baaaaad business

Our annual adults-only Banister Abbey Halloween party is happening in a week and a half.  The weeks leading up to this event are tense ones in our house, especially for the children.  Lucien and Coco come home from long days at school only to be confronted by objects like these:

The kids are also fed things like this for dinner while I stand over them and ask, "Do these look like bloody severed fingers to you?"

Why aren't you guys eating?

The kids have been awfully jumpy lately.

I hired a tarot card reader for this year's party.  It was the first time I'd interviewed a tarot card reader and I had no idea what to ask.  I figured my opening question should be, "Are you full of sh*t?" hoping the fakes and crackpots would then hang their heads in shame, shuffle their feet and mumble, "Dang, you got me."  It seemed as good a place to start as any.

I didn't end up asking that.  Instead, as I sipped my grande americano at my favorite Starbucks, I was treated to a fascinating history of the tarot and how it works for this gentleman in particular.  He seemed completely sane and passionate about his tarot work.  And bonus -- he can talk to trees!  That was welcome news; I've got an Alder out back that's been reclusive lately and I'd like to know what's bugging it.

In my search for Halloween party entertainment, I also talked to a numerologist who gave me a reading over the phone.  He pegged me, was right on the nose in his assessment of who I am as a person, yet I still don't believe in numerology.  It shouldn't have surprised him when I didn't hire him -- he had just told me five minutes earlier I was a born cynic and very difficult to sway.

In other news, this is what Lucien chose to wear for his school picture day --

the bowtie really takes it over the top

And I made a bowl-like object in my pottery class --

And Supermodel Neighbor has saved the day regarding the continuing work on Banister Abbey.  He may live in Portland now but he has heeded my long distance plea for help several times and remains my most loyal and unbroken contractor.  (I've broken several other contractors, you see, and have no idea where they've scampered off to because they're very good hiders.)

For weeks now my house has smelled like wood stain and bacon -- wood stain because Supermodel Neighbor and I have conditioned/dyed/stained/sealed several new doors and miles of new wood trim, and bacon because it's delicious.

Here's a couple before and afters to celebrate this fumey period in our lives.  The kitchen has always bothered me because everything is new.  The previous owner left no hint of the original character of the kitchen when he remodeled it.  So we decided to fake the character.  Thanks to Supermodel Neighbor's knowledge and his continued gentle redirection of MJ when she bought the wrong product (often), I learned brand new wood can instill old character when finished properly.

Before

After

The previous owner also installed cheap hollow-core doors all over the place.  We are one-by-one taking those down and replacing them with five-panel fir doors, as the gods intended it to be in houses as old as Banister Abbey.

Before

After

It's good to have loyal unbreakable friends in the carpentry business.

The Seahawks played last weekend.  It didn't end well.

Alex and I, for reasons we don't understand other than we're pretty random, ended up at an Ethiopian sports bar for the game.  We were the only non-Ethiopians in the place.  The air was thick with accents and the smell of Ethiopian food.  Al and I have never been the only white people in a bar before.  Nobody seemed to give much of a rip about the whiteness in their midst so we happily settled in for the long haul and ordered some of that Ethiopian spongy bread smothered in lamb and onions.

It's not what I would consider "bar food" but I'm not Ethiopian so what the hell do I know.

The game was abysmal and depressing but the company was good.  One man sitting next to us was such a fanatical Seahawks fan he could not sit still.  Whenever the Hawks eff'd up (often) he began pacing back and forth next to our table, wringing his hands and shouting, "That's just baaaad business!  That's just baaaaad business!"

Also, when the Seahawks challenged a catch made by the Cowboys -- it was obviously a legitimate catch and was a dumb thing to challenge -- the guy paced around waving his arms and  yelling, "Awwww no! That was a love-ly catch, a love-ly catch."

I now use both these phrases, much to Alex's delight, often and repetitively and loudly.


Al:   "MJ, I can't find my wallet."
MJ:  "That's just baaad business!  That's just baaad business!"

Al:   "MJ, can you help me lift this heavy cabinet that has fallen on me and crushed my spleen?"
MJ:   "That was a love-ly catch... a love-ly catch!"

Al:  "MJ, should we diversify our stock portfolio?"
MJ:  "That's just baaad business!  That's just baaad business!"
Al:  "Really?  Perhaps you're right.  Let's just keep all our money in that one stock."
MJ:  "Uh-oh."


I'm very busy, have to get back to curating my Halloween party playlist and perfecting bloody fingers and entrails and various other disgusting things nobody's going to eat because I am truly that good.
MJ

The search is over

Stella the parakeet is an excellent mimic and her vocabulary is growing rapidly.  Her favorite phrase to repeat is "pretty birdy!" followed by a low wolf whistle.  It was amusing and pleasant to hear her repeat our words until the day she began repeating them while vigorously humping her favorite mirror.  Then it turned a little weird.

Stella's "Pretty birdy pretty birdy you're such a pretty birdy" is now accompanied by vicious cage shaking as the mirror gets what's coming to it.  If we have visitors over, I try to distract her by waving towels at her cage, "Stella, stop it, my God, you're in the middle of the kitchen and I'm serving appetizers!" but she will not be swayed from her mission of making love to that pretty, pretty birdy.

Lucien has asked lots of questions and I've answered them honestly.  I think it's great for him to have a front row seat to the birds and the bees -- the bird part anyway -- over his cereal bowl in the morning.  The teacher has already called to report Lucien told her, "my bird wants to have sex with herself all the time" but after my explanation we had a good laugh. 

Stella is a true Narcissus. It also appears she's reaching sexual maturity.  It also seems fairly obvious Stella is a male.  We're not changing her name, though.  I don't think she'll care, doubt she'll even notice because she's so busy -- *bang bang bang bang* -- over there. 

Alex and I took part in a scavenger hunt over the weekend.  We were teamed up with dear old friends who live in Tacoma.  Our team name was Panda Lovegods.  We dressed in black and white, chewed on bamboo, dragged a few stuffed pandas around on leashes.  Nobody on the streets gave us a second glance because such antics are par for the course in Seattle.

The scavenger hunt brought out the seething competitive side that exists in all four of us.  We're pretty laid back people in daily living but something happened as soon as the competition began.  Alex was our driver and was so amped up he didn't break just some of the driving rules, he broke ALL the rules as we careened around the city screaming. 

Our friend and teammate, Tacoma Dad, said last year they were paired with a much less competitive couple who, instead of rushing from clue to clue, insisted on moseying.  He said by the end of the evening the woman was crying and begging him to slow down, then telling him he had ruined the entire evening for her and it wasn't fun anymore.  He tried to tell her, "There's no crying in scavenger hunts, hippie!" but it didn't get her to move any faster.

This year's hunt led us to parks, laundromats, a mambo dance lesson, and a karaoke bar where we were forced to perform Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer."  It's tough to get the crowd on your side when you're singing "The Boxer." They all stood there, bored, arms crossed like "Who are these clowns with pandas on leashes singing a snoozefest song in the middle of our party?" 

And why is the one guy dressed like the Hamburglar?

One stop had us throwing darts at balloons in a park.  There may have been one errant dart accidentally thrown at a dude on a bike but thankfully he didn't get hurt.  As an aside, is it legal to throw darts in public parks?  Because it shouldn't be.

My favorite task was reproducing the Miro painting currently hanging outside the Seattle Art Museum --

The art museum is where we pulled ahead of the other teams thanks to exquisite teamwork.  Tacoma Mom drew the shapes, the rest of us intertwined our arms at odd angles and climbed over each others backs to get them colored in. We were like a writhing ball of pythons clutching markers.  A group of tourists took pictures of us.  "It's true, Seattle people are so odd!" they may be telling friends back in Saint Louis right now.

At the second to last stop, things got rough.  The clue handed to us at the pitstop was a bag of fortune cookies.  As we ran to our car, which was parked in front of a fire hydrant obviously because anything to win, I opened my fortune cookie, pulled out the fortune and popped the cookie into my mouth.  I couldn't help it; fortune cookies are delicious.

Suddenly Tacoma Dad said, "Guys, there are two pieces of paper in the cookies! Find both of them!" and my heart sank.  "Uh-oh," I thought looking down at the solo piece of paper in my lap, "I'm pretty sure I'm eating a clue."

Indeed I was.  I fished the second piece of paper out of my mouth but it was no longer legible.  We hoped to figure out the clue using just the other three but those clues put together read, "GO....TO....PIER..."  and Tacoma Dad yelled, "Dammit, MJ, you ate the pier number!" We all agreed it was the most important piece to the puzzle and a most unfortunate circumstance.

We got back on track but then things got worse. We really botched it at our last stop after having been in first place for a long, long time.  In a catastrophic misinterpretation (with just a touch of laziness), we gave the tickets we were supposed to use for ourselves on Seattle's Great Wheel to a passing couple.  They were crabby people and in retrospect probably did not deserve our gift --

It's a long story.
We were wrong.

Immediately after it happened we received a phone call from the organizers telling us even though we were in first place and technically were finished, we were going to finish as "incomplete" because we hadn't completed our final task.  Our dream of victory was dashed, it was over. 

We walked back to the car (parked in a "police vehicle only" spot obviously) with heads hung low.  We are all buoyant by nature, however, so soon decided we won in our hearts and were the best scavenger hunt team ever.  Then we went to a bar to kill time while waiting for the other loser teams to finish.  We took pictures of the animal puppets we obtained earlier in the evening drinking beer because what else are you going to do with them?

We're going to do the hunt again next year, only this time I'm not going to eat any clues and we're going to make sure we don't do any wrong things.

Alex dozed off to sleep next to me later that night -- but suddenly he sat bolt upright in bed and said with a hint of panic to his voice, "Are you sure it's OK to leave the car here???!!!"  I smoothed his hair and spoke soothingly, "It's OK, baby, it's over...it's over....go back to sleep....hush....hush....."


Competitive scavenger hunting does things to people,
MJ

Happy Birthday to me

Spring is arriving in Seattle and we're excited to spend some time on our new back deck. When we first moved into the house, the back deck was a rickety little thing made of plywood that moved back and forth and up and down when you walked on it. 

Exciting but not inviting

We tore down Danger Deck and started over.  Now we're looking more like this --

 it's not finished but at least we're not scared of it

Yesterday was a gorgeous day and an exciting one because our new outdoor dining set was to be delivered.  It arrived while I was running the kids to school.  I was less enthusiastic about the delivery when I returned home and found this mess on the front porch --

It was not a box. It was a very loose interpretation of a box.

The carnage was so bad, the furniture had begun unpacking itself in a desperate attempt to flee the structural collapse of its home.  I pulled the pieces out slowly, assuming damage.  And of course they were damaged.  I think it's fairly obvious this deliveryman hates his job.

So we still don't have an outdoor dining set, just an email sent to customer service filled with impotent rage and a ton of cardboard clogging the entryway.  The good news is the kids love playing on it and we've begun referring to it affectionately as "Mount Mangle."

So I turned 39 over the weekend.  It was one of my better birthdays because it began in total silence.  Alex woke up long before me and took the kids out all morning.  I slept in, drank coffee in my bathrobe and read my Facebook birthday greetings.  Sometimes Alex gets it just right.

Things got exciting later that day when we all clustered around Bobo the bearded dragon's tank and stared at him with concern.  Lucien was convinced Bobo was dying and it didn't seem an overreaction -- Bobo hadn't moved in four days, hadn't eaten in two, hadn't pooed in over six weeks.  It was an alarming combo and drove me to the internet where I deduced Bobo was suffering from "impaction."  In blunt terms, Bobo the bearded dragon was hella constipated.

Impaction can kill a bearded dragon.  Lucien was growing frantic, there wasn't a moment to lose. "Bobo, you ain't dying on my birthday," I said, and strapped on the latex gloves. 

The internet told me the best home remedy for bearded dragon impaction was a warm bath with accompanying abdominal massage. Bobo flattened his body in the bath and closed his eyes.  I wrapped my hands around his scaly little body and massaged what I assumed to be his abdomen. I guess I did something right because half an hour later BLAMMO, Bobo sh*t all over the place.

 Thanks, lady, and happy birthday

and you might want to bleach the bathtub

A group of friends met us later for my birthday dinner.  Look, I got a plant!

The strange thing about dinner was our server kept bringing us more bread even though we hadn't finished our other bread.  We finally had to shake him by his slight shoulders, smack him around a little -- "No more bread, man, you've gone mad!"

 it's too much bread

bread

bread

bread

must give more bread

After our dinner we walked to Neumos where Dum Dum Girls were playing.  As I've mentioned, I have an intense love for live music.  It feeds my soul.  My friends do not all share this fervent love but they still agreed (enthusiastically, even!) to stay up way past their bedtimes and go with me to see a band they'd never heard of.  I love them for that.

 

Dum Dum Girls played a good show.  The men enjoyed it, especially, because the lead singer wore a sheer shirt with nothing but pasties for coverage.  She can wear whatever she wants, she's a badass in a girl band, but it may have been too distracting.  Afterward Alex asked, "Wait...did they play music?"

Alex stepped outside for a cigar midway through the show.  He struck up a conversation with a guy in the band that played earlier.  The band guy told Alex his shoes were rad and asked where he got them.  Al is still glowing from that one and occasionally puffs out his chest, pounds it, and yells, "I STILL GOT IT I'M STILL COOL" at various times throughout the day.   

It was a late night but worth it

because we got to hang out with this Macklemore-ish guy wearing a white fur coat

 

Anne, Angelo, Anna, Kristin, Alex, Kate, Eden, Rhonda, Matt, Raba and Zee -- thanks to you, I turned 39 just right, and don't wish to be in any other place or at any other age.

MJ

The wide world of sports

Here are the kids playing a game called "Castle."  In this game, you face your opponent and throw rocks at them, inflicting as much bodily harm as possible.  The most successful "Castle" players have quick reflexes and can duck behind the concrete pillars (which we dug out of the ground during Banister Abbey's facade renovations) before taking a rock to the face.
 
Alex and I were in the yard fixing his bike.  We were so engrossed in covering ourselves with bike grease we didn't notice the violent game happening ten feet away.  By the time we looked up, both kids were injured and very mad at each other.  They each said things to the other that can never be unsaid.  I hope their youthful brains forget quickly; otherwise, all future family Christmases are doomed to be tense.

Speaking of games, I was a football fan for a few hours last week.  Our Seattle Seahawks were in the playoffs and looked to have a pretty good shot at the Super Bowl.  In retrospect, of course, we had no chance at all because the Seahawks will always break your heart.

I joined a handful of friends at our local sports bar where we commenced drinking beer at 10:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m. is a strange time to drink beer but we don't get to choose the start time of the game.  We can only blindly obey and put beer to lips when that kicky guy kicks the ball down the field and people start running all over the place on the TV.

The Seahawks were down 0-20 at halftime.  My football fanatic friends didn't want to talk much at that point, just wanted to search their smart phones for a ray of hope.  They looked up stats for teams who came back to win after such a miserable score at the half.  The search results were not comforting so my friends then sat there looking grumpy.

Help me, phone

Then, in perhaps the greatest comeback in NFL history, Seahawks scored and scored and scored some more.  They scored like they'd known how to score all along but just wanted to mess with us.  The bar turned into a madhouse.  Every time the Seahawks did something worthy of applause, they got more than applause from our bar, and likely every other bar and living room across the entire city -- they got screaming and fist pumping and crying and people leaping through the air.

The man at the table next to me, a large man wearing a Seahawks jersey with the name "FAN" written across the back, was suddenly my very close friend.  As we stared intently at the screen together, we clenched hands.  He dug his fingers into my arm on several occasions and yelled the "F" word.  Sometimes he kicked my leg under the table and it really hurt but I didn't blame him -- it was apparently his "tension release" leg so regularly shot out with no warning and caught me about the shins. 

When the Seahawks scored, "FAN" and I jumped into each others arms and screamed into each others ears.  He nearly knocked me over a few times, running me into a few tables which resulted in some really ugly side thigh bruises.  I didn't notice the pain because I was too busy high-fiving every goddamn person in the bar. 

I may not watch a lot of football but I can absolutely get behind an event that puts every single person in a bar on the same page, every person bonding with every other person because they're all fervently hoping for the same outcome.  I get it -- it's really really great to be a home team fan.

Seahawks were winning 28-27 at the end of the game, only twelve seconds left to go!  Everyone in the bar was on their feet, pulling their hair and screaming!!  We were gonna do it!!!

Then the Falcons kicked a field goal and it was over.  We lost.  The crowd packed up almost immediately and left the bar, quiet, dejected, heads down.  "FAN" didn't even say goodbye to me but I have my ugly leg bruises as a reminder of the love we briefly shared. 

(When I changed into my pajamas that night, Alex looked at my legs in horror and said,  "Oh my God, did they take the Seahawks fans out back and beat them after the game??")

Next season better

Al and I take the kids to swim lessons Saturday mornings.  They have lessons at the same time so Alex gets in the water with Coco and I sit by the side of the pool to watch Lucien.  Lucien is still more interested in entertaining his fellow swimmers than actually learning to swim.  It's fun to watch the instructor's confused face as Lucien tells him fart jokes while clinging to his torso for dear life.

Al is also still an entertainer.  He waved at me sitting at the edge of the pool and yelled, "Hey, MJ, watch this!" He then sat Coco upon a floating mat and pulled her around the pool.  She was delighted. 

Alex, caught up in the joy of a moment shared with his precious baby girl, swung the mat in one direction then inexplicably whipped it in the other direction, causing Coco to lose her balance and fly off the mat into the deep end of the pool.  Alex yelled, " SHITSHITSHIT" in the echoey family-friendly pool establishment and paddled/lunged to where Coco was flailing around in the water. 

Another parent sitting at the side of the pool grabbed my arm in horror and said, "He did NOT just do that!"  I confirmed that yes, he had, in fact, just done that and she said, "Oooh, I bet he's in trouble when y'all get home!"  She was reading my mind.

Alex, comforting a sputtering Coco and perhaps hoping NOT to be in trouble when we got home, called out cheerfully, "MJ, I bet she's not afraid to go underwater anymore!"  My reply was, "She's likely more afraid, Al.  You've probably set her fear of underwater back four years, which is hard to do because she's only three." 

Turns out Al's right.  Coco now puts her face in the water no problem.  She smiles afterward.  She's not afraid of swim lessons with Daddy anymore.

But I am.

No.  really.  trust him.

 
Goodbye, "FAN."  I'll never forget the times we shared,
MJ

I love the nightlife

When I'm not cowering in a corner terrified of my fellow countrymen, I like to go out and have some fun. I especially like (need) to go out and have some fun when Alex is out of town.  If I don't get out and see my circle of people while he's away, I don't do well. 

It hasn't always been this way.  I'm an introvert and have historically enjoyed my time alone when Al has traveled for work.  But now something's changed; instead of being a happy cozy blanket-wrapped slipper-wearing hermit,  I become a crazed anxious wall-climbing hair-pulling needy social vampire tornado bomb.  I blame Paris for this but I'm not sure why.

I go to bed way too late when I'm on my own.  I think it's because when Alex is home, we have this conversation every night --

Al:  I'm going to bed.
MJ: OK, I'll be up in a bit.
Al:  You have to go to bed now, too.
MJ: Why?
Al:  Because if you don't go to bed now, you'll wake me up whenever you do go to bed.
MJ: I'll be super quiet.
Al:  But the bathroom light will wake me up.
MJ: I will wash my face and brush my teeth in pitch black darkness.
Al:  I'll hear the water.
MJ: I will wash my face and brush my teeth with air.
Al:  I'll wake up when you get into the bed.
MJ: I'll sleep on the floor.
Al:  Go to bed now.
MJ: No.
Al:  Go to bed.
MJ: No.
Al:  You are not a good person.
MJ: I am never going to bed.

With Al away, I become drunk on my bedtime freedom, staying up later than I ever dreamed possible!  Unfortunately, because Al's not around to help with the kids in the morning, I also have to get up earlier than usual.  This phenomenon is known as "burning the candle at both ends for absolutely no good reason."

I went out several times during his most recent China trip.  One of those nights began when Supermodel Neighbor texted me "The Babies play the early show at Barboza."  It sounded like a top secret spy message to me so I reported him immediately to Homeland Security.

Supermodel Neighbor has another friend with the same name as me.  We call her "The Other MJ." The three of us went to see The Babies at Barboza that night.  I arrived quite a bit earlier than they did so had to sit through the opening bands by myself.

The first act was an abomination.  The lead singer -- and I use the term loosely -- screamed a lot.  When he did "sing" it was so flat I tried to catch his eye, pointing up towards the ceiling with the message, "Come on, buddy, lift that note way the hell up so it's mildly bearable."  Twice he stopped, apologized, and asked to start the song over.  That's when I knew all hope was lost.

The singing was bad but the lyrics were worse.  The words in all caps were yelled, so you get the proper effect --

"It's a sunny day in Seattle.

I better not sleep all day.

Because it's going to RAIN TOMORROW

RAIN TOMORROW RAIN TOMORROW

RAIN TOMORROW RAIN TOMORROW"

Good grief.  I distracted myself by putting my hands over my ears and looking around the room.  I noticed many people were not only drinking PBR in cans, they were drinking PBR in cans held in beer cozies.  That's really taking hipster to a whole new level.

After their set, the band sat at a table right next to me, where their supportive friends patted their arms and said things like, "No, really, the vocals were really good this time!" and "It was seriously your best show yet."  They're talentless as a band but I'm happy for them because they have really good friends.

The second band was fronted by a woman who screamed "I FEEL DEAD" and seemed to take pride in the fact she couldn't play a saxophone because she wasn't embarrassed at all as it squeaked into the microphone.  By the time Supermodel Neighbor and The Other MJ arrived, I'd begun plotting my escape, drawing intricate plans on the back of cocktail napkins.

The Babies saved the night. The music finally got good, the instruments finally properly played.


The Other MJ pulled me towards the front of the stage where we engaged in the appropriate level of dancing for a Seattle show.  There are stringent limits regarding what's acceptable.  You can stand, preferably arms crossed, hands in your pockets if you must, and bounce up and down a little.  Swaying left to right is also permitted, as is nodding your head up and down in time to the music.

If you do more than that, people will assume you're on drugs.  At least that's what I assumed of the spaz next to me, a dude with long hair who seemed to be experiencing some kind of music-induced seizure.

We're here for the holidays.  No travel, which is both a bummer and a relief.  It would be great to see family but we really wanted to spend Christmas here at Banister Abbey.  Stockings are hung, Christmas tree is up, Santa is somehow magically going to come through our ancient bricked-up fireplace (Lucien is not convinced, "Santa can get through bricks?" to which we reply, "Yes, absolutely, hush now, child.")


I'm not quite ready for the holiday so am doing the usual last minute holiday rushing.  I've been ignoring Contractor God as he works like crazy on The Goddamn House, trying to ready it for rental in the New Year.  He calls and says things like, "Go buy the refrigerator" or "You have to make an important decision right now" and I'm like, "Leave me alone, I have to go buy cookies and pretend I baked them myself when our friends come over tonight."

Finally, this is the side of my car up until about fifteen minutes ago --

Lucien has fessed up, said he and his friends wrote "poop" on my admittedly dirty car while waiting at the bus stop.  At least it's an improvement from The Cockmobile?

Happy Holidays from us in The Poopmobile,
MJ

Making sin out of nothing at all

As I sat down to write this, I glanced outside and saw Widower Peter standing in front of his house across the street.  He walked down to the sidewalk, opened the cover of his water meter, spit in it, then walked away smoking his wonderfully curvy pipe. 

Can anyone tell me why he would do such a thing?  Can't he just spit on someones car -- or try to land his spit on a quickly-moving bug just for a challenge -- or spit up in the air to see who it lands on like us normal people on this side of the street?

Seattle Mom and I went to see the band Stars last week.  There are few things more enjoyable than sitting in a live music venue with a beer in your hand and loud music rattling your bones.  I can't hear anything for days afterwards, which is a bonus considering the volume of my daily life (I'm looking at you, Lucien and Alex and men constantly hammering on my house).

The show went from fun to sexy when I went to the bathroom and saw these signs on the wall --

Let's rephrase so there's no confusion.  What they really mean is this --

Stars is a good band.  I liked them more when they first appeared on my radar nearly a decade ago but they're still worth the time spent.  They seem to align with me politically as well; I lost count how many times they gave Washington props for legalizing both gay marriage and weed on the same day. They called Washingtonians "an inspiration to civilization" for recognizing both those things for what they are -- not scary.



I recapped the show for Contractor God the following morning and in my description expressed relief Seattle Mom and I were not the oldest people at the show.  That's a legitimate concern when you reach your late thirties. 

Contractor God then told me of the time he and a friend, both in their late forties, went to see one of their old favorite British punk bands.  He said it was quite depressing to look around the crowd, realize how old the fanbase had become and admit they were, in fact, their peers. 

Come the first song, the fans tried hard to pogo with the same enthusiasm they'd had twenty-five years earlier.  But after about half a song, everyone hobbled away from the front of the stage rubbing their lower backs to order a beer, put ice packs on their aching muscles and wonder where the years had gone. 

We were at Seattle Mom and Dad's house for dinner recently when Seattle daughter and Lucien brought us a picture they'd drawn together.  I immediately got upset.

"Sin?  SIN??  With arrows pointing at the important bits?  Who is teaching our children their bodies are sinful?  I don't even believe in 'sin,' just use your common sense and don't hurt anybody, duh."

Seattle Mom and I called the children over, concerned about the messages they were receiving from somewhere and wanting to set them straight.  When we asked Seattle Daughter what she meant by "sin," she looked at us like we were dumb and said, "That doesn't say "sin," that says "NICE."

Seattle Mom then remembered Seattle Daughter has a tendency to write words backwards. She actually sounded it out pretty well.  English is hard. 

It's winter, the skies have gotten gray and rainy and most Seattle residents are stir-crazy and itching for change.  But for some reason, I'm currently involved in a full-on love affair with my city.  Everywhere I look, I love things.

Love my Seattle boy running on the waterfront

Love my girl owning that lollipop under the viaduct

Love those brick walls

Love that neighborhood theatre sign

Love the picture Contractor God took from up on our roof

 Love my funny friends

I wasn't born in Seattle and it's far from the most exotic or interesting place I've been, but as my boyfriend, hip-hop artist Macklemore, says about it:

"The skyline is etched in my veins, you can never put that out no matter how hard it rains."

Break it down for the town...

Not really sure where I was going with all that but there it is,
MJ

People with problems

Alex and Lucien were supposed to leave for their boys-only trip to Quebec Saturday morning.  But they didn't.  Because Friday night, as I packed Lucien's suitcase, I realized Lucien's passport expired six weeks ago.

Seattle Mom and Dad were coming over for dinner and arrived right after the passport realization was made.  Because they are good friends, they sprang into action.  Seattle Dad put the Loosh into his car and took him for a new passport photo.  Seattle Mom prepared the food I was supposed to prepare, freeing Al to freak the eff out and me to punch myself repeatedly in the face in the corner.  We are thankful for our level-headed friends.

What followed was a strange, disjointed night that involved hearing of a friend in hospice and an argument with Contractor God about strippers.  The night was made even more strange when I walked outside to check on the kids and saw two people standing on the sidewalk who asked, "Hey, is that your rabbit?"

I'd never been asked that question before so I had to think a minute before I answered, "Umm...what?"  The couple then pointed to a gray flop-eared bunny sitting in the middle of my yard.  The couple said they'd been following it for six blocks, trying to keep it out of the street, of which it seemed quite fond.

I had a rabbit when I was a kid so I know how to catch the springy little things.  The couple corralled the darting rabbit best they could and I pounced, throwing myself on top of the rabbit as it ran down the sidewalk and grabbing it by the scruff of the neck.  The little sucker didn't like that and attempted to scratch my body to pieces but I hung on, I hung on!

I held him tightly against my chest and walked back into the house.  Everyone looked up and blinked because I'd just walked back into the party carrying a gray flop-eared rabbit.  Then they shrugged and drank their wine because of course I'd just walked back into the party carrying a gray flop-eared rabbit.

Thankfully, another neighbor knew the rabbit's owner.  Soon thereafter the bunny went bye-bye in a cage.  I hope he comes to our next get-together because that rabbit really knew how to party.

We went to the airport the next day to see if we could salvage the boys' Quebec trip.  We debated calling the airline versus going to talk to an agent at the airport.  We decided even though both options were generally useless, we preferred to hate someone in person.

How did airports go from the relatively sane places I remember from my childhood to the absolute pits of hopelessness and despair they are today?  We had to wait in the "people with problems" line which is truly a study in dead-eyed human misery.

We waited for an hour.  Then two.  At one point, the only agent appointed to the "people with problems" line disappeared.  When the angry customer she'd been helping demanded to know where she was, he was told the agent was on her break.

That wasn't a smart thing to tell people standing in a "people with problems" line.  All hell broke loose with a lot of yelling and waving of arms.  People with problems in airports are seriously stressed out people.

An agent finally rebooked the boys for Tuesday and gave us the documentation needed to get an emergency passport on Monday.  Surprisingly, the emergency passport procedure was easy and went off without a hitch, so the boys are finally, happily, in Quebec having a great time.

I'm used to Alex going out of town, happens regularly.  I am not, however, used to seeing my little boy walk away from me dragging his little wheelie suitcase behind him.  I was not prepared for the huge lump in my throat and the hysterical waving and yelling, "BYE LUCIEN BYE LUCIEN BYE BYE."

Al shucking corn in a fedora with a glass of French rosé on our front porch

I talk to Widower Peter nearly every day.  He has a lot to say so it's a real investment of my time when I choose to join him at the gate.  The other day he wanted to talk about "relationships these days."  He's fed up hearing about all these "men who spend their time in bars" and "women who run off to the Bingo parlor on Saturday nights."

Bingo parlor.  Right.  That's where we go.

Speaking of Saturday nights, here was mine --

 

 photos by the fabulous Christina Mallet

No Bingo in sight.  Gosh, don't tell our fellas.

And Seattle Mom only pretended to do that shot -- she actually dumped it on my foot under the table.  Busted.

That your rabbit?
MJ