martinimade

~S.J. Perelman, Will B. Johnstone, and Arthur Sheekman, Monkey Business


Yesterday, the Hub and I celebrated 15 years of marriage. I am so lucky to be married to my best friend. No, not every single minute of the last 15 years have been bliss -- some of them felt unendurable at the time -- but on balance, I wouldn't trade them for the world. Here's to many, many more.

We celebrated by taking a wee, whirlwind vacation to New York City for the last few days (all of the blog content from this week has been pre-loaded because I'm sneaky that way). Given that we already live pretty much away from it all, it's nice to go to it all on breaks. More on what we actually did and saw later, once I find my camera under the heaps of more pressing life stuff on my desk.

Um. That didn't come out right. But you know what I mean.

The Hub has gone to fetch the children, who we shipped up with their grandparents for the duration. It's the first time both of them have been away simultaneously. While I missed 'em, I could stand for them to stay away a few more days. I'd forgotten how blissful it is to drink an entire cup of coffee without anyone asking you to find her princess tiara or tie his shoes.

My plan for the next few hours is to start setting up my brand spanking new computer. The one I'm currently typing on is five years old and has decided that it is tired of this life. While I'm excited to have a fast new machine, I dread the transition. I don't deal with this sort of change well. Wish me luck.

How the Boy fell asleep last Wednesday night:

It's the little fingers in the bottom left corner that make me giggle every single time I see this.

* Crabhat.

* Wood and breakfast cereal make art. I am especially fond of the lemur.

* Health gadgets for women that are really going to require some extra FDA scrutiny.

* The takeaway: if Attachment Parenting makes you want to chew the lips off of a kitten, then don't do Attachment Parenting.

* Women and meat are more closely related than one might hope.

* Why people use payday loans. No, it's not because they are bad at math.

* Oh, to be in Sheboygan! Xenobia Bailey's crocheted mandalas are amazing.

Why I can't keep pool balls in the house, from the local almost-daily.

-- Jill Lepore in her New Yorker review of two books of parenting essays: Lewis' Home Game and Waldman's Bad Mother.

I finished my sekrit knitting project last week. I celebration, I cast on for a new hat for Maddy. A few days later, I had this:

Please ignore the stain on her shirt. I'm not sure what that is. Oh, and that other front tooth fell out hours after this. She handed it to me in the bathroom at McDonald's. I'm just glad it was hers.

Knitted from Classic Elite Lush, which is a 50/50 blend of wool and angora, in "Princess Pink." The pattern is this one. I used the adult pattern specs but a worsted weight yarn. My first try was too small. Adding four extra stitches between the earflaps in both the front and back did the trick.

Annnnnd, because I can't resist, another sekrit project picture:

Any guesses now?

At about this time four years ago I was eating a post-labor cannoli from Elena's. Never has a cannoli been so good.

Today, the Boy is four. We celebrated with a party on Saturday. Tonight we will do things that make the Boy happy, which is go to the McD's playland* and to the Golden Guernsey for ice cream. Because he's four, that's why.

The party, tho, was monkey themed, not because the boy likes monkeys** but because I found a Martha Stewart party kit that was on sale at Michael's that was too cute to pass up.

Monkey cake:

I went with a Betty Crocker Gluten-free cake mix because I wanted the Diva to be able to have some, too, and wanted to give ol' Betty a try. I'm not a big fan of the boxed mix but, dang, this was the best GF cake I've had. Nice and moist, with none of that weird rice flour grit. I did make my own buttercream, tho. The stuff in the plastic tubs shouldn't be allowed to call itself frosting.

Water balloon fight, a must for any summer birthday.

A shriek of glee.

The ritual opening of the gifts.

The kazoo was a big hit.

You will note his many changes of clothing. We spent a good portion of the day convincing him to just put some clothes on, since people coming over appears to be his cue to drop trou. He will be a big hit in college.

Onward we go.

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* Once the children are out of the house, I swear to never go to McDonald's again. It is a sad, sad place once you're over the age of consent and know what food should taste like. Still, the kids love it, just like I did when a kid. *shrug*

** He doesn't dislike monkeys, mind. Just wanted to make that clear before monkey hordes showed up at the house to pelt me with bananas and poo. Which around here we just call "Thursday."

* An interview with Sarah Haskins. Can we have her on the Daily Show, please?

* Make your own Harry Potter gear, like wands and Mad Eye Moody eyes.

* Pittsburgh: where the sports teams are great but the spelling isn't.

* Can you imagine the insurance claim?

* How cool is this calendar? Pretty freaking cool, imo, but I can easily envision what it would look like after 24 hours in my house.

* The WaPo's Monica Hesse's lovely piece on the recent Romance Writers of America conference.

If, by some odd chance, you tried to call our landline on Sunday, you didn't get through.

When one is still trying to recover one's wits from a 4-year old's birthday party the day previous, one should not vacuum, lest one suck the power cord into the machine's gaping maw because one is too busy wondering just how cake got under the coffee and one is not paying attention to what one is doing.

Thanks to the Radio Shack folk, the Husband was able to acquire a new power converter hickydo and all is well again. That doesn't mean that I've gotten better about answering the phone, mind. But I at least know that it is ringing.

More about the party later - but while he was waiting for his friends to arrive, the Boy amused himself with my camera. I'm collecting these for posterity's sake. You can just feel the talent.

Anyone care to write the cutlines?

My wife and I have been married anywhere from seven to 150 years (I'm not good with dates). During those years we have moved six times, and each move was like an exotic gift that happened to be covered in shit. We have each had multiple jobs, and multiple uniforms with name tags. We've been broke, we've been well off, we've been broke again. We've bought our first house together, and it has a giant hole in the kitchen ceiling and sparks come out of the third-floor outlets if you hold anything metal too close to them. We have fought, raged, nearly cheated, and been totally out of sync with each other during chunks of our time together. We've also produced two enormous redheaded babies who are as terrifying to us as Mothra and Godzilla were to Japan in the '60s. We have been depressed, we have wanted more, we have wanted different, we have wanted out. The years since we got married have been the most challenging and at times most frustrating years of my life.

They have also been the most productive, happiest and most hilarious.

- Aaron Traister, "It's hot, it's sexy, it's ... marriage!" in Salon