who knew I could love a man with hair?

I'm trading in my bald-man fascination (Patrick Stewart, Ed Harris, Skinner from the X-Files, et al) for the pecs of Daniel Craig.

a momentary feeling of inadequacy; or I feel like a total blob

This morning I was invited to a casual tea sort of gathering by one of the other mom's at N's school. She is nice and has recently had a new baby and I wanted to visit and wish her well.

Firstly, she lives in a BEAUTIFUL house. Let me say this again, a BEAUTIFUL house. One where, like grownups live? ya know? There are front rooms and matching upholostry and elegant rugs and window treatments and wallpaper and painting and art and china and antiques and it was just LOVELY. I'll add that this woman has three children. I noted a lack of small piles of priceless paper stacked around, no nest of lovies decorating the coffee table, no elaborate block assemblages spanning the living spaces, no dog-eared pages of an IKEA catalog laying about.

She answers the door looking not at all like a post-partum mom. She is looking relaxed, refreshed (showered!) in casual yoga pants and a t-shirt. If there is makeup, it is applied to look like none. There is a gracious spread for us stay-at-home moms who could manage to make it after drop-off. Things like a wine cake. and a pumpkin banana mousse tart. that she made. Granted, she did mention that these were leftovers from a recent cocktail party she hosted, but still! New mom! Making Mousse and what-not!

Now, in a normal scenario, all this would mean that I couldn't like this person - she's just too perfect and put together to know me (and probably too uptight.) Sigh. But she's so nice. And so creative. And so interesting. And so totally not uptight. She makes it hard to hate her.


Here's the snapshot of me on the other side of the door:
I arrive unshowered (i.e. greasy hair with morning breath and possible body odor)
with frayed jeans
and a torn coat.
J has come with me and suddenly has become a floodgate of snot
Halfway through the visit I notice that my sweater is on backwards

I return home to step over 4 pairs of baby shoes and yesterday's discarded socks in the foyer, 3 loads of unfolded laundry strewn about the living room, parts of the blender and coffee maker set up in some elaborate "machine" in the dining room, plastic farm animal toys littering the kitchen floor, a crystal growing experiment hogging the counter and a faint reminisnence of my telling a neighbor that we don't have a garbage can anymore in the kitchen because it was breeding maggots.

yeah. that's me.

[insert clever title here tying together a corvette, IKEA and a windy day]

Last Wednesday? It was really windy. Like windy windy windy. Constant wind. So what do I do? After lunch and some meager indoor play, I lured the children into the car with a trip to the hike and bike trial. Well. I weanied and went to a park instead. Traded in the trail by the lake for a trail by a creek. We hiked and played and ran around and it was so windy our ears hurt, our noses were bright red and eyes watered. N took a brave turn of things and spent an extended period of time on the swings. J did his usual of pointing out birds and dogs.

It was so windy, it made news. (and I made the news too. albeit briefly. there's really not that much to say about the wind, other than it was windy. whew. yup. look there, it's blowin' all right. )

Also last Wednesday? IKEA opened. HERE! in town! YEAH! What a relief. It was really starting to bum me out that one was not closer. (A little like the sadness I felt that there was not a Target in Vancouver.) I'd lived near one for so long, I took it for granted. I've been to the one in Chicago, Houston, San Diego and the two (TWO!) in Vancouver. They are all the same and yet all a bit different. Chicago's is lovely for it's upscale department store layout style (seemingly lots of windows and natural light.) I like Houston's for its super easy-to-navigate and get-shopping 2-story layout. So I was a little saddened when I made a mad dash through the grand opening and found the "old-style" herding cattle layout, the huge maze, not nearly enough shortcuts. BUT. it is IKEA and I will not complain.

Lisa posts (with pictures) about a previous jaunt to the one in Houston. Note that I'm preggers with J in the pics and not just fat(ter.)

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Saturday, we brought another long-lost member of the house home. The car that has been in the shop since BEFORE we started the addition on the house has returned.

She is beautiful.

I hardly recognize her. When we met, some 16 years ago, she was dark blue, covered in leaves and debris, rat chewed in places, undriven for many years, neglected. Now she is just lovely. Shiny.

We were so excited, we decided to have the gang over to have a welcome home celebration, a "vette fete" as it were. There was even champagne.















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On a completely unrelated note:
Here are some pics of N with friends at the San Antonio Zoo trip. There was much smiling and glee until I asked them if I could take their picture, which is the last yucky bored posed shot.








N's shirt? Has whales on it. We are seeing a lot of this whale shirt lately. Thank you Aunt Alex & Uncle Thom!

Things around my house.

Not the best picture, but a beloved print that we lovingly call "3 legged Yak." Apparently the artist didn't like the way the 4th leg was looking and loped it off. The yak looks appropriately pissed off.

Family Pics

Here's my serious looking honey pulling a Mr. Rogers in the foyer gettin' ready to go to work.







And here's the shot of me just about to speak my most ofted repeated phrase:
"No hurting your brother!" (does anyone have a new one to suggest? even I'm tired of hearing it...)


(no small children were seriously harmed in the making of this photo. there might have been some crying, but there was no blood.)

Goosebumps [or get thee to Regina Spektor!]

My friend Liz from high school would get goosebumps when she heard music that she really really liked. I had never really thought about it before she said it - but she was right, you sorta do get goosebumps when something you hear just blows you away.

Friday night was a goosebumps night at Antone's listening to Regina Spektor. Amazing!
Sinda & Lisa (and Smith & Jesse) hoofed it out with all those youngsters to see this show - we've been listening to her CDs almost continuously. Would it be as awesome as we hoped? As Lisa said, she kept us waiting and then totally made up for it in the first breath of song. She sang, she played guitar, she played piano, she played drums, she played the microphone, she sang some f**king songs all right. So intense and sweet and just lovely.

one of my all time favorite shows ever, to go on the rest of my list (in no particular order):

The Sugarcubes at #s in Houston. We met Einar Örn in the parking lot before the show. I had no idea who he was (okay, you probably won't either, but he's the guy singing with Björk.) I certainly remember his name now.

That time I saw They Might Be Giants at Rockefeller's in Houston. Jennifer and I were the youngest people there, surrounded by all these old people sitting down at tables. It was sparsely attended. I even recall buying my t-shirt directly from them on the stage after the show.
The next time I saw them? at Liberty Lunch, surrounded by an utterly huge throng of my bouncing and singing peers.

Also a David Bryne show in Dallas.

and more will come to me, but I'm tired. Going to concerts means I was staying up waaaay passed a bedtime. (although the french fries & wom kim cake at Hyde Park post-show were worth it.)

yawn. night ya'll.

Things Purchased To Appease A Child

I'm a hesitant shopper. Some call me thrifty. I think I'm just indecisive (maybe.) It takes me a long time to get to the purchasing part. (how long have I been trying to buy a new fridge now?) I have to weigh the options. Mull things over. I am QUEEN of mulling things over. I have to decide if it is a need or want. Decide what color. Decide if the price is okay. Decide if I have room for it.

But when it comes to quieting a child in a store, you should see how fast something can go into my shopping cart. Here's what I've bought recently to quell the rising tide of noise beside me as I shop: (feel free to add comments of things you have bought in similar situations)

1) a large bag of purple confetti paper.
N insists on shoving it in gift bags for birthday gifts. Each time I can feel the glare of birthday parent when all this purple shredded paper pops out of the gift bag all over the floor. [you should also know that I am "throwing away impaired" too.]

2) another lovey. that meows three times when you pet it. Smith has set a mandatory limit to the number of times the cat can meow in his presence. (Smith is ready to kill me.) It has been named "me-yewy."

3) winnie-the-pooh waterproof bandaids. We go through band-aids like they are tissues.

4) vanilla milk. lord? what did we do before these? honestly - how did parents make it all the way through the grocery store without going mad? [milestone: N no longer calls it "tanilla milk." sigh.]

5) a goofy card with a gorilla on it. that we are not allowed to actually send or give to anyone. just have in the card drawer, just in case.

4) a $4 pomegranate. not even organic.

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N busted me for eating his Halloween candy today. (it's for his own good! I swear! a 3 year old doesn't need chocolate.) I was on the phone and I could see him start worrying over the bag of garbage. Afterwards, I got the 3rd degree about who might have eaten it as well as an inventory assessment of his stash. (yes, smith, I might have implied it was you...)

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The boys in their hidey hole, which is under the stairs, and is nothing at all like the movie.





And speaking of scary stuff, a good bud of mine is having a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse this weekend as part of the 48 hour movie making competition - horror division, aka "Bloodshots." Contestants are given a subgenre, a weapon, a phrase that must be in the movie and a prop. Then 48 hours later they hand in the film. Check his out.
If you dare....

Election/Anniversary Rundown

[clarification: I'm sad about the governor's race. Congress & our local props, are all great news.]

I saw the poll results and was so dismayed that I had to leave the room and come console myself in the arms of the Internet. and listen to some music.

sigh. so. to change the subject.



Doesn't J. look wicked grown up? No babies here.

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3 days until the Regina Spektor concert - my next cultural outing. I feel like a live music lump in ye olde live music capital of the world. I'm hoping to make t-shirts in honor of the event. Lisa was kind enough to accompany me (despite illness) to the lesser hobby store (Hobby Lobby being closed on Sundays) to buy iron-on transfer paper.

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Last week we celebrated our 10th anniversary. or rather, we noted the occurrence in passing and have begun our year-long celebration. There is illness in our house - a gunky cough that seems to favor the male members of the household. I spent the "big day" at home with 2 kids who - by the grace of the saint of all that is snotty - napped with me for 3 hours nap. Smith came home from work after a foul day. And then - this is the big love part - watched the first episode of Dr. Who. When I got Smith hooked on Buffy and clogged our netflix queue with episodes, he decided I was Who-deficient. At the time, the Who was soooooo far down our queue it wasn't even worth worrying about. And now it is here. [ahem. next stop: netflix queue.]

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Ever wonder what I would look like buck-toothed (again) with a double-chin? Look no further. N has captured the possibility in digital wonder.

Haller Ween

Can you see the spooky cavities in the teeth of the pumpkin? Oooohh!

Halloween seemed easy this year. N went as his stand-by favorite: a construction worker (no. NOT bob the builder) complete with overalls, toolbelt and tools. Hardhat and toolbox were left on the porch. Steel-toed boots were passed over for sandals... I wonder how many years we can milk this costume?




I, too, had a repeat costume in my youth: a geisha. Considering that it was usually barely over freezing come Halloween up north, it was an ideal costume that mom didn't nag me to put my puffy winter coat on over. (ah, those tiny ballerina and princess costumes of my peers didn't look so pretty under a coat.)

I had great designs of making (as in, sewing) a costume for J. But that didn't happen. But after peer pressure (the kind variety) from Lisa & Bud, I crafted the swellest (and the all-time cheapest) costume ever out of a onesie, some tape, some cupcake paper thingees and some staples, et voila!





quote of the evening from N: "Look! Godzilla is destroying Nokyo!"
(those are buildings taped to his shoes)


After the tricking and treating, N laid out his bounty and sorted by type. He studied the packaging and whatever contents he could see with great interest. When we put the booty away - in a high place so J couldn't get to it - he pipes up and says "Where is the candy from Luke's birthday party? I didn't get to eat it all!!" (You're right honey, that candy? gone since June, but thanks for remembering...)

All was quiet this morning while N was settling in with his yogurt. Then Smith notices J camped out on the floor in the foyer with some tiny remains of foil in his hands and the look of a wine connoisseur on his face.