Blah blah blah then BAM, everybody leaves

I hate that Sprint commercial, the one with the girl whose parents have taken video of her every day against a white wall.  The sweet song in the background bolsters the sense I'm a crap parent who doesn't truly love my children.  If I loved them properly, I wouldn't have neglected the memory-making.

Kids, don't watch that commercial someday and think I failed you because we don't know exactly what you were thinking on the first day of third grade.

I also hate the commercial for Ready for Love, that new dating show.  One of the contestant guys says, "I'm not the stereotypical rock star; I can count the women I've been with on my fingers."  We can all count the people we've been with on our fingers, genius, some of us will just have to use each finger a few times.

I was recently a field trip chaperone again. We went to the zoo.  A peacock caused a ruckus when the kids realized it was perched on the rooftop over our heads during lunch. 

But that peacock really blew their minds when it jumped off the roof and did this --

Feathers in your face, motherf*ckers!

One of our classroom girls ran up and grabbed the peacock's feathers.  She was immediately threatened with a lifetime ban from the zoo by people in tan shirts holding walkie talkies.  We chaperones felt the shame; we had failed in our duty to keep the more unruly children away from the wildlife. 

After the assault, the peacock stood absolutely still, save an occasional ripple of feathers, and glared at our group.  He reminded me of a cobra about to strike.  It was obvious he was formulating a plan.

We chaperones began to murmur and pull the kids to a safe distance.  This begat many questions: What's a safe distance from a peacock?  How fast do those things move?  Can we outrun them?  Are they surprisingly fast on foot like a hippo or as awkward as you'd expect, like an alligator? 

To make things worse, Lucien kept calling the peacock "turkey."  Insult to injury.

The peacock followed us slowly as we walked away.  The incident ushered in a new chapter of my life -- peacock nightmares.

When you least expect it, chaperone...

Our occasional handyman recently installed our kitchen cabinet pulls.  They would have been lovely except he installed them all off-center and crooked --

I could use Contractor God's help fixing them.  But the truth is, Banister Abbey broke Contractor God.  He has walked away from it and us, not planning to return.  The loss is painful, both the loss of his knowledge and the loss of his curmudgeonly friendship.

I would love to process Contractor God's departure with my other beloved contractors, Dan the Man and Supermodel Neighbor, but they're both gone, too.

Dan the Man had a falling out with Contractor God and stopped working with him in the middle of the Goddamn House project.  He occasionally texts me, usually when he's drunk, to ask if I'm mad at him. He was at our house for Thanksgiving a handful of months ago and now we don't even talk.  Human relationships are complicated and sad.

Supermodel Neighbor is moving to Portland this week.  Supermodel Neighbor and I are kindred spirits; he understands the necessity of indie music, strange humor and a properly used color wheel.  We went out for beers once and he jumped into a grove of bamboo on the walk home for no reason.  He stood inside for awhile, then called out, "Hey MJ, look how tall these are."

Once I was sitting at his kitchen table drinking coffee and he silently slid a picture of an alpaca in front of me and walked away.  When I asked, "What's this all about?"  he said, "I just thought you might like to look at that."  He was right; I did.

He's beautiful and weird and I'm going to miss him.  And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I wish I would have known the time with my three contractor friends was fleeting, that the shared jokes and beers and pissing matches were not going to last.  I would have hugged them more.  I also would have stood them against a white wall every day and videotaped their thoughts, then put them together in a timelapse montage with a bittersweet song in the background for proper mood.

Mama always told me I was a sentimental fool.  I don't think so -- I just really hate the end of a good chapter.

This is the song I'd choose.  Thanks for this, JP, and good luck.

Hug your contractors tight, people,
MJ

Cat Stevens and Jesus Mouse

Since I started my writing class, I have less time for the blog.  Heck, I have less time for showers.  It's been three days now, people.

Perhaps I'm in over my head with this writing class.  I'm in there with "real" writers who have done a "publish."  My teacher's former job was literary critic for the Seattle P.I.  My writing assignments are returned with red marks all over them.  I'm pretty sure it's my teacher's pen, though I like to think he was just eating Twizzlers and got sloppy.

My assignment essays, strictly bound by a 300-word limit, have me awake in the middle of the night, writing in fits of sleepy inspiration.  I'm quite proud of my most recent essay and look forward to reading it aloud to a roomful of critics who will have no idea what I'm talking about.

Spring has sprung in Seattle and not a moment too soon.  Winters in the Pacific Northwest, as most people know, are chilly gray and dreary.  But in the past week of warm sunny days, we've come out of hibernation.  Everyone's back outside, stretching and squinting up at the mysterious yellowish circle in the sky. 

My favorite runner is back, running through our neighborhood for hours at a time.  He's my favorite because, while most runners look straight ahead and pound the hell out of the pavement, he gets more vertical with his strides and looks around the whole time.  It gives him the appearance of bouncing, near skipping, down the sidewalk.  He looks thrilled to be running, which is a strange concept to me.

I was sitting on the front porch when I saw him again.  I ran inside to yell to Al, "Ole Bouncy Black Pants is back!  Ole Bouncy Black Pants is back!"  I probably should have been taking a shower instead of sitting on the front porch watching the passersby but we all make questionable decisions sometimes.

The days when all the mountain ranges are out -- Olympics to the west and Cascades to the east -- and Mount Rainier is standing crisp and clear to the south, those are the days we Seattleites live for.  On those days, we are all convinced we live in the most beautiful place on Earth and feel smugly satisfied with our life choices.

photo www.seattlecenter.org 

 

We're now facing another string of cold gray days but last week was enough to give us all more patience.

Coco had a nightmare last night that woke her (and me) at 4:00 a.m.  She was bolt upright and crazy-eyed, screaming that something was in her bed. As I tried to calm her, she seemed to catch sight of something out of the corner of her eye.  Her eyes widened and she screamed again, then bolted to the end of her bed.

She convinced me.  I nearly yelled,  "Holy sh*t, girl, there IS something in your bed!" and hightailed it out of her room.  Instead I gathered my wits, pulled all her blankets off the bed, shook them out, and quickly became hopelessly entangled in the middle of them.  Lucien woke up and said sleepily, "Mommy, are you doing an April Fools joke?"

There was absolutely nothing in Coco's bed but don't bother trying to convince her of that, it's wasted breath and time.  She came back to bed with me where she spent the rest of the night kicking Alex and I in the kidneys.

As usual, for those of us with no family nearby, friends were family for Easter.  We gathered on the Street of Dreams for an egg hunt and mimosas (one was for kids, one for adults, you decide).  The kids watched in horror as Seattle Mom and Dad's cat attacked and nearly killed a mouse in the backyard.  Seattle Dad had to put the mouse out of its misery because there was much suffering.  Happy Easter, kids, and no worries, maybe that mouse will resurrect just like Jesus.

Then there was a ton of food including homemade cinnamon rolls and a psycho jello mold --

Want some candy, little kid?

It was a beautiful day so we headed down the street to an empty parking lot to ride bikes --

"Daddy, why doesn't my bike work anymore?"

When we got back to Seattle Mom and Dad's house, the jumping began --

 

It's not Easter until someone jumps over my head, scares me and makes me spill my mimosa. 

This one's for the ladies

There was some singing involved in our Easter celebration, which reminded me of a classic Alex tale.  When I first met him, Al loved Cat Stevens and sang his songs regularly and loudly.  His favorite song was "Peace Train."  But instead of understanding the chorus for what it was -- "Ride on the Peace Train" -- Alex misunderstood (it's hard to decipher foreign language song lyrics!) and sang, "I love to be straight." 

I love my foreigner.

I was flipping through a catalog full of useless items recently when I saw this --

How is this better than a dog pooping in your yard?  Instead of an occasional left-behind pile of poo, you're going to stare at a fake dog in full poo position, with fake poo coming out of its behind, every time you step out your front door?  Catalog people, go home, you're drunk!

Everyone jump on the be straight,
MJ

Silhouette Warriors?

Here's an ode to summer crowds.  I've been involved in a few lately.  I like crowds because of all the rubbing up against people you don't know.

First there was the KEXP Concert at the Mural, which involved emo indie bands playing the Mural Stage under the Space Needle.  Also, hipsters wearing fedoras.

Then there were the Blue Angels at the beach.  Now that the weather's finally gotten blasted hot around here, our beaches are full of pale human beings blinking at the sun.  I love the smell of Coppertone on a hot day even though I don't apply it often enough and get sunburned.

Crowded beach, sand in our sandwiches, lost toy shovel.  Worth it to see aerial magicians.

An ode to the Artist Formerly Known as Prince? 

Lucien has logged onto the math program used by his school a few times this summer.  I noticed recently the icon he uses for his login.  While others in his class have chosen more "traditional" representations of themselves, Lucien has gone a different direction --

Lucien's the one in the middle

I'm not one to stress about traditional gender roles and whatnot -- hell, I act like a horny old man most of the time and a small baby of unspecified gender the rest of the time -- so it didn't bother me Lucien chose a girl icon.  It did interest me, however, that it didn't bother Lucien, and that apparently no one gave him any grief for it.

(Which made me wonder -- at what age do kids get all, "You throw like a girl!?"  Perhaps we're still too young for that nonsense.  If I hear Lucien or any other child say something along those lines, I'm going to say, "That's a dumb thing to say because I'm a girl and look what I can do," and then *whooooooooosh* I'm going to throw a ball around planet Earth.) 

Back to my point.  I asked Lucien, "Why did you choose this girl as your icon?"  I steeled myself for his response -- if the boy told me that he, in fact, identified as a girl, I was going to wrap him in a huge hug and yell, "I LOVE YOU, MY DAUGHTER!" because I'm supportive like that.  Instead, Lucien looked at me like I was one dim bulb and said, "Mom, she has PURPLE HAIR"  and walked away in slight disgust, totally bummed his mom couldn't recognize awesomeness when she saw it.

If you think this is a photo of Lucien pointing and yelling, "BUTT!" you are correct.

Another crowd-infused night involved the block party over on The Street of Dreams.  Even though we didn't get The Goddamn House and don't live there, The Street of Dreams still treats us as one of their own and invites us to all "family" functions.

The block party was a kid-friendly affair but I attended without my kids.  I was coming off ten days solo during Alex's most recent trip to Japan and China and I really, really, really, really, really, really needed a break.  I wanted to drink from the neighborhood keg without worrying how gravely injured my children were in the bouncy house.

I rode Lucien's scooter to the block party because I was running late.  I saw the scooter leaning against the wall and thought "Perfect!  Marginally faster than walking!"  The babysitter asked, "Are you really going to ride a scooter to your party?" and I said "Yes" and scooted off down the street.  I could hear her laughter all the way to the corner.

It was a treacherous journey because scootering on hills is hard.  I fell down a few times so walked the scooter for a bit.  The terrain flattened again at the Street of Dreams so I hopped back on, just in time for Contractor God to walk out of his house, see me and say, "My God, you're a delinquent."

Feel the love on The Street of Dreams!

The Block Party was an evening of debauchery, as family-oriented block parties tend to be.   It went very late, and while I myself did not get drunk, I saw many of my comrades fall to the drinking sickness worse than they've ever fallen before.

It seemed a great idea to invite the Seattle Police Department to come meet the kids and hand out SPD stickers, but less so when our friend's inebriated wife put the stickers on her boobies and proceeded to talk to the officers three inches from their faces.  There was much hissing back and forth between the rest of us, "Oh my God, somebody make her stop."

As I took this picture of SPD Boobs, Seattle Mom yelled "It's OK, she cuts off faces!" and pointed at me.  Seattle Mom had only wanted to let SPD Boobs know she would be anonymous on my blog but SPD Boobs knew nothing of my blog so the comment confused and frightened her.  Without context, that quote is quite jarring.  SPD Boobs didn't spend much time with me after that.

Seattle Mom and I went to another Concert at the Mural last night.  The bands playing were old Seattle grunge bands so the crowd was decidedly older and grungier than last time we went.  In fact, Seattle Mom and I, in our sundresses and semi-made-up faces, were the only ones who seemed to put any effort into appearances whatsoever.  We stood out so much, I told her, "My God, we look like prostitutes."  Many prostitution jokes followed because everyone knows prostitution is hilarious.

This is the tent at the beer garden.  It says, "The tint is pitched and yes, we're happy to see you."  They must have been talking to us because we're the only women who looked like women there.

This was a guy changing his shirt in front of us.  I never saw him from the front.  Can someone tell me what that strap is?  I got nothing --

We stopped by German Seattle Mom and Dad's place on The Street of Dreams after the concert because the party never stops at their house.  We had a contest while sitting on their front steps; it was called "what would you name your band?"  Supermodel Neighbor had a contender with "Silhouette Panties" but German Seattle Dad brought home the win with "Buttermilk Warriors."

My mom and dad came to visit last week.  They didn't stay long, just a quick trip "to see the grandkids and the house."  Umm... hello?  I expected to be replaced in their hearts by my kids, but not my house.  It stings a little.

my people

My Dad and I went to get some barbecue at a C.D. barbecue joint where a man named Pookie makes the best pulled pork and brisket.  Pookie chatted with us a little bit then said to me, "I don't always tell people they're blessed because it's not always true, but YOU.... you are truly blessed."

He said this because he couldn't think of anyone in his life who could say they still had both parents, both in good health, both pretty damn great and still married coming up on 50 years.

Aside from their good health and good marriage, it's true, I'm blessed to have my parents.  I hit the parent jackpot even though they sometimes do questionable things such as fight with my son over a ridiculous monkey game that involves something called "a banana pile" (My Dad insists he won his banana pile fair and square but others aren't so sure).

So tell me, posse, what's YOUR band name?
MJ

Taco heartbreak on the street of dreams

Wow, comment posse.  I asked, "Is anybody out there?" and you all stood up, waved your arms, and jumped up and down.  As a thank-you for being awesome,  here's a funny picture, courtesy of my Facebook friend, the spanking Santa --

It's the best thing ever to come out of Facebook

We experienced a sad loss recently.  It's the taco bus.  The taco bus is not in its usual spot and has seemingly disappeared into the dark, lonely night.  The neighborhood is abuzz with rumors about why it went away, why it left us all alone.  The most popular rumor is the owners were being pressured by thugs for "protection money" and either got scared or sick of it and left.  I don't believe in negotiating with thug terrorists, but damn... I probably would have offered a few bucks to protect my tacos.

I'll never forget you, sweet little carne asada beauty with extra cilantro and spicy sauce.  I'm sorry the sh*tty people of the world made you leave.  They always ruin the good stuff for everybody else.

Lucien lost his self-manager badge almost immediately at school Monday.  He was not too upset about it because 1.) same-old same-old, and 2) he had a plan B -- when he got home he fetched paper and scissors and made a new self-manager badge.  His plan was to take it to school the next day and say, "What do you mean, I got my badge taken away, Ms. Teacher?  It's right here!  Can't you see it?"

Good plan, Loosh.  No one will suspect a thing.  Now if you could just manage to get it over your head without ripping the paper...

Lucien has also taken to wearing his jacket backwards.  If it's raining, he puts his hood up, which covers his face, so he has to hold onto my arm for the walk home from the bus stop.  He trips a lot on account of not being able to see a damn thing, which sometimes makes us both fall down.  Coco's like, "You guys are freaks," and walks on ahead like she doesn't know the people on the ground.

I cut Coco's hair.  I was going for Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby until Alex took the scissors away and said, "Stop that." I guess everyone can't be a fan of the pixie (or haircuts on their baby girls inspired by movies about devil spawn) --

that's "the look" that tells us even though this one is quieter than the other one, we're still totally screwed.

I went out Tuesday night with Seattle Mom and two British guys from "The Street of Dreams" -- that's what Brit One called the street where they all live, which is also the street of The Goddamn House, so I'm going to adopt it as another stupid blog label.

We joined Brit One and Brit Two (neighbors from the Street of Dreams!) at their favorite bar for trivia night.  Our team didn't do so well.  I wish we knew more about Hard Drugs and Anatomy.

I took the following notes that night so I could remember stuff for the blog.  I'm sure these things were hilarious at the time but I'll be damned if I can remember the context for any of them.  Brit One said at one point, "My God, woman, you've got the attention span of a fruit fly," so that might be part of the problem.

Anyway, for what it's worth, these are my notes --  "The English gave us syphilis.   F*cking idiot from Yorkshire, it's always a pleasure.  Daft cow.  Throwing out toys with the pram.  He's got a strap-on."

Whatever the hell all that was about, sounds like a fun night to me!

I drove everyone home.  We were parked in a dark gravel parking lot and I didn't see the railroad tie parking space divider thing in front of the car, so tried to pull forward to leave.  I smacked right into that railroad tie thing, which compelled Brit Two to yell in his strong English accent, "Now MJ, ya don't want to be doing that, now do ya?"  Brit One yelled something like, "STOP GOING FORWARD" and Seattle Mom just kind of yelled in general. 

Sheesh, you'd have thought we were the Titanic and I'd just struck the iceberg with the level of pandemonium in the car.  I was like, "People, chill, I got this, I know how to go backwards, too" but from that point on they didn't trust me and were horrible backseat drivers all the way home.  Next time I'm going to put them all in cabs.

 I'M the menace?  No, YOU'RE the menace!

Goodbye, awesome posse.  See you after the taco candlelight vigil,
MJ