We live!

I didn't intend to take the summer off from the blog but I seem to be doing exactly that.  I don't have any good excuses for doing so.  I haven't jetted off to some remote vacation locale nor have I become Supermom and spent every precious summer moment doing arts and crafts with my kids.  Trust it, I have not come close to doing either of those things.

No, there's just something about this summer that's made me lose the desire to do anything. Part of the issue is our relaxed summer schedule, up an hour later than usual and moseying to the car instead of sprinting because who the hell cares if the kids are late to summer camp.

Part of it is the ever-changing nature of that same relaxed summer schedule.  Every week looks different; there are no more constants. I'm a creature who craves predictability so the shifting schedule has given me an off-balance paranoid vibe. I stare at my calendar often and give myself pep talks. I know I'm about to let something fall through the ever changing cracks and I'm rarely wrong -- so far we've missed speech therapy twice, t-ball practice once, drove to the wrong camp once and left lunches in the fridge at home dozens of times.

The other issue is our new back deck.  I install myself out there in the shade of the morning with a cup of coffee.  My intent is to read the newspaper then stand back up and go about my day.  But once the sun peeks up over the top of the house, it begins to bake me to an uncomfortable degree and I go limpy, newspaper discarded, arms dangling off the sides of the chair, sweat pooling in various places on my body. The sun saps me of energy and strength.  It's a good thing I live in Seattle and only have to deal with that damn thing a handful of months out of the year.

Coco is playing t-ball now.  Four-year-olds playing t-ball is an exercise in confusion and chaos coupled with unbridled joy and random enthusiasm. Parents must be stationed at all bases and must constantly wave their arms and direct the children where to run; otherwise the vast majority skip first base entirely and charge straight ahead to second or what the hell, some direction where there is no base at all.

there are three kids on first base and no one can explain why

My personal favorite is when our entire team runs after a ball hit by the other team and fights over it in a writhing wrestling heap in the middle of the field.  The victor eventually holds the ball high over his/her head with a beaming face, yells, "Look! I got it!"  then inexplicably walks over and hands the ball to the nearest grown-up.  Meanwhile the other team is lapping the bases, usually out of order.

Four-year-old t-ball is a good show all day long yet we parents dread the practices and games.  I can't explain that.

Lucien and Coco both took swimming lessons this summer.  We enrolled in lessons with "The Swim Whisperer," a woman who holds small lessons in private residential pools around the city.  She's a treasure but takes no prisoners.  One kid in Coco's class refused to get in the pool so The Swim Whisperer walked over and just chucked him in.  The message was clear -- The Swim Whisperer doesn't f*ck around.

Good luck my darling

The biggest news of the summer is my sister got married.  Actually she was already married -- that happened months ago in the shotgun chapel saloon girl costume incident -- but this was the official version with friends and family.  I was her "special person" (best I can tell, that's Seattle lesbian wedding code for Maid of Honor) and therefore I had many important duties such as picking up the "gaybies" the morning of the ceremony.  I didn't know what a gaybie was but I was happy to be of assistance.

These are adorable gaybies being rapidly consumed by children  

(They're rainbow-colored mini cupcakes and they're delicious)

It was a beautiful ceremony by the lake.  Raba and Zee are so happy.  We love them both and we love them together.  There can be no other way.

Raba and Zee's joy is palpable; it radiated throughout their wedding, rippled through their guests, and touched us all right in the hearts.  Except for Lucien, that is, because he was too busy.  Unbeknownst to me, Lucien stood behind me -- ME!  THE SPECIAL PERSON! -- at the ceremony and did stuff like this --

 

Oh my God, this child

Lucien read his quote from Maya Angelou at the ceremony with perfect speed, diction and projection.  He was also 100% himself as usual.  Bravo all around, son, you're an original and a keeper even if you gave me these permanent circles under my eyes.

Here's a picture of one of our more disastrous happenings this summer --

(don't worry, he lives...)

We put Bobo the Bearded Dragon on a leash and took him outside for a walk.  We thought he would enjoy soaking up the hot sun rays because his previous owners assured us he did indeed enjoy this but he didn't appear to enjoy himself at all.  He froze. If anyone came near him, or made a noise, or a breeze blew across his back, he puffed his beard and emitted a low steady hissing sound.  Our docile little animal had gone native and we were terrified of the little f*cker for a minute there.

I moved very slowly towards the end of the leash, planning to gently lead him back inside where I could put him back in his tank and mark the outing a colossal failure.  Bobo had his own plan, though.  He wasn't going back inside.  He was going to escape from the bastards who tied a piece of string attached to a leather harness around him, which by the way made him look like a lizard who enjoys light bondage.

The second I pulled on the leash to lead him inside, he bolted in the opposite direction towards the street.  He struggled so valiantly against the leash he managed to wiggle his legs out of the leather harness. I watched the harness slip down his body and thought, "Holy hell, if he wiggles all the way out of the thing he's going to make a run for it and when I go after him he's going to bite me."  I panicked and pulled the leash tighter which resulted in the harness portion tightening around Bobo's back legs and tripping him.  He fell on his lizard face.

A few tense moments later, I had a dazed and confused Bobo in my arms and was running him up the stairs.  I dumped him back into the safety of his tank.  Lucien and I took a few deep breaths and looked at each other with wide eyes.  It's unlikely we'll ever take Bobo into the great outdoors again.

Coco has the best view at the Bite of Seattle

Our friends who live in Sweden visited this summer.  They came over for a "quick dinner" because that's all their busy visiting schedule allowed. Our "quick dinner" turned into a very long dinner with a lot of wine and ultimately led to this --

-- inflating bright blue air mattresses on the stair landing and finding clean sheets for the guest room for our friends and their three sons at 11:30 pm.  At this point the kids were maniacally hyper overtired and the adults were even worse behaved.  Impromptu sleepovers are the best; they're the kinds of events where you stumble into your kitchen the morning after, survey the wreckage of plates caked with food and warm glasses of beer still on the table and say sleepily, "Whoa..."  followed by high fives and "Thank God we're still fun."

Then you brew strong coffee and fry up some bacon and eggs before saying goodbye for what will likely be a very long stretch of time.  No matter, we'll still be good friends on the flipside.

As an aside -- all three of those little Swedish boys speak fluent English.  Our friends said that in Sweden, if a child has a parent that speaks another language they have a right to a private language tutor.  Their kids get private English lessons because their dad is a Seattle native, courtesy of the Swedish government.  Damn it, Sweden, why must you do everything so awesome?

Our Swedish friends emailed us upon returning to Sweden and said their middle son has been talking a lot about Lucien.  He said, "Lucien is so lucky.  He has three pets:  a dog, a bird, and a dinosaur."  I didn't mention in my response the "dinosaur" may enjoy light bondage and may hate my guts at the moment.

We had some friends over for dinner on the deck for Alex's birthday.  Alex made it clear he didn't want a birthday cake because he's low-carb these days.  He instead requested a cheese plate for dessert.  Like we used to do in Paris.  I stuck a candle in a delicious French blue and we called it a day.

birthday cheese plate: a new tradition or something dumb that should never be repeated?

I'll be back here before school starts to post some more happenings of the summer.  Unless I don't get around to it.  Thanks to those who emailed to make sure we were OK --that's a glaring sign you've let your blog go a bit, isn't it -- we're all alive and well, just lazy and confused.

I just know I'm supposed to be somewhere right now.
MJ

Happy Wife Happy Life

Happy 2014!  Hope you all had good mornings at the gym and you haven't yelled at your kids in 48 hours and your diets are thus far looking very promising.

My parents and brother came to Seattle for Christmas this year. The weather was cold and gray during their visit, the neighborhood fireworks on New Years Eve kept them awake much of the night, and all of them caught colds thanks to my germ-ridden kids.  They may never return.

The arrival of my parents and brother was a surprise for Lucien and Coco. I spent the weeks before Christmas moping around the house, sighing and lamenting the fact I wouldn't see my parents for the holidays this year.  I thought laying it on thick beforehand would heighten the joy when the kids saw Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Bala standing on the front porch Christmas morning.  I stopped my charade when Lucien began rolling his eyes and yelling in frustration, "Geez, Mom, just invite them next time!!"

Mom, Dad and Bala appeared on our doorstep that morning wearing Santa hats.  The kids opened the door and bam! -- fistfuls of fake snow thrown in their faces. 

The situation didn't compute for the kids even after they realized who was behind the snow assault. They were dumbfounded and seemed slightly perturbed we'd gotten the best of them. 

Much transpired this holiday season.  For one thing, I discovered a man camped in the Honey Bucket in our driveway.  I'm not sure what life circumstances led that man to possibly spend the night in our construction crew's port-a-potty but I think we can assume they aren't good.

The time for sympathy came later.  But in that moment, he freaked me right the hell out.  I heard a rustling sound inside the Honey Bucket when I took out the recycling that morning.  After jumping a mile straight up in the air, I picked up a stick and poked the Honey Bucket.  I didn't necessarily think the stick would help me in any confrontation situation, I just felt strongly about not touching the Honey Bucket with my hand.

I yelled something like, "Is there somebody in the Honey Bucket?" Nobody answered but the rustling stopped.  Emboldened by the fact no one had yet jumped out to fight me, I yelled in a deeper voice, with much bravado, "You gotta go now, person in the Honey Bucket over there" and ran back inside to watch from the safety of a window.  The man eventually left and we are now locking the Honey Bucket when the crew isn't working on the house.

This was my first year hosting my entire family for Christmas so much of December was spent making lists and calculating how many days in advance I could make food items without serving everyone old and moldy food.  My personality demands I get as much out of the way as possible so I don't lose my sh*t on the actual holiday.  That's why I'm grateful for the miraculous yet terrifying properties of corn syrup -- it allows me to bake the pecan pie a worrisome number of days/weeks/months/years in advance.

The Christmas meal went quite well except I overcooked the Brussels sprouts.  I also threw the carrots in the garbage when no one was looking because they cooked down to an embarrassingly small portion.  I knew laughter would erupt and fingers would point if I placed what appeared to be one carrot in the center of the table and told everyone to share it.

Anyway, I made cinnamon rolls from scratch and who cares about vegetables when you have cinnamon rolls.

My sister recently married her girlfriend, Z, at the Shotgun Wedding Chapel in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle.  There were costumes involved.  I wasn't invited to the wedding but it's not because Raba and Z don't like me.  It's because it was supposed to be a secret, a way to quickly make the thing legal for insurance and tax purposes, months before the party we're having for the happy event next summer.

It turns out Raba and Z can't keep secrets very well so we all found out about it right away and then we saw the pictures and were like, "Raba, why are you dressed like a saloon girl and sitting on top of a piano?" 

Anyway, we all feel immense joy for the two of them.  Z has integrated flawlessly well into our family.  She's kind and warm and helpful and thoughtful.  She also tends to sit back and be cool when the rest of us begin talking loudly and incessantly over the top of each other.  Lord knows we've needed one of her kind in this family a long, long time.

 As a sign of welcome, our tribe presented the newcomer a fuzzy blanket.

I bought Raba and Z some "Happy Wife, Happy Life" dish towels for Christmas.  That adage must be harder to live by when there are two wives involved.  They may have to draw straws to decide who gets to be the happy one on any given day.  My Al has never fully embraced the wisdom of "Happy Wife, Happy Life."  When I mention it, he says, "Why?" and I'm like, "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO QUESTION EVERYTHING?"

I love having my parents around.  I wish they would move to Seattle but they hate Seattle weather so it's not likely unless I can convince them "gray" equals "happy."

 Coco adores them all

 Me and my beautiful mama

 

 Mom is very enthusiastic about the Space Needle

 

Our beloved pet praying mantis, Mantisy, died a few days after Christmas. We knew the end was approaching weeks ago because she began moving very slowly and sometimes fell over for no reason. We felt a little better when Alex pointed out we should feel good about ourselves because very few praying mantises get to die of old age, but were still desperately sad each time she flailed in vain trying to catch her food or stumbled over her own gangly insect legs.

I was late picking Coco up from preschool one day because I thought Mantisy was dying at that very moment and I wanted her to hear my voice and know she wasn't alone.  I explained to the teacher I was late because I was accompanying a praying mantis into death.  The whole incident likely earned Coco an asterisk next to her name on the class roster. 

The day Mantisy finally collapsed and didn't get back up, we all felt shockingly sad about it.

Lucien made a coffin for her out of Play-doh

So now it's 2014 and life goes on.  My parents and brother have returned to their Colorado blue skies and well-rested schedules.  Al, the kids and I began 2014 by burning Christmas trees with our friends on Alki Beach.

We were not the only group on the beach with the idea.  Several members of the group next to us stripped down to sequined hot pants and dove into frigid Puget Sound.  When they emerged from the water, they stood on the beach naked and guzzled whiskey.  They certainly gave us some good ideas for next year.

Happy wife, Happy life 4-ever,
MJ

Perfect Love and Monkeys

I saw the sign at left at Lucien's most recent track practice.

Is the City of Seattle being funny or are pot bellied pigs now a common animal to see about town?

If we're going to start banning odd pets from tracks, there are others I would consider before pigs. For example, it would upset me much more to see a pet boa constrictor at the track than a pig.  Also distressing would be tarantulas and/or tigers.

Inversely, there are pets I would like to encourage to come to the track.  For instance -- monkeys.  I would love to see a pet monkey at the track, preferably a Capuchin but I would also welcome a Pygmy Marmoset. 

Seattle Mom invited me to her co-worker's wedding last week.  It was the first gay wedding I've attended since our state legalized gay marriage.  Washington, you make me proud to live in you.

Now that gay marriage is legal, conservative talking heads fret it's a slippery slope -- next it's going to be OK to marry animals!  Alex will be in trouble if that's true because I really like those Capuchin monkeys.

Well hello there, handsome

The wedding was more frustrating and befuddling than most I've attended but it had nothing to do with the fact there were two brides and no grooms.  It had more to do with Car2Go, my heretofore beloved and flawless spontaneous transportation companion.

Seattle Mom and I drove a Car2Go to the wedding.  When we tried to end our trip outside the hall,  the car told us we couldn't end our trip because we were outside acceptable Car2Go boundaries.  That message was especially confusing because we were parked directly behind another Car2Go whose driver had apparently ended his/her trip quite successfully and walked away.

After some parking here and there with no success, I kicked Seattle Mom out of the car -- go see your friend get married, for Pete's sake! -- and continued to drive around and around searching for the elusive acceptable boundary.  I finally found it thanks to a squeaky-voiced Car2Go helpline representative who may or may not have been in the middle of a panic attack.

I ran many blocks in my high heels ("Wear the really high heels!" said Seattle Mom, "There won't be much walking!") but missed the ceremony anyway.  I hear it was beautiful and everybody cried.

At least I made the reception --

As I watched the brides smooth each others gowns and discuss how they shopped for them together, I felt a stab of envy.  How awesome it would have been to plan a wedding with someone who was as excited about "girl" things as I was.  Alex's eyes used to get glassy and a thin line of drool would escape his mouth whenever I talked wedding.  I would say things like, "I don't know whether to go sweetheart, square or strapless" and he would stare at me blankly and say "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Forget the monkey, I want to marry a woman now.  (those talking heads were right....this is how the gay people seduce us into joining their "lifestyle"...)

These brides have been together twenty years.  Even though I don't know them, it was a joy to see them make their commitment as legally binding and inescapable as me and Al's --

Best toast of the evening -- 

"You two are perfect love and I'm sorry it took the world so long to figure it out."  

I chaperoned a first-grade field trip again because I'm a chaperoning fool.  Being the constant chaperone is my contribution at Lucien's school and honestly, I enjoy my time with those kids.

Except for this last time.  I was the only parent who volunteered between two classrooms so there were two teachers, me, and forty-two First-Graders.  I also had Coco.  It was an uncomfortable ratio of adults to troublemakers. 

The idea was to take a nature walk at a nearby park.  The kids carried magnifying glasses and notepads and were tasked with observing and sketching the various trees, animal life and other naturelike things we came across.  It sounded great in theory but once you took into consideration the ledges-and-ravines topography of the park, the steep slopes on either side of the path at times, the lack of adults and the inexplicably stupid choice for my footwear (high wedge sandals, what?), it was a tense outing.

Our initial strict policing of the kids soon gave way to doing the bare minimum required for survival.  We settled for grabbing kids' hands last second to keep them from slipping into ravines and pulling them down from logs and out of shrubbery by their ankles instead of enforcing the unattainable "maintain a single file line at all times" ideal.

Similarly, the strict "use your half-voice" rule soon morphed into three frazzled adults yelling "I SAID USE YOUR HALF-VOICES YOU'RE GOING TO SCARE ALL THE NATURE" while the kids pulled each others hair and accused each other in their "screaming" voices of squashing the caterpillar (nobody squashed the caterpillar, the caterpillar was perfectly fine, I don't know why I was the only one who could see that.)

On our way back to school, I was posted at the end of the line to collect stragglers.  Half the students fell into this category so I was very busy.  I'm happy to report Lucien stuck cheerfully next to his teacher the entire time but I was kind of bummed about it -- he's the one I wanted to spend time with, not the permanently distracted girl whose collar I had to hold onto because she's always looking straight up at the sky.

I'm pretty sure I rounded them all up and got them back to school but it's entirely possible I left one stuck in a tree trunk somewhere.

I had a weird dream last night.  In it, I said to a group of friends, "Oh, so I have sex with one person dressed like a bunny rabbit and now you're calling me a Plushie?"  just as Alex's boss walked into the room.  I've never met Alex's boss, he's a real head honcho, but the "meeting" idea has recently been floated.

Is the meaning of the dream obvious, as in I'm worried about humiliating myself in front of a big kahuna (understandable, I can be an idiot) or is there something else happening in my strange subliminal mind?

(For the record, I'm not a Plushie)

(Unless there's a Capuchin costume?)

(If you want to share your strange dreams now, I wouldn't feel so vulnerable and strange)

I just spent hours putting together some before-and-afters of Banister Abbey and adding them to this post.  It made this post last for millions of years so I decided it was too much.  I'm going to put them up Thursday instead.  A reason to live!

Cheers to perfect love,
MJ