Storing fat for Alaska

This good girl doesn't know

we're fixin' to leave her for three-and-a-half weeks.

I'm eating, sleeping and breathing Alaska to plan our upcoming road trip. So much to know to plot the route and plan the itinerary, so many internet searches like, "Is such-and-such a road safe to drive in an RV or is it another Tiller Trail?" There are also novels to read to get into the spirit of the place, tour companies to contact, and purchases to make such as bear spray and warm lined rain boots and mosquito nets that cover your whole head. Do you know how many ways there are to die up there?? Hundreds!

The kids are using my intense road trip focus against me. I found Lucien eating a secret bag of potato chips in the TV room this past week. He looked guilty for a second but thought fast and said, "I'm storing fat for Alaska." I took the chips away and said, "You know there is plenty of food in Alaska..." but he followed me out of the room saying, "No! We're gonna have to craft our own bows and arrows to shoot deer, and do you know how to cut down a tree yet? We're also gonna have to fish, lay traps, and forage for berries!"

He was on a roll then. He entertains himself thoroughly when he thinks he's onto a juicy joke. (apple, meet tree...)

".... but we'll have Coco taste the berries first, obviously, to make sure they're not poisonous!" I gave him a severe "Mom look" after that comment and he said, "She's the youngest, Mom, if anyone's gotta die out there in the nothingness of our summer vacation, it's gotta be her. And if anyone's gonna live, it's going to be me, because of the chips!"

Lucien is now, at this very moment, musing aloud we may have to resort to cannibalism. I guess anything less than that will be considered a smashing success of a trip.

I took the Winnie B into the RV shop to fix everything that needs fixing. There's always a lot on such a complicated vehicle but as of now, all seems to be in good working order. I pretty much told the guy, "We're driving to Alaska, just replace everything with new things." I'm being extra cautious because I can't imagine much worse of a disappointment than suffering RV failure in the middle of the Yukon.

Good luck, us.

(Good girl still doesn't know...)

In these few weeks remaining before we drive off towards the Arctic Circle, we are caught up in the whirlwind of end-of-school-year chaos. The performances, presentation nights, carnivals, etc. are really stacking up but we're knocking them down one by one with rapidly fatiguing fists.

Lucien's big end-of-year Humanities project involved an in-depth report on biodiversity's role in healthy ecosystems, a subject for which he organically feels much passion so it was a natural choice. As part of his project, he had to take an "action step." For his action step, he decided to print up flyers and educate the public by handing them out and starting conversations one-on-one and in small groups. His original plan was to do that at the beach on a sunny day but we're a little tired here at the end of the school year so instead it took place at a friend's party the day before the project was due. Our closest friends were all there, and had been drinking beer and eating tacos for hours.

I had to document the action step to include in his PowerPoint presentation. I told this group of friends to look natural, as if Lucien was educating them about the alarming rate of loss of species at that very second and it was the first they'd heard of it.

Nailed it. 

Totally natural.

(I love this photo, and you bet we used it.)

I volunteered to work a couple booths at Coco's school carnival this past weekend. First shift was at the Fish Pond game, where Coco acted as assistant by sitting hidden behind the screen and attaching toys to the end of the fishing pole whenever some little tyke tossed his line over the side. The prizes were mostly very small so came grouped together in Ziploc grab bags. Coco didn't understand the entire bag was the prize and instead opened all the bags and began attaching teeny tiny toys one at a time.

You should have seen that four-year-old carnival enthusiast's face when he handed me his ticket, threw his line over the booth, and received a mini doll shoe the size of his pinkie nail. His eyes were big sad adorable question marks when he looked up at me and I said, "Oh hell no, not on my watch," threw his line back over the side and whispered around the corner to Coco, "Give him the whole bag, give him the whole bag, for the love of God!!" The volunteer working next door at the "Dig in the Hay" game had a good laugh about that one.

Not sure what she's laughing at, that volunteer had her own questionable game going on. The "Dig in the Hay" game is usually a big pile of hay kids dig through until they find a prize. But this year, to the confusion of many, there was no hay, only a small inflatable pool filled with plastic balls. The "Dig in the Hay" sign still stood boldly behind the pool, which left many scratching their heads. I guess carnival organizers didn't feel compelled to rename "Dig in the Hay" to "Dig in the Balls" and who can blame them for that.

I worked the ticket booth second shift with two of my favorite friends. We thought it would be fun to do it together because we could chat and catch up during lulls. That's a laugh of an idea; there are no lulls at school carnival ticket booths. The ticket booth is mayhem with people swarming you constantly waving fistfuls of money and asking questions like, "why can't I use this food ticket to play games?" As you tried to explain the intricacy of the school's ticketing system, some errant wanderer would inevitably walk up and order a cotton candy. I'd be like, "Does it look like I got cotton candy back here, buddy?" while punching furiously at iPad buttons because I was three reported ticket sales behind.

I'm still around for a bit but for the record, I'm hoping to post some short blog updates during our weeks of driving through the mountainous abyss of the great North. Not surprisingly, I hear there's not a whole lot of WiFi nor cell phone service in Northern British Columbia and the Yukon. We may have better luck once in Alaska, but by then we may have eaten each other so there may not be much to post about.

If the grizzlies don't get ya, the other grizzlies will.
MJ

Stories, most involving screaming

The end of the school year is chaos.  There's a ceremony or event every day at one of the kids' schools. None of them are very fun and they all seem designed to make parents insane by being either emotionally manipulative (Her "graduation"? What? She's four years old!) or too overwhelming ("Come to the school carnival where a constant stream of screaming kids are going to step on your toes as they run past you. And you have to work at a booth. And it's going to be hell.")

School stuff aside, our general contractor showed up on our driveway recently and started to cry.  His wife of 30 years just left him and now he can barely get out of bed.  It's hard to pressure a guy in a situation like that so our exterior project may never be finished.  We may have to be OK with a half painted house.

(We're giving him some time to regroup and then will gently suggest he focus on his work, that his work will give him strength and pull him through...)

I chaperoned Coco's preschool field trip to a nearby farm a couple weeks ago.  I spent most of the farm visit shielding a little girl from view of the pigs, of which she was inexplicably terrified.  If she happened to look up when my body wasn't blocking her view of said demon pigs, she would start screaming.

 this is how far we had to stand from the pigs

At one point we had to walk past the pig pen and that was a tense moment indeed.  I picked up the little girl, her screams in my ears and her kicky legs landing directly on my kneecaps, and ran past the pigs.  I deposited her safely on the other side of the pig pen in front of a cow who had her nose stuck through the slats of her fence.  The little girl didn't like that cow either so I had to pick her up again and run past the cows.  Rinse and repeat at the goats.

That was exhausting but the worst part of the field trip was the constant singing of "Frozen" songs from the four little girls packed into my car there and back.  It seems I wasn't the only one suffering; when we got back to school, a fellow chaperone threw open his car door and fell helplessly to the pavement pleading, "If I hear one more "Frozen" song I'm going to lose my mind, please make them stop, please, please."  But they didn't stop, they'll never stop.

Coco had another sleepover with her aunts recently.  She did their nails because Coco is convinced she's good at giving manicures. (She isn't.)  The worst part is when she blots your still-wet nails with a napkin and tells you "It helps them dry faster" when you protest.  Then you have to spend the next week walking around with pieces of napkin stuck to your nails because if you remove her manicure, so help you God, she will glare you to death.


I volunteered to work the Prize Booth at the elementary school carnival last night.   That's a brutal job, especially at the end of the evening when all the kids swarm the prize booth to redeem their tickets for prizes.  I'm well suited to that kind of chaos for some reason (it's because I'm raising Lucien).  I can usually roll with yelling and jostling kids but this event stretched even my limitations.  I lost my voice halfway through and needed water so badly I began grabbing the wrists of friends as they passed and croaking, "water....please..." in a hoarse voice that frightened them.

Alex eventually joined me at the Prize Booth.  If I'm well suited for that kind of work, Alex is born for it.  He immediately morphed into a carnival barker.  He held up crappy toys, declared them the "must-have toy of the carnival" and then held an auction for the hot ticket item when the kids started fighting over a toy they weren't interested in five seconds prior.  Alex cleared the prize table of a lot of crap with his wheeling dealing methods.

Some big news around here is Lucien finally learned how to ride a bike.  He's resisted learning to ride a bike for years, always told me he was happy with his scooter and didn't care about bikes.  I would tell him bikes are faster than scooters but he never believed me.  He would then challenge me to a bike/scooter race down the sidewalk and would always win because he has less concern for smacking into the many pedestrians on that sidewalk than I do.

The turning point was a sleepover at a friend's house.  His friends wanted to ride bikes but Lucien told them he didn't know how.  So his friends -- two on either side of the bike and one standing in front yelling directions and encouragement -- taught him how to ride in about five minutes.  He took off around the block and hasn't gotten off the bike since.

Maybe I can convince his friends to teach Lucien how to tie his shoes, too.  All I get on that is, "Meh, just keep buying me these kinds of shoes" as he points down to his slip-on Vans.

I played a game of chess with Lucien this evening.  I had him cornered and said, "checkmate."  Lucien then grabbed his king and, arm stiff like a windshield wiper, wiped all the remaining pieces off the board while yelling, "Oh my God, my king's gone crazy, what is he doing, I don't know what's going on!"  He then ran out of the room and up the stairs into his bedroom where he locked the king inside a storage bin.  He still claims I haven't won the game.

I texted the chess story to Alex, out for drinks at the time with his old European posse who are in town for a work meeting.  Alex relayed the story to his friends and the German guy responded, "I think that's how the French won all their wars."

Please, Coco, please no more manicures,
MJ

Lizard Disco

Lucien just turned eight.  It's a number that makes me say "wow" but not yet a number that freaks me out.  My guess is that will come around 10.

Lucien wanted to take a birthday treat to school to share with his classmates.  His teacher said, due to all the food allergies in the class this year, the only "treat" allowed was fruit.  So I sent him to school with a bag of bananas.  Happy Birthday, son, get buckwild.

I'm confused about my own school days, back when our parents were free to send in piles of gluten-filled gut bombs for classroom birthday celebrations.  Were there fewer allergies when I was a kid?  Or were there a bunch of miserable moaning kids on the ground out in the hallway I just didn't notice? 

I'm not making light of food allergies.  I know kids with severe food allergies; if they come into contact with the wrong thing, it could kill them.  It's scary as hell.  I'm just trying to understand how food allergies got so omnipresent that kids now have to blow out birthday candles stuck into browned pieces of pear.

Lucien has wanted a lizard for a long time. Whenever we went to Petco to get something for one of our other animals, Lucien stood transfixed in front of the lizards.  He especially liked the baby bearded dragons because they would always come check him out, pressing their tiny bearded dragon faces against the glass with their heads cocked to the side.

Then the begging would begin and I'd have to remind him of the cold hard truth -- no way we're getting a bearded dragon, those things can live up to 15 years and that's more of a commitment than I'm willing to make to a lizard.

But lizard fate is funny.  A middle-aged bearded dragon dropped into our laps last week when a woman posted on a local parenting listserve that her son was headed to college in the fall and was leaving behind his beloved pet bearded dragon named Bobo.  She wanted Bobo to go to a good home, preferably a home with a kid who would love Bobo as much as her son had.

We went to meet Bobo the next day after school.  The woman who welcomed us was visibly moved; Lucien reminded her so very much of her son at the age of almost-eight.  There were other people interested in Bobo, too, but the woman and her family discussed and decided to tell them to BUZZ OFF.  As soon as they met, it was obvious Bobo belonged with The Loosh.

When Lucien met Bobo

I wanted Bobo to be a surprise for Lucien on his birthday so had to stall for a week.  I hemmed and hawwed and made up all sorts of reasons why we couldn't get Bobo, at least not yet.  It made Lucien crazy to the brink of disowning me as a mother.  He pulled his hair out and cried, "What?? His eyes are too blinky for your liking?  How is that even a thing!?"

The crisis was solved by telling Lucien he had to "earn" Bobo.  He had to take exclusive care of our other pets for one week to prove he was up to the responsibility of caring for Bobo.  It was a pretty brilliant idea; Lucien stopped pestering me AND I no longer had to clean the bird cage. 

The plan may have backfired on our pets, though.  Lucien was so excited to be working towards Bobo he arose early every morning and completed the entire pet care checklist by 6:00 a.m.  Oscar was groggy and confused as Lucien dragged him outside to go to the bathroom and gave him a bath before dawn.  Stella no doubt grew concerned when the kid with the crazed eyes and shaky excited hands changed her water every five minutes.

On Lucien's birthday, while he was at school eating his celebratory banana, my sister Raba met me at Bobo's house to help carry his 50 gallon tank to my car.  Carrying that tank was similar to carrying a Volkswagen -- as in, you know it's going to be heavy in theory but you have no idea what "heavy" means until you're up under the thing.

Bobo's owner had to jump in and help as we descended the steep and uneven concrete stairs outside her house.  All three of us felt it necessary to holler "Careful! Careful!" every few seconds just in case the other two had suffered sudden mental impairment and were about to go all gangbusters with the thing.

It was slow treacherous going made more exciting by the fact we all decided to wear stylish heeled boots that day.  Not the most practical footwear for what we were doing but dang we looked good doing it.

Raba and I were on our own once we got back to our house but after a pep talk, some stretches and some heeled shoe removal, we successfully installed Bobo in the newly redesigned kid room.  I rushed to finish the room last week because I was concerned about the possible effects of paint fumes on bearded dragons.

Kid room before --

 

Kid and lizard room after --

The look on Lucien's face when he came home from school that day and saw Bobo in the middle of his room was worth all the effort it took to get him there. Even my severely bruised thighs, which had been used several times as a tank resting place until feeling returned to my arms, ached a little less because of all of the happiness.

Bobo is the coolest animal.  He's docile and likes to be picked up and held.  He loves basking under his basking lamp.  He enjoys being outside in the grass in warmer months.

 He also likes piña coladas and getting caught in the rain

We've never had a reptile before so there were some things to get used to.  For instance, as soon as Bobo's basking light turns off (it's on a timer), Bobo immediately flattens himself against the floor and falls into a deep, impenetrable sleep as his body temperature drops.  We thought we'd killed him the first time he did that.

Bobo was fine again the next morning but Oscar the schnauzer was a jittery mess.  He sniffed and pawed and whined all over the kids' room in an attempt to understand what kind of creature had just invaded his territory.  In a spastic fit of nerves, Oscar knocked over Bobo's cricket container.  Dozens of crickets poured out and hopped every which way in joyful freedom.  The Great Cricket Escape of 2014 was unfortunately timed given we were supposed to be in the car headed to school at that very moment.

I screamed for Lucien to help me and he came running.  We grabbed crickets as fast as we could, stuffed them back into their cage and held Oscar at bay with our feet because he was intent on capturing ALL THE CRICKETS NOM NOM NOM with his mouth.  Alex stood in the doorway and laughed until he doubled over. That man's worthless sometimes.

We're pretty sure we got all the crickets back into their cage except the two who hopped under Coco's bed never to be seen again.  God I hope they aren't a male and a female and, if they are, don't find each other irresistibly attractive.

Later that morning, the men working on our house showed up and started messing around with some exterior electrical work.  This involved a few crossed wires and a few tripped fuses.  Bobo's heat lamp was on one of the affected circuits.  When the circuit blew, his lamp turned off so Bobo would flatten himself down and go to sleep.  Then I, worried about the lizard, would re-set the fuse and he'd get back up again.  A few minutes later the circuit would trip again so he would lie down again.  I would run and re-set.  Repeat. 

His first full day of life with us and he was living in some kind of surreal lizard disco.

So Happy Birthday to you, Lucien, our sweet, funny, loud animal-loving boy.  You are a unique individual and a wonderful son and a source of great joy and amusement in our lives.  I never could have imagined all the ways you'd change my life for the better in just eight years. 

 For starters, I never thought I'd see a big lizard in a bed

GO SEAHAWKS!
MJ

Living the Dream in September

It's not really a receptacle for honey

We've finally arrived at the apex of human achievement.  There's a Honey Bucket in the driveway. 

Lucien asks every day if he can go outside and poop in the Honey Bucket.  I'm trying to impress upon him that, if given the choice, most rational human beings would choose the comfy bathroom ten feet away over the Honey Bucket.  Deaf ears so far.

I shouldn't be surprised.  This is the kid who recently wrote a song entitled "Buttcheek Monster" and sings it at inopportune times, such as in the middle of his swim lesson. I keep telling him to stop singing and learn to, you know, possibly, swim.  Deaf ears so far.

Yesterday he asked me to say "cheese" five times in a row and, not seeing any obvious catch, I obliged.  He then made the most realistic mouth fart sound I've heard (the kid should teach seminars), pointed at me and laughed.

What?

 Congratulations -- it's still a boy!

September has not been our favorite month this year.  It's actually in hot contention for our least favorite.  Alex is preparing to take on a new role at work but is still working his old role, too.  Two roles at one time is a sh*tty equation that equals bags under eyes and weak high-fives in the hallway as our primary means of communication.

While Alex wrestles mental collapse, I'm handling the education situation for Lucien. We are still vacillating between keeping him where he is or sending him to private school given his recent learning disability diagnosis. I have daily meetings with any one or more of the following: school psychologists, occupational therapists, doctors, teachers, and/or potential private school administrators. I'm pretty sure it is all of their jobs to confuse me.

I'm going to figure it out, though.  I've come to think of myself as an education detective. I'm collecting clues and every piece of information I gather -- good, bad, neutral, or wtf -- is critical to solving the case.  This sometimes necessitates me crawling into a private school administrator's lap and inspecting her closely with a magnifying glass.

• Fancy Private School isn't sure they have the resources to support his learning disability -- CLUE.  
• That administrator told me to "follow my gut" and my gut was to punch her in the face -- CLUE.
• Lucien is one of 500 kids in his current classroom -- CLUE.
• All the mothers in this parking lot seem to be wearing the exact same black yoga pants -- CLUE, I DON'T LIKE UNIFORMS.

The public school tells us Lucien's learning disability, while obviously impacting his learning, is not severe enough to warrant special services through the public school system. I asked the school psychologist if we could test him again, but maybe this time I could coach him to throw it?  Tell him not to try at all?  Slip him some Benadryl beforehand?  Maybe we could encourage him to just sit there, stare into space and drool a little?

She looked at me all horrified -- CLUE.

Sometimes Alex comes home from work and steps over my overwhelmed body lying prone in the middle of the floor.  He usually says, "Do you want a glass of wine?"  and I usually say "yes" and then he says, "Do you want white or red?" and I say, "It doesn't matter, I'm not drinking to enjoy the wine tonight."  And Alex understands but he still brings me the best bottle we have and pours it into a decanter.  That's why we're still married.

Coco's school is a whole different kind of stress.  Her preschool has requested lunches be packed in environmentally low-impact packaging and contain lean proteins, fruits and veggies only (there goes the ole ziploc bag and leftover pizza slice).  They've also requested the size of the lunch "fits the child's appetite."

I guess I can measure the contents of Coco's stomach each morning after breakfast and develop an algorithm to pinpoint how much she's likely to eat at lunch.  This may be tedious for us both but -- hey, when did preschools get so bossy?

Education is hard.  Maybe I should homeschool HA HA HA HA HA.

To distract myself from the heftier side of life, I've begun focusing an inordinate amount of time on things that don't matter.  In related news -- Mantisy is thriving!  When it comes to mothering a praying mantis, I am flawless.  I caught his most recent meal straight out of the air with a pair of tweezers last night. In the seconds immediately after the capture, as I stared at the moth struggling between the tweezer prongs and realized what I'd done, I was scared of myself a little bit.

I've also painted the back of the house with five bazillion different paint samples. The house currently looks like a really ugly quilt, which has alarmed most of the neighbors.  The people at Benjamin Moore told me the other day, "You should probably just pick one because that's pretty much all we've got, lady."

The house project has encountered some delays but we're still on track for completion by 2020.

 This is our "deck."

The grass is gone thanks to the unplanned sewer line replacement.  The kids come into the house dusty or, if Seattle is being Seattle, muddy.

This is part of my scary house quilt.

Alex and I have been getting babysitters and spending Sunday afternoons together.  We talk and walk all over the city.  Sometimes we end up at Farmer's Markets where we buy mass quantities of beautiful, beautiful tomatoes.  This would be fine and good if not for the fact neither one of us eats tomatoes.

But they're so pretty.  Maybe I should smash them up and smear them on the back of the house.

What's happening to us?  The squiggly answer is obvious -- corn puffs.  Mercy! 

At least we've got a Honey Bucket -- CLUE.
MJ

Track Purgatory

Being a track mom means I do the vast majority of my mom-ing at a track these days.  It means I've learned how to decently raise my kids in a set of bleachers. I know how far up the bleachers to sit to sustain minimal injuries (because my youngest will inevitably fall and roll all the way down to the bottom of the stairs) and I know which items at the snack bar have earned my "somewhat acceptable amount of sugar" track mom seal of approval.

If we're not at track practice these days, we're at a track meet.  If you're not familiar, track meets are where many teams come together and a zillion kids run every distance between 0 meters and 5,000,000,000 meters (in ten-meter increments) from right after school until the wee hours of the morning.

There is a 100% probability track meets will happen at schools that are very far from your home.  The map application on your smartphone is your new best friend.

I get a desperate sinking feeling when a large group of kids takes the field at a track meet.  "That many kids are running the 1500?  How many heats is that going to be?  WHY AREN'T WE ACTIVELY DISCOURAGING THESE KINDS OF DISTANCES?"  I told Lucien if he runs anything longer than the 200m his legs will probably break off.  He looked scared so that takes care of that.

Lucien would be a fine runner if he would just listen to his coaches.  It's twice now they've told him to stop waving at his mom while running the 50m sprint.  It slows him down, as does his constant looking side-to-side (and over his shoulder) to see where all the other runners are.  Sometimes it also causes him to swerve into his fellow runners' lanes.  It's real exciting stuff.

He grins the whole time, though, so at least he's having a good time.  As with everything else in his life since the day he was born, he's doing it his own damn way with no need for input from others.

My un-coachable child is also fairly un-teachable.  His teacher told me when she called on him in class last week he said, "No thanks, I'm OK" and wandered over to look at a book on ants.  In his defense, ants are fascinating creatures that can lift fifty times their body weight.

In better news, his teacher says Lucien's "a popular, natural leader with huge ideas."  He also walked past me in the kitchen the other day and said out of nowhere, "Someday there's gonna be a statue of me in this town."  Putting those two things together, it's fairly obvious Lucien is one day going to be the leader of a cult.

I pass the time at Lucien's track meets by eavesdropping on conversations in the bleachers.  One happened in front of me between two highbrow women who didn't realize they were being funny.  It went like this --

"So she became a vegetarian because one time we stayed at a sheep farm in Australia and -- well, I think we just got a little too close to our protein.  After that she was a pescatarian -- that is, until my husband took her fishing and she couldn't handle what happened to the fish, just really freaked out right there in the boat.  So now she's vegan and honestly, she looks awful."

I hope the lady they're talking about doesn't uncover any uncomfortable truths about the bean or nut industries because she'd really be in trouble.

Past her bedtime and Lucien hasn't even done his field event yet

I took the kids to a professional photography studio recently because we received a coupon in the mail.  It was a really good deal and I couldn't pass it up.

Our session was a little rough.  Lucien was so impossible to convince to look decent (and Coco will follow her brother's lead because she worships the boy), our sheet of proofs ended up looking like this --

I still ordered a bunch because they do capture my children perfectly.

We aged our photographer by a few years.  They probably won't be mailing those coupons to people anymore.

Mount Rainier on a sunny day never gets old.  Sometimes I turn a corner and see it on the horizon and it's so incredible I nearly drive off the road.  It may erupt someday and bury us all but until that moment, keep being awesome, Mt. Rainier.

Alex and Lucien and our good friend Uncle Alex ran another 5K last week.  This one was sponsored by Top Pot Doughnuts.  The sponsorship seems at odds with a healthy running lifestyle but it's actually a good motivator to get people moving.  Many people crossed the finish line in a big hurry with tongues hanging out and arms outstretched, desperately reaching for their finish line doughnut.

After the 5K there was a 1K Kid Dash.  Coco got nervous and wanted all of us to run it with her.  So I thought what the heck, even I'll run for a doughnut.

While carrying a large purse.  One never knows what one's going to need on a 1K.

(I'm now going to propose a Bacon Dash in which participants get bacon shoveled into their mouths every few feet.  Between the Doughnut 5K and the Bacon Dash, I would become a dedicated runner in no time.)

We also recently had our school's fundraising auction.  The theme was "Hats Off" so we all had to wear hats.  I thought it would be more appropriate if we had our HATS OFF but I was overruled on that one.

I've blocked out their faces because I'm too lazy to ask all their permission to post this pic --

 Aren't my friends gorgeous?

As Seattle Mom and I stood chatting at the wine section of the silent auction, Alex walked up and asked us if we knew anything about any of the wines.  Were any of them good?  Were any worth bidding on?  We said we didn't know anything about any of them.

Seconds later, another auction-goer walked up beside us and asked Alex, "Hey, are you a wine guy?" to which Alex immediately replied, "Why yes I am."  He then walked away with the man who had a question about a wine at the end of the table.  I overheard Alex tell him it was a great year and a great deal and he should bid immediately.  I love my ridiculous bullsh*ttin' man.

A group of us only stayed for the silent auction part -- we cut out secretly and went down the street for an incredible tapas dinner at Tango.  The good people working at Tango probably wondered, "Why are all these yahoos wearing hats?"

Parents of the Year all together now!

Slowly, I am building a new team of contractors.  I'm going to call one of our new arrivals "Contractor Smiley" because I've never met such a happy contractor.  The ones I've worked with in the past have been a little crabby (I'm lookin' at you there, Contractor God).

Contractor Smiley has a positive, can-do attitude.  For instance, we've been trying to find a door to fit our upstairs linen closet.  It's an odd size, narrow and short.  My perusal of the architectural salvage yards turned up nothing, which is never a good sign.

After begrudgingly deciding to have the door custom made, I mentioned a collection of old doors to Contractor Smiley, maybe ten or twelve deep, stacked in our garage.  They were left behind by the previous owner.  I'd never gone through them because what a mess.

Contractor Smiley said, "Oh my gosh, what are we waiting for?!" and for the next hour we heaved and grunted and hurt ourselves, moving and dusting off hundred-year-old doors covered in huge spiders, rat poop, and various grimes.  But there, at the very bottom of the pile, we found it -- an antique five-panel door of perfect size with original brass hardware still attached.

It's going to be incredible

We did the March of Dimes 5K March for Babies over the weekend.  My good friend's twins were born premature over a year ago. While they are both now healthy and perfect in every way, she and her husband have endured some really scary times.  They made it through thanks in part to the support of the March of Dimes.

We walk for the Seattle Wonder Twins  

(who had the stomach flu so slept through the entire walk and didn't notice our sweet team t-shirts.)

It was a perfect warm Seattle day, the kind that makes you happy with your dull, boring, repetitive track mom life. The kids got drenched in the Seattle Center fountain afterward and Alex and I permitted a small amount of sunlight to touch our ghost-white skin.

Someday there's gonna be a statue of me in this town,
MJ

Coconut Balls

Have you ever had one of those periods in life when everything you touch, look at, or think about turns into a sh*tstorm?  Greetings from Sh*tstorm Alley.

This current sh*tstorm is so oppressive it's bordering on comical.  I roll out of bed in the morning and am immediately walloped by the myriad of problems I have to solve and relationships I need to repair.  And that's not including the houses; the first floor of the house in which we live is currently draped in plastic. Fear not -- it's for a large drywall project, not a disease outbreak.

The house looks exactly as it did the day before we moved in eight months ago.  Progress?

Before the downstairs was rendered inaccessible by plastic and dust and plaster, we had to identify all essential items from downstairs and shuttle them upstairs.  We decided on the dog food, the espresso machine, a toaster, a basket of scarves and a case of wine.  You discover what's truly important when you're forced to whittle down the contents of an entire floor.

It's pretty cramped, messy living up here on the upper floor.  We make our morning espresso in our bathroom.  It's convenient to have a coffee in your hand less than thirty seconds after rolling out of bed so maybe we'll keep it there.

I have set up a temporary "desk" on the floor of my bedroom which necessitates me sitting cross-legged for hours at a time.  When it's time to get the kids from school, I must drag myself out to my car using only my arms, my legs dragging uselessly behind me and making funny patterns in the sheetrock dust on my way out the door.  Mama's apparently too old for that cross-legged crap.

Al and I went to watch the Super Bowl with a handful of friends at a sports bar.  Nobody in our group cared much about either team (GO SEAHAWKS 4-EVER!)  but the bar patrons were overwhelmingly in favor of the Ravens.  So Alex, because he's a contrary sort, began cheering loudly and obnoxiously for the 49ers.  I don't know why that man has to nearly get me into a fistfight every time we leave the house.

It was a close game but the 49ers lost.  A man seated nearby, obviously chomping at the bit to kick Alex's ass all night, came over, threw his arm around Al's shoulders and yelled, "49ERS SUCK!" into his face.  Alex, once again his usual football-ambivalent self, just shrugged, smiled cheerfully and said, "Oh, I don't care, I'm from Canada!"

The Ravens guy looked pretty confused and disappointed by the response.  He just stared at Alex with furrowed brow, then dropped his arms to his sides and walked away.  It was awesome.

I was recently a chaperone for another first-grade field trip; this one lasted over five hours and involved walking downtown's International District with a large group of children. 

The teacher stuck me with a group of four crazy boys, one whose hand I had to hold because he's known for wandering off and/or kicking people.  Early on my group declared, "Lucien's mommy is an enchilada!" and spent much of the day trying to take bites out of my arms as I led them safely from one location to another.  I tried to defend myself, told them not to eat the chaperone, that it was one of the safety rules, but did they listen?  Not really.

At the Asian grocery store, my group took the words "don't touch the seafood" to mean "touch ALL of the seafood and by all means wipe your nose first." I heard myself saying things I've never said before such as,  "Drop that geoduck and step away from the tank."

Chaperone masochists

Speaking of boys, I think Seattle Mom's son looks like Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables when he plays dress-up with Coco.  Judge for yourself --

He dreamed a dream in times gone by

We went to a charity auction over the weekend, the same auction we went to last year at which Gumby made an appearance.  Alex must have been in the mood for coffee this year because he bid on every coffee item in the silent auction and unfortunately won them all. Our kitchen is currently inaccessible so twenty crates of coffee are now sitting on the landing at the top of our stairs.  They're in the way and I trip over them daily but oh, sweet heavenly aroma!

Say bye-bye to all your money, suckers

During the live auction, I bid on and won a belly dance lesson for eight.  It seemed a great idea at the time due to the influence of my good friend, wine.

A young man seated at the table next to us must have been even more tipsy than I was -- he bid nine hundred dollars for a puppy.  You could tell by his eyes he really wanted that puppy but as bidding went up and up, it looked like he was about to bow out.  Our table egged him on, took up a collection and threw some money at him.  It worked; we helped push that nice young man into buying a puppy for way too goddamn much money.

There's a good reason why the raffle tickets are dollar sign-shaped bling

At charity auctions, you learn an important life lesson -- you learn that true friendship is a friend screaming "BID! BID! BID!" in your face until they break you and you cry.

There was a priest seated at our table of friends, which hardly seemed a good idea.  He was a great guy and good sport, though, and managed to sit with us most of the evening without announcing we were all doomed and about to burst into flames. He finally stood and excused himself after our friend, Seattle Dad, put his hand inside a tasty dessert jar for the hundredth time and said seductively, "I can never get enough of these coconut balls..." 

Seattle Dad also posed with a pricey bottle of wine down his pants --

We are adults who act as children

I told Seattle Dad to enjoy his pricey bottle of wine.  He replied, "Oh believe me, I already have."

And finally, here's a picture of Alex's muscles --

 

Thanks for helping me forget the sh*tstorm for a minute, posse.
OH GOD I JUST REMEMBERED,
MJ