Apr
25
April 25, 2006
Spring has finally sprung here in the Northwest; the skies are bright, the air is warm, and I want to roll on my back in the lush green grass like Dog, except more for the joy of the season and less for the benefit of grinding poop into my fur.
Yesterday was so sunny and generally fabulous I thought it would be a great idea to work on my vegetable garden box, and so I prepped the boy for travel (check diaper, offer bottle, de-booger nose [child’s nose, unless own nose requires similar], perform onesie Cuteness Assessment) and motored down to Home Depot, which I assumed I would have practically to myself since it was the middle of a Monday afternoon.
Au contraire, Pierre! Apparently the Home Deport garden center on a weekday is where all of Bellevue’s Diamond B’Dazzled Housewives Driving Beamer SUVs hang out. I would have guessed that particular demographic would all be at bikram yoga or the Bellevue Square Mall or flitting around the lake on their yacht named “The Microsoft Golden Handcuff” but no, they were out in full force at Home Depot, taking up the good parking spots and buying flats of pansies and marigolds and totally bogarting the herb aisle.
(Maybe I’m just bitchy because I drive a ’97 Corolla, but is it really necessary to wear formal jewelry with a pink velour sweatsuit? I don’t care if the label does say “Juicy” and half your Botox’d ass is peeping out, it’s fucking sweat pants. Lose the bling.)
I managed to elbow my way through the tastefully highlighted throng and picked up this year’s attempt at homegrown edibles: broccoli, peppers, corn, tomatoes, and zucchini, which I’m sure will either grow freakishly out of control and become the housing for a million spiders (tomatoes) or produce a tiny mutant stilted version of its vegetable potential before being eaten by birds (everything else).
I even planted a container of “catmint” for Cat, despite the fact that she is most definitely on my shit list for having massacred a mouse on two separate occasions lately and left, right by the front door, 1) a tiny decapitated head connected to a naked spinal column and 2) a solitary severed paw.
Riley sat in the backyard with me while I was planting, propped in his bouncy seat waving around the scuffed plastic measuring cup he loves beyond all reason. I can’t adequately describe the simple animal pleasure of digging into the warm loamy dirt, watching my curious boy watching me back; it was a deeply wonderful afternoon that felt somehow transcended from all identifying details, like I could have been anyone, anywhere, working in the earth with my son nearby.
It’s awesome to see the good weather again, to look forward to long summer nights and puttering in the backyard and neighborhood walks, and everything is made extra joyous by our little boy; everything is even sweeter, the sun is even brighter.
:::
In other news, I’ve been accepted as a contributing writer for a website called ClubMom. They purport to pay me actual U.S. currency for this effort, which is both vaguely thrilling and intimidating; I’m excited by the prospect of freelance blogging, I’m nervous that I won’t have readers or I’ll be up at 3 AM trying to meet my quota or I’ll just…run out of things to say.
A lack of quality content certainly hasn’t stopped me before, though, so carpe the fucking diem, right? I’ll be keeping a blog over at ClubMom about life with a baby, which I’m sure won’t be entirely dissimilar to many of my posts here except maybe not so much with the F bomb. I’ll still be posting here because I will give up this website when you pry it from my cold dead fingers, but I hope you come check out the new blog when it’s up and running, if only so I know I have friends in the audience and I don’t have to picture everyone naked.
Oh, and I could use your help with something for this whole venture: I need to submit a few names for my ClubMom blog. Ultimately they get to choose because hey, they sign the check, but I’d like to know your opinions. Here’s what I’ve thought of so far:
If You Don’t Like the Weather
You know the saying ‘if you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes’? Like for an unpredictable climate? I thought this was a great metaphor for parenting a baby: smiles and laughter one minute, red-faced howler monkey shrieking the next. Plus, it’s got a homey sort of Erma Bombeck ring to it.
The Lime In the Coconut
Okay, so the “Coconut” song that goes:
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank ’em both up (3x)
Put the lime in the coconut, she called the doctor, woke him up, and said
Doctor, ain’t there nothin’ I can take, I said
Doctor, to relieve this bellyache, I said
Doctor, ain’t there nothin’ I can take, I said
Doctor, to relieve this bellyache
Now let me get this straight
Put the lime in the coconut, you drank ’em both up (3x)
Put the lime in the coconut, you called your doctor, woke him up, and said
Doctor, ain’t there nothin’ I can take, I said
Doctor, to relieve this bellyache, I said
Doctor, ain’t there nothin’ I can take, I said
Doctor, to relieve this bellyache
You put the lime in the coconut, you drink ’em both together
Put the lime in the coconut, then you feel better
Put the lime in the coconut, drink ’em both up
Put the lime in the coconut, and call me in the morning
You’re totally singing that to yourself right now, aren’t you? Dude, it’s the best song and it’s impossible to feel bad if you’re singing it. Lately I’ve been singing it to Riley while simultaneously performing a most excellent dance number that involves lots of pointing, rump-wiggling, and exaggerated strides around the room. Add in a Dog-startling falsetto on the “DOCTOR…” part and, well, all I can tell you is that Riley finds it greatly entertaining.
So I’m just loving on the song lately, but also! You can take ‘the cause of your problems is also the cure’ from the lyrics, if you don’t mind reaching a little. The baby is driving me crazy, the baby is teaching me patience. The lime! The coconut!
Purple Is a Fruit
If you’re using the Simpsons’ episode storage center of your brain for something more useful, like remembering how to drive a stick shift or multiply fractions, here is the quote in context:
Homer: Lisa, would you like a donut?
Lisa: No thanks. Do you have any fruit?
Homer: This has purple in it. Purple is a fruit.
I like this as a blog name because it sort of embodies my general cluelessness about parenting. Purple is a fruit, right? Um…right?
Anyway, maybe they’re all super lame, I don’t know. It’s a blog title, I don’t want to obsess over it too much, but if you like one more than the other please cast your vote in the comments. Thanks, and you guys rule, did you know that? Because you do.
Apr
24
April 24, 2006
After spending five hours in a car getting to Eugene, I then spent all of Saturday jiggling Riley in my lap making small talk with the female relatives while the menfolk built their fence. At the end of the day JB looked at me and with total apologetic sincerity said “Gosh, this must have been boring for you.”
It was one of those moments of dichotomy where I wanted to leap up and do the end zone dance because OF COURSE IT WAS and I TOLD YOU SO and yet what would be the point, I was already there.
Next time Mr. Sawyer tries to sell me on another fence-related weekend involving a road trip, however, I’m going to tell him to rub it, spit on it, and cram it in sideways.
I didn’t help with the fence assembly since the NO GURLZ ALOWD sign, while not technically visible, was definitely there (men build fences! women put out lunch materials and hover in the background urging men to have more deviled eggs!), but I did take vicarious pleasure in JB’s toolbelt, which he sported as proudly as a caveman wearing the pelt of a saber-tooth tiger.
Also, this business about stranger anxiety (where babies start becoming fearful of new faces) apparently does not apply one whit to young Riley, who practically purred like a cat over all the activity and people. He was so engaged and happy I started feeling vaguely guilty about our own comparatively quiet household environment. How the combination of JB and I produced a potential extrovert, I’ll never know.
Best moment from the weekend: JB’s brother was holding a tired, starting-to-get-crabby Riley in his lap, and as the boy started winding into a full-fledged crying fit, began patting his back gently and saying in a smooth, sympathetic tone, “I’m so sorry for your loss”.
(JB’s brother is a funeral director.)
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