Sep
9
September 9, 2007
GENDER TEST
When I say “We really need to work together to clean up the house tonight,” do you hear:
A) “We really need to work together to clean up the house tonight.”
or
B) “Please feel free to run off to Ace Hardware, then disappear into the shop for several hours in a row. Once you hear the vacuum stop, it’s probably safe to come back inside.”
:::
JB and I finished the last of Season 2.5 (yes, 2.5) of Battlestar Galactica last night, and after we finished exclaiming over the leave-you-dangling ending and holy wow, what was going to happen next, I pulled up Netflix to add the next season and OH MY GODS there was no jolly red “Add” button, there was only the evil green “Save” icon to click. And then the text that broke my heart: “Release date is unknown.” Season 3 isn’t . . . we can’t . . . it isn’t available yet?
Can’t speak. Too busy sobbing uncontrollably.
:::
Riley has learned to sing the ABC song, at least in his particular flavor of Toddlerese, and it is sort of disgustingly cute. After having sung it along with him several thousand times now, I suddenly came to a startling realization the other day: the ABC song has the same tune as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Does that totally blow your shit, or what?
(Well, it’s possible I’m kind of easily entertained these days. Look, that dog has a puffy tail! Hee hee hee! Here Puff!)
In other developmental news, Riley has also learned an enormously useful skill, thanks to diligent instruction on our part and several theatrical demonstrations. That’s right, he can lick his fingers clean. If you’re thinking that just sounds unsanitary and maybe a little repulsive, you’ve obviously not had to deal with a kid who wants you to wipe off his peanut-butter-coated pinky after every single bite of his lunch (“Mama help? Riwwy pinger?”).
:::
When I was in Oregon for Labor Day weekend, we made multiple stops at Coos Bay’s premiere drive-through coffee joint, Dutch Bros., and I discovered the magic that is a blended iced vanilla latte. It’s like a sweet delicious combination of a milkshake and a coffee slushy. The way Dutch Bros. makes it results in a perfect ice/coffee/milk ratio, where as you drink it you slowly leave behind a sucked-clean pile of shaved ice.
I’ve now tried to re-create this drink at two different Starbucks, and the results were hideous each time. They blend in too much air, so it’s frothy instead of icy. There’s no ice content, it’s just a cold sort of coffee smoothie. Hard to describe, but it’s definitely no good.
Now that I know the Perfect Warm Weather Coffee Drink exists, I feel it is my mission to find a place that can make it. I can’t go back to Dutch Bros. without a helluva road trip, because the only one in Washington is located in Spokane (where presumably there are not 503857281 competing Starbucks), so what’s a person to do? Call Dutch Bros. and beg them for their recipe like a total shivering JUNKIE?
:::
Yesterday, I ate a meal comprised of liverwurst, mini pretzels, pimiento olives, and candy corn. It was so phenomenally wonderful just writing about it makes me slobber a little. There are a few things I really like about pregnancy, and the near-spiritual, angelic-chorus-accompanied full-body appreciation of the occasional junk food splurge is definitely one of them.
See also: Ding Dongs, strange new addiction to; blended lattes, obsession with.
Sep
6
September 6, 2007
JB and I used to sleep with both the cat and the dog piled on the bed with us, a situation that sounds about as attractive to me now as inviting several Himalayan yaks to snuggle under the covers. It’s not that I love their pea-headed, useless selves any less, but I’ve come to prefer the sensation of a fur-free mouth, and the absence of someone repeatedly licking their reproductive parts within five inches of my head. (JB only wishes he could do this.)
Cat is hardly ever in the house at night these days, choosing instead to hunt small defenseless animals during the summer evenings. Our vacation threw her out of sorts, though, because while she is in fact comprised primarily of Evil and Healthy Weight Cat Food For Adult Cats, there is a tiny portion of her diabolical catbrain that actually cares about us. Or at least cares about the possibility of being present during the event of our untimely housebound demise, so she can fulfill her feline destiny by feverishly gnawing the tips of our stiffening-with-rigor-mortis noses.
She was unusually clingy on Tuesday night, so despite my misgivings we allowed her on the bed with us. Just like old times, except despite Dog’s liquid gaze I did not go so far as to make it a four-mammal party.
After one night of this, I can’t imagine why anyone sleeps with their pets. I kept waking up and readjusting the comforter, because there was always a dead, purring weight preventing me from covering myself. She did the grippy-claw thing over and over, kneading our sheets with an annoying little rip rip rip sound. She slithered around our heads and stuck her butt in our faces, she padding over our prone forms looking for the warmest spot, she tried to sleep directly on our mouths, prompting JB to announce at midnight that “Jesus fuck, the cat is trying to steal my breath!”.
I felt like I had been slowly and ineptly molested all night by a shedding, purring blob of Purina Breath. Most unpleasant. Not only that, but right on schedule, in the wee hours of the morning when all was still and the human occupants—especially the pregnant ones—should have been blessed with silent, restful slumber, she hitched a leg northward and started vigorously slurping at her, you know, chocolate starfish turd cutter mahogany knot Rusty Sheriff’s Badge anal region.
No more of that, then. Last night we put her out as usual, but as you might expect from such an instrument of Evil, she exacted her revenge: for the first time, she figured out that the rain barrel directly outside our bedroom window is a perfect place to sit and yowl at top volume. At 5-goddamned-AM.
In other news, I’ve been feeling weirdly unsettled recently and I think I’ve figured out why: my house is a disaster. I don’t just mean the general filth and chaos caused by the now-seemingly-paused remodel work, I mean there is clutter and disorganization in every single room, on every surface. Clothes half-unpacked from the trip, mail strewn across the table, toys everywhere, books and magazines and old newspapers and laundry and grocery dry goods that don’t fit on our makeshift pantry and etc, etc, etc. Have you noticed that when your home surroundings are particularly unkempt, it dumps a sort of psychic detritus in your brain that follows you around all day? I feel like I have a mental Pigpen cloud hanging over my head, this sensation of unfinished business that’s lurking somewhere just out of sight. Know what I mean? Damn it, am I ALONE HERE?
Oddly, parts of my house are sparkling clean, as the cleaning people just did their business on Monday. When we started the remodel work JB put forth the opinion that we should pause the cleaning service during the, ha ha, short amount of time that the house would be torn up, and boy howdy am I glad I didn’t listen to him. My kitchen may be AWOL, but by god my toilets are ring-free.
Every time the cleaning people come, there is some strange, yet welcome touch they leave behind. Sometimes they arrange Riley’s stuffed animals in a tidy, alert-and-staring sort of manner on his shelves. Sometimes they fold the toilet paper into a crisp little point. This time, someone took the time and effort to squeeze all the toothpaste in my nearly-empty tube down towards the cap, a useful maneuver I never bother with, preferring instead to crush the holy hell out of the thing until it’s a crumpled aluminum ball.
It is sadly comforting that in the midst of a messy, deranged-looking house, my toothpaste tube is a model of efficiency and harmony. Aquafresh: teeth whitener, zen koan.
-
My product review site:
[