearing your responses.

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1. What do you know to be true, unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of your being, completely, passionately, righteously certain?

That things work out for the best. That fathomless hope is rewarded. That being happy is the best revenge. That even bad art is better than no art. That passion gives life meaning. That living in the moment makes me happier than living in the past or the future. That taking a bath every night before bed is marvelous. That I believe in the infinite goof. That laughter can't help but help.


2. What was the dumbest thing that you used to believe?

That everything mattered or meant something. That art and literature were worthless unless they were constantly plumbing the tragic depths of the human soul. That everything was serious and dramatic. Now I subscribe to Tom Robbins:

I believe in nothing; everything is sacred. I believe in everything; nothing is sacred.

And I'm a lot happier

How about y'all?

woman----> kitchen

I have a very peculiar relationship with my kitchen.

It's a little like that old nursery rhyme: When I'm good, I'm very very good, but when I'm bad, people fall over dead with rock-hard gnocchi lodged in their throats.

Awful.

That picture up there is my current favorite lunch: firm tofu dusted with cornstarch and fried in olive oil, eaten with steamed broccoli. Doesn't make a lot of sense, really. Fried hormone blobs with healthy veggies. But I need the health of the broccoli to make me forget the nutritional fail of the tofu, which is just so deliciously crispy.

And last night, I had a venison roast in the crockpot while making roasted butternut squash gnocchi. One turned out delicious, the other looked like a dog ate a cinnamon bun and barfed it into a vat of butter. Methinks the gnocchi needed a little more flour.

In any case, I need to build a more adult kitchen. It's a shame that my bridal shower occurred 7 years before I had any idea of what I needed in a kitchen to follow the simplest of recipes. If magic kitchen elves came knocking, I would request:

1. an enameled, cast-iron Dutch oven
2. an immersion mixer
3. a plastic, easily cleaned mandoline
4. a blender with a glass thingy that things blend in
5. a food processor with "pulse", which is necessary for half the recipes in the world
6. more spatulas
7. a coffee bean grinder
8. a new Pampered Chef sideways can-opener
9. pretty canisters that sit on the counter and keep coffee fresh
10. a chef

Did I miss anything? What's your can't-do-without kitchen implement?

in which i weep

From time to time, I think about the Acknowledgments page of my book, which is totally going to get published, because an agent is going to email me... now. Or maybe... NOW. Or maybe if I turn around and don't really think about it, and then go check on the roast and make sure the kids are breathing, and...

...NOW!

Nope. Dangit.

Anyways, I think about how much fun it will be to thank all the people who have helped me along the way. My beta readers, my family, you guys. But one of the first batters on my all-star team is The Coffee Park, a marvelous coffee shop where they provide moms like me with delicious coffee and tea while entertaining our children.

Except now, it's "provided", as in past tense, as in today was mysteriously their last day.

And we have no idea why. The owners slyly deflected that question again and again, nodding conspiratorially at the shady foursome taking up the comfy chairs and heatedly discussing a folder full of paper. New owners? New franchise?

We don't know.

What we do know is that with practically no notice, our favorite hangout is closing indefinitely. The sweet girls in the Treehouse who know our children, know their favorite books, and can even determine whose socks are whose... those sweet girls are out of jobs. My favorite chai latte will disappear into the ether. I will have to relocate my monthly babywearing meeting to some other, less wonderful place where both of my children can be contained while I pontificate. And I can never ever get pregnant again, because I won't be able to hand my kids off when I'm 36 weeks along and at the scream-till-you-pee point and just want to read Breaking Dawn and drink some tea in peaceful silence, dadblastit.

I am distraught.

I was looking forward to the line in my Acknowledgments, something along the lines of:

Many thanks to Roy, Kate, Jill, and the wonderful girls of the Treehouse at The Coffee Park in Marietta, Georgia, without whom this book would never have stretched past 40 pages or gone through six (or more) edits. Thank you for providing a magical haven for busy moms to rediscover themselves and each other while our children are happily distracted.

So I'm saying it now. Thanks, guys. You did me a great service, and I will miss you.

fear and loathing

First of all, I owe you a picture of my cute new shoes, but it's a bad picture, because Dr. Krog is not the best photographer in the world. It's one of the only things he's *not* good at, mainly because he doesn't care about photography. But that's not what we're here to talk about.


What hump? you ask.

Well.

Let me tell you a little secret.

I think I might have a hump.

And not the good kind, like Fergie has.

The kind that's not at all Fergilicious.

Like, one day, I'm going to be one of those little old ladies with a hunchback.

I hate and loathe the hump.

Sometimes I think about having surgery. Having myself dehumped. I wonder if a surgeon could suck it out with a liposuction thingy, or if it's made of something tougher, like gristle.

I think everyone has some little secret point of self-consciousness, whether it's physical or mental. Some tiny chink in the armor of our confidence. And people can make fun of my hairy arms or my sausage fingers or my pathetic baby toenails all they want, so long as no one ever publicly acknowledges the remotest possibility of my having something that could possibly be called a hump, because I would go home and cry and write bad poetry about it.

Anyway, now you know why I will never have short hair.

And why I feel compassion for camels.

unruly nomventure

We had a fun-filled family adventure today, thanks to my dear and talented friend, Carrie, who invited us to help celebrate her daughter's birthday.

I took loads of photos, because the colors at Imagine It!, the Children's Museum of Atlanta, are psychedelic. But today, I'm going to focus on food-related photos, because they make me laugh. Like that one at the top.

Johnny Rockets.

Can I get a NOM NOM NOMlellujah?

Their burgers. Their onion rings. Their nearly-nuclear Fanta Orange.

We all indulged quite a bit.


Seconds after this photo was taken, the Biscuit was shocked and dismayed to find a piece of banana in her banana split. She spit it back into the bowl in disgust and thereby ruined her chances of further shared desserts, because half-chewed banana ruins EVERYTHING.

And then there's the smallest, fattest, most toothless member of our family, who made an enormous mess, manhandled his friend's French fries, and broke my favorite necklace for the second time, sending me like a discombobulated badger to poke around under other people's tables for bits of turquoise.


But we forgive him, because he's funny, and because he has a really cute wave right now. I have failed to capture it on camera. It is the Nessie of hand gestures.

And, lastly, here's an epic battle. Long ago, in a bakery far, far away...


Darth Baker and Luke Breadwalker fought for the mighty cabbage thingy in the swamps of Benchdom. And there was much rejoicing by Ewoks everywhere.

More tomorrow. More that is unrelated to food. I can't do more today. I'm sorry.

The captions simply take too much out of me.

I'm going to go swoon and drink some Emergen-C and try to recover from all the fun.

Thanks, Carrie and family! We love you guys!

1 to 10

As in ratings.

Weezer's Raditude album: 9.25

Pearl Jam's Backspacer album: 6

that one song on Backspacer that I've listened to 1000 times: 10

the roast beef sandwiches at the baby shower tonight: 10

the mashed potatoes, eaten with the sandwiches: 10

the fact that I got dill stuck between my teeth and had to use
my earring to get it out, even though that's pretty gross: 2

the awesome new shoes I bought to wear to the shower: 10

the other awesome new shoes I bought thanks to the Rack Room BOGO sale: 8

the fact that I went shoe shopping and my toddler didn't have a tantrum: 10

the fact that Dr. Krog approves of shoe shopping: 100

the broth I made from last week's turkey ta-ta carcass: 10

the fact that I have no idea what to do with all this awesome broth: 3

the fact that I did the entire family's laundry today: 9

the fact that I now have to put up 60 pounds of laundry tomorrow: -8

playing with my kids as I took down Halloween decorations today: 10

using a shovel to scrape up the moldy, sluggy remains of the pumpkin: -2.37

how cute Dr. Krog looked all dressed up tonight: 10

how pregnant the poor mom of twins looked at 24 weeks: 10

how cute I felt in a dress and new shoes and wearing my new ring: 9

how cute I feel any time I leave my kids with my mom: 10

how awesome my mom is for watching my kids: 1089274646372904.4

how much I love sleeping: 10

how much I like waking up: 1

how much I like breakfast: 10

how much I need to quit thinking of things I like and go to sleep: 10


G'night, dear friends. Tomorrow I'll show you my cute new shoes.

unruly visual dictionary

The unruly children present:
A Visual Dictionary

Ballerina:

Anyone who buys a used leotard for $1.50 and spins around a lot

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Big Kid:
Someone who stays up late, has special treats, rides a bigger bike, jumps very high, runs so so fast, has more frequent birthdays, and doesn't have to wear pants under their dress, even on very cold days. Under further questioning, I learned that one became a big kid at 6, or possibly 9, or maybe even eleventy-nine.

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Pushy:
1. When your kid wants to push everything pushable across the floor
2. When your other kid gets a little bossy because she hung around some four-year-olds and has to go to time out for putting her hands on her hips and sassin' you.

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Segue:
1. An amazing new method of transportation
2. That thing that has to do with grammar.

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Shiny:
1. Per Joss Whedon and the Firefly 'verse, good or wonderful
2. Per my camera, today's sunset
3. Per my toddler, part of her Indian name, "Shiny Moon". Thanks, preschool, for teaching my kid about culture. Are you gonna sing "What Makes the Red Man Red?" next?

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Smile:
The worst thing to say if you want a decent photograph


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Tech:
We have no idea. It's t.rex's favorite word and seems to apply to everything from mommy to daddy to toy motorcycles with which to beat mommy and daddy.

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Swine Flu:
What happened right after this picture. That swine flew across the room.

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Sausage Fingers:
Fingers so fat that they require a size 9 ring.
But is that not the coolest ring EVER?? Thanks, Alicia!

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And that concludes today's lesson.
Of course it's not in alphabetical order-- they're 3 and 1!
One can barely spell her name, the other just drools a lot and waves.

Don't be so pushy, Sausage Fingers. Everything's shiny.