Jul
23
July 23, 2006
It has been hot, here in Seattle. To us Pacific Northwesterners who often must don fleece coats and rain hats on the fourth of July, the temperatures have been hot. Africa-hot. Thank-god-we-got-air-conditioning-three-weeks-ago hot. Let’s-freeze-root-beer-in-ice-cubes hot.
(Root Cubes! Add to massive serving of ice cream for optimal flavor.)
I bought this awful kiddie pool a while back, it took so much effort to inflate its various parts I completely gave up on it and so for the last few weeks we’ve had this deflated hunk of plastic in the backyard that JB loved to make fun of. But this weekend I redeemed myself by scissoring off the entire top “canopy” section, which left a perfectly decent pool base. When Saturday got muggy beyond all reason, we put Riley in:
He was definitely a fan. Sadly, Dog had to be sequestered inside the house while the pool contained water, so badly did she want to splash and dig and rip it to pieces with her claws.
Today we made our first foray to a local beach. We’d lived here for what, four years now? And we’ve never gone to a beach to go swimming. I didn’t even think Lake Washington was swimmable, honestly. I thought people who actually got in the water and swam were wearing wetsuits, or were drunk, or had a seven-inch protective layer of blubber, or something.
I guess my own blubber finally worked in my favor today because that water felt amazing. It was just a knockout day, sunny and blue-skied and the lake sparkled and even the proximity of the I-90 overpass was sort of nice. We took Riley in the water and he went nuts, splashing and kicking and generally having a ball.
(Once again the photogenic mother-child moment escapes me.)
Man. Summer, you know? It goes by way too fast, every year.
This was a crazy weekend in terms of keeping Riley out of various dangers, I wrote about his current stage here, but suffice to say the boy is constantly moving, curious, pulling himself up on various things, and turning me into a nervous wreck.
A rare moment of sitting still.
Peeking at me from behind the sofa.
On a final note, I’d like to ask you something. Actually, let me show you something first:
Now let me recall for you a recent conversation I had with JB.
JB: I don’t like eating cereal out of these green bowls.
Me: Why?
JB: They’re too…fancy.
Me: I got them at Target for like three dollars. What do you mean, fancy.
JB: They’re too – I end up eating too much cereal when I use them.
Me: So put less cereal in.
JB: They’re just weird.
Me: They’re nicer than our plain white bowls, I think.
JB: I think most people would agree with me.
Me: That they’re…weird?
JB: Ask your journal readers.
Me: Fine.
JB (as an afterthought): But make sure to ask the guys.
W the proverbial F? Are the green glass bowls weird? Do you fear them? Would you be hesitant to fill one with cereal? If you’re a guy, does the white bowl reinforce your manhood in some inexplicable manner?
Jul
20
July 20, 2006
I was feeling unusually spiffy today in a semi-crisp white button-down shirt paired with a flouncy black skirt and heels (and sporting a rather cute necklace to boot); until, that is, I bit into my lunchtime sandwich and splurted a big old money shot of tomato all over myself.
I feel like the Fashion Gods have spoken. (“HEY SLOBBY! GO BACK TO T-SHIRTVILLE.”)
Lately I’ve been thinking about clothes more than I normally do; mostly because every time I go looking for a couple summery shirts to add to my pitiful wardrobe I get infuriated by the current styles, which in my personal experience can be described as “Suitable Only for Boobless Amazons”. Seriously, what is with the long, long, narrow-ass shirts – the preppy polo-y things, the Old Navy “perfect fit” t-shirts (perfect for rolling into a ball and being used to cram up the lower intestinal tract of the designer, maybe), the ruffle-fronted frothy button-up sleeveless blouses with high necks which are apparently meant to convey the confusing message “I am both contemporary and vaguely Victorian in my ensemble”, the plethora of horizontally-striped monstrosities – they all seem to hit at the same uber-unflattering top-of-thigh area on me, and I am of average height goddamnit, I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to wear a fucking nightgown over my jeans, and don’t even get me started on the fact that nothing can be worn over an actual pair of human breasts unless you don’t mind walking around with 3,000 psi of strain happening at chest level, which as everyone knows could totally result in an eye injury.
I was at the Gap yesterday, in the Annoying Mall near my office (the Annoying Mall is so named because of the overabundance of chichi young mothers it attracts, I know this just makes me sound obnoxious but whenever I go there I see so many Gucci-clad urban hipsters pushing their bling-rimmed strollers around and half-watching Junior clambering on the baby gym while they shop for Abercrombie & Fitch tank tops that perfectly fit their macrobiotic-dieted frames and buy their children $78 onesies from Kid’s Club, I want to bite them all on their freshly waxed and tanned calves. Which probably means that YES, when it comes to these Pilates-toned iPod-stroller-holder Puma-shoe-wearing women whose husbands apparently hand them a pile of gold ingots every morning and tell them to have a good time, I probably AM bitter and jealous, JUST A LITTLE), and I think they had maybe 5 styles of shirts in stock. All Amazonian, All Boobless. I don’t get it.
Man. Wearing heels and tomato stains all day will make a girl ranty.
In other news, I had dinner with my friend Chiara yesterday. It was her last night in town, because she’s moving to, holy shit, New Zealand. For like a year at least, which I found impossible to believe as we ate mounds of italian food and talked nonstop about blogs and journals and writing and all the stuff we always talk about, but the proof that she’s really going was in the back of my car: two of her stuffed octopuses, given to me and Riley for safekeeping while she’s away.
Chiara! I’ll miss you, girl. Your octopuses – um, especially the really fucking huge one, because he or she is awesome – are in good hands, okay?
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