Who Here Likes Crazy?

Happy Fourth, Everyone!

Things are going pretty well. Mr Roboto found a job, so he's excited and relieved, though it's in San Diego, so he's driving quite a bit. The kiddos are doing well and seem happy. We've been to the water park a few times, and we took a couple mini-vacations, but the preteen seems to be happiest when left to her own devices... which means reading Japanese comics online or playing with her PSP. Dr Zoo went out of town to see his family and celebrate his parents' FIFTIETH, which is adorable. He said he wished I could go along, but it's just too early for that, and anyway, the kids... Cute that he wanted that, though. He'll be gone for his birthday, too, so I'll have to think of something nice to do for him.

One of my internet crushes from waaayyy back is coming out here for work and wants to meet up, so that should be interesting. FORESHADOWING.

I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance, chasing coyotes in the back yard (pups! awww!), swimming, eating too well, making stupid sketch comedy videos, and working. Sadly, probably in that order. The only vids I've posted are the Belissa Blog videos, but those are getting crazy amounts of hits, so that makes me pretty happy. I love absurdity.

Made three characters. Belissa. Manny. and Ilejna.

Here's Belissa's Blog.



and

One of the very few drawbacks to my recent move, aside from missing my SF friends, is that I quit my band and haven't really been doing -anything- musically for the past couple of months. I really wanted to do something tangible this year, have one solid thing that I could be somewhat proud of. We were working toward several gigs, and I'd written a bluesy tune that I was excited about, to which my bandmates were contributing some good rock edge. Well... that's over.

I think I get really inhibited from time to time because I am so far behind the curve on my skill. Up until last year, I knew maybe three chords on a guitar, and all I do with a piano is plunk at it to pick out whatever my ear wants. But I have songs that want out, so I try... because I love it.

After a phone call last night, from someone who is always very (overly!) supportive about my "talent," I was inspired to film a very short video of a rough draft of a song I'd been kicking around. I think that sharing it will make me want to improve it. I know it will. I'll want to show you that I can do better. If you see me in my embarrassing underoos, maybe that will motivate me to get fully dressed.

Whatever. I never said I was normal.

*Jitterbug*

The song is still in my head.

So... everything is going pretty well, and there's a lot to catch up here. I think I'll save most of that for my frenzlist. In a nutshell, my ex from NC (but not the one you're thinking, probably) came up for Memorial Day weekend to visit. I put my son into, and promply withdrew him from, public school. He's in a private Montessori elementary now. I was worried about how I would afford this when my good work karma caught up with me in the form of an old boss who hunted me down to work for his own company... from home! I've been kind of sick for the past couple of days, but Mr. Roboto finished up his job at Lucasfilm and is finally moving down this weekend to be with us here permanently. YAY!

My friend Mt. Everest was helping me unpack a couple of leftover boxes yesterday, and we found the video camera. It's really slapdash and silly, but we had a few hours to kill and I wanted to try out the software on my NEW COMPUTAR(!@#$@#), which I just got in order to facilitate New Job. So yeah, if you remember the "Puppies Are Cute" video, it's kind of that level of ridiculous, with a little stereotyping thrown in for silly's sake. I hope that my comedy stylings, directing, and production level in general will improve over the summer... because it sure is fun. And my kid-- I'm sorry, maybe it's just me, but -- SO CUTE!

IF you were wondering where half the population of Palm Springs' older gay male couples went this afternoon, I can tell you. They were with me. Sitting in the Mary Pickford theater #2 in Cathedral City, watching Sex and the City. MOST of the audience was made up of men.

I find this awesome. They laughed and clapped, and occasionally screamed*. I was a little sad that I didn't have any girl friends out here to go with, but this more than made up for it. That was one appreciative audience. (Note: I also saw a couple of older het couples, and many a funky-hatted older woman with stilettos. There were only about three groups of young women that I saw. Of course, it was a matinee...)

As far as the movie goes, I've read some pretty bad reviews, and there are definitely flaws and disappointing character arcs... but I'll say this. It's been a long time since a movie made me care enough to cry. I really didn't mind that it lasted eight hours. Seriously.

*I just want to go on record to say that, though I enjoyed the particular grouping of gay men and couples who watched the movie in the theater with me, I do not think that to be homosexual means automatically being an "occasionally screaming" hysterical fashion-and-drama hound or reduces the aforementioned group of men to being nothing more than "fabulous queens" who can't get enough SatC.

There is a water park just around the corner from us. In exactly the time it takes to play the Kooks "Always Where I Need to Be," a song I love on a sunny day, you can get from my driveway to the parking lot and jump out to race to the front gates. WeeMan and I raced up the rope ladders to various water slides in a gigantic fort, and then we floated around on the little fake lazy river for a while. We got there just a couple of hours before the park closed, so we got just enough time to swim and then run around, shaking off the water like pups in the heat. It was 105 degrees, so by the time we got to our lockers, we were already dry. On the way to the car, we saw a mother bird feeding her baby from a nest she'd build halfway up a palm tree. I came home and sat by our pool for a while, while the sun sank behind the mountains. I still have that Kooks song in my head, a happy, sleepy kid cuddled up next to me, and a slight warmth in my skin from the sun I got. Why can't it always be like this?

During a break between household chores today, I flipped on the television and saw a commercial clip from a reality show (I think it was The Real World, actually) in which a young lady drunkenly declares, "I'm waayy hotter than that slut in the glitter belt," and... it randomly struck me that it is a crazy, amazing, and terrible thing that there are, concurrently on this same planet today, teams of disaster relief workers trying desperately to find any desperately struggling, breathing bodies left in heaps of rubble from the several recent natural disasters ...

and elsewhere, an ill-mannered, inarticulate idiot (whose "fame," I'll add, is related to his speaking) wearing a plastic helmet and a gigantic clock necklace, picking off scary women who have been offered to him, like so many nasty salmonella-riddled entrees on a picnic buffet, for TV ratings. And the biggest problem here is that I can tell you way more about that dehumanizing picnic, am more invested-- on however shallow a level-- in viewing that spectacle, than I am informed regarding the plights of the millions of people involved in the very real tragedies going on, or in what I can do to help.

I try not to feel too ashamed. I can explain. But in the end, today, I don't want to. I just want to tip the scales the other way.

Awesome thing about living in Palm Springs #296: Just a little over an hour to Disneyland.

So the thrill of this one really belongs to my son, but because his extreme joy is such that it radiates to heat all of those around him, including his mommy, I'm counting it. For Mothers Day weekend, I took my kiddo to ride Splash Mountain, and together we scream-sing-laughed at mechanical animals while Mt Everest, who insisted on sitting in front, took the full, merciless brunt of the waves on what was an altogether cool, cloudy day. (Ha! Instant karma, greedy!) It was awesome and hilarious, and thanks to the very recent loss of his front tooth, WeeMan's giant, beatific jack-o-lantern grin was the best Mothers Day gift I could have hoped to lay eyes on.

A phone call this morning from my sweet TripleP made me very happy, too, and comes in second only because it's not quite as nice as having her to hug in person. Alas, that pleasure will be delayed until the beginning of next month.

So Happy Mothers Day to my mom in Wallis, Texas, the most wonderful, most brilliant, toughest, supportive, beautifully tender heart I've had the pleasure to know. Proof that my dad not only makes awesome kids-- he has excellent taste in women.

Happy Mothers Day to my second mom in Atlanta, GA. Life events may not have allowed her to be actually related to me, but in my heart, the bond is unbreakable. If there was some kind of lifetime award for fierce loyalty and love, it would be hers, and I have admired the strength and determination of her love, particularly for her family, for the decade (DECADE!) I've known her.

Happy Mothers Day to YOUR moms, my friends, because they each clearly did a good job with you.

And lastly, because I have seen this holiday from some difficult vantage points before, I want to extend some extra love to those of you who feel a twist in your heart today because you are separated from your mother, either by geography or loss of another sort. Likewise to the single mothers out there whose children don't have someone to help them show you their gratitude and love in a traditional manner today. Rest assured that your job-- your love, your patience (though perhaps not constant), your effort-- is the most important on earth, and I respect your role with all my heart. I know I'm not alone.

Awesome thing about living in Palm Springs #235: Coyotes.

Okay, so today's awesome thing is more about the "awe" than the rad feeling. I was putting away groceries and making peanut butter and jelly sammiches. Mt Everest and WeeMan were standing on our patio out back, just on the other side of the kitchen, cleaning the grill and fixing a fan, when I hear Mt Everest exclaim, "What tha!"

I figured it was something confounding regarding the mechanics of the various tasks they were accomplishing, but I perked my ears up a bit anyway. Mumbles. Then WeeMan, who has some trouble following orders to whisper, asks loudly, "That's a coyote?!"

Oooh! So I stepped around the kitchen table to the open door, and oh my god! Not three feet away, a large and rangy coyote was kinda casually loping around our open back yard, headed for the next tee on the golf course. He was in no hurry, even though there were several black birds freaking the hell out all around us. He stared us in the face, probably casing the joint, and then he went back to trying to figure out a good way to get off the open greenway. We watched him with some mixture of thrill, amazement, curiosity, and horror until he disappeared under some bushes that lead to other peoples' private patios on the other side of the course.

Not long after, an older couple walked by with their Yorkies on leashes. The lady was on the phone, and I called to the gentleman to inquire as to whether or not they'd seen our new neighbor. "Yeah," the man said. "We chased him down here. They've had a lot of problems with the coyotes around here recently. Particularly with pups and the younger children," he added, pointedly, gesturing toward WeeMan.

Fantastic. Scare my kid. He continued, "They've been pretty aggressive lately. We have problems with mountain lions from time to time, too. If you see one, just... just... raise your arms over your head and try to intimidate them."

Why am I suddenly picturing the illustrations in Where the Wild Things Are?

I guess it's time to place a few orders with ACME.

Awesome thing about living in Palm Springs, #234: Hearing seventy(plus) year old women, dressed in shiny gold sandals, in Target laughing and calling each other 'girlfriend.'

"This is just darling!" holding up a purple sundress.

"I know! I saw that, myself."

"Get it!"

"Get-- I need to get out of here before you spend all my money, girl!"

"Ha Ha! But you know you would look--" So hot? Fly? Way sexier than that damned Ethel?

Their laughter and conversation faded out to me as I headed for the bicycles, but they sounded so happy and loud. I got a good giggle out of it.

I stepped gingerly through the crazy maze of boxes in our new living room, looking for a giant stuffed dog. WeeMan, now a super tall six-year-old, followed behind, asking over and over, "Where's Astronaut Puppy? Do you see him?"

"Astronaut Puppy?!" my friend, Mt Everest, said.

"Yeah, that's what he named it." I didn't see it, so WeeMan left to look in another room.

Mt Everest laughed. "I know. He told me. I asked him why he named it Astronaut Puppy, and he said, 'Because it's so big.'"

"Well, I guess if it makes sense to him, that's what matters." I yelled down the hall to my son, "See if he's with Armadillo!" Armadillo is his beloved stuffed Build-A-Bear rabbit. "Whatever. I love the way he names his animals. It's hilarious. PrettyPoutingPreteen used to name hers based solely on what they looked like. She had 'Rabbit That's Pink' and 'Black Hair Boy.' I couldn't get her to give them actual names, until she was about four and finally started calling every single one of her toys 'Rainbow Heart Flower.'"

"Rainbow Heart Flower? Really?" (PPP is not a girl you'd imagine naming -anything- Rainbow Heart Flower these days. If it doesn't come from Hot Topic or have something to do with manga, she doesn't have time for it.)

"Yep. But WeeMan... I've noticed he likes names with four syllables, stressing the third. When we got Armadillo on his fifth birthday, he didn't have any idea what an armadillo even was."

WeeMan walks back into the room. "Yes, I did! It's an animal it goes like it makes itself into a ball!" Speed-talking to prove he's no idiot, he also tried to curl himself into a demonstrative ball.

"No, WeeMan," Mr Roboto piped up from the couch. "I realize you know what it is now, but at the time, you had no real concept of an armadillo."

"But now I do!"

"Yes," I reassured him. "We agree. You do know now. Anyway, he named that one Armadillo--"

"Armadillo Fluffington Honeybutt!"

Mt Everest laughed, and I continued. "That one Armadillo... the orange monkey is Arabella... then this year, on his birthday, he got the skateboarding bear from Build-A-Bear, and he named it Barracuda. See? ArmaDILLo, AraBELLa, BarraCUda... I don't know what it is about that sound, but he clearly digs it."

"Does he know what a barracuda is?" Mt Everest asked.

"No!" I laughed. "I think he just hears the 'bear' in the word 'barracuda,' and so... we tried to explain it to--"

WeeMan can barely contain himself. "I do TOO know what a barracuda is! It's... SOME KIND OF MOOSE!"

Something about living in San Francisco, as much as I love/d it, has made me less enjoy posting to LJ. I have no idea what the connection is there. However, I'm moving to Palm Springs, and suddenly I feel like I am ready to start writing again.

I love the city. I am so sorry about the things and people I will miss when I'm not here.

But for the first time in about three years, I feel SO excited and optimistic! I want some sunshine!

A glimpse of my life heart.

(Hope this doesn't do anything odious for any of you in the loading.)

I've been kind of hanging out close to home these days. I feel like there's a little regrouping in my life. I'm happy with things in general. One of my kiddos is doing really well, and I've come to terms (as much as I can) with the situation regarding the other. I like my apartment, and the people with whom I share it. I love my friends. I'm having a lot of fun with the band. My sister and I are closer than we've been in a long time.

I think it's actually the fact that things -are- okay and stable that is making me take a good, close look at myself. One of the harder, honest facts I've had to face recently is that i haven't actually been happy (my typical joyous, fully-alive feeling) since I was with George in North Carolina. Or rather, since he left.

I definitely don't wish we were still together, but I think that my ability to trust suffered and that, even while I was able to pick up and move on-- even be excited or happy about specific events in my life, I just carry around this feeling of impending doom. If the person you love and who has done a good job of acting like they love you for two years could make you and your kids homeless on a self-described "whim," who can you trust?

Obviously, the answer is that everyone isn't George. I guess I'm just doubting my ability to call it.

I think I've worked through a lot of this in the past couple of years, and I'd really like to reclaim some of my former joy this year, if it's possible to do that by choice.

I feel kind of cocoon-like right now, which is nice, really... but ultimately, I'd like to hit those skies again. (Is that metaphor less cheesy than the phoenix thing? Probably not. Sign me up for both.)

In other news, HEE! After six or more years flying under the radar and getting the occasional nod from Jacob via recap shout-out, I just got suddenly and inexplicably banned (BANNED!) from the TWoP/ American Idol forums. I guess I was just a little too frossy for them.

And on that note, every time I see Colton Berry, I think "YES SEN SEI!" He is kind of adorable, though.

Today is my birthday. I am twenty-eleven in twenty-oh-eight. And massive storms, preteen angst, and cold weather aside, January has looked pretty stupendous, for a change.

What A Long, Strange Trip...

Christmas was nice. We went to Apple Farm in San Luis Obispo. It was a little precious, what with the overly decorated, wooden ornamented, anything-in-sight-lighted, Someone's-Uber-Christian-Mommy-was-the-interior-designer schtick... but that's kind of what I want at Christmas time. We hadn't even intended to go out of town, but around the time of our holiday party, Wee-Man started breaking out in hives in the apartment, so we thought we'd give him a break until we figured out what was causing the allergy. (Still don't know. It followed us to SLO, but it seems to be gone now.) Santa followed the poor little guy down there, which pleased and delighted him no end. He swore he saw us Santa in the middle of the night, but I "must have still been asleep." (I slept not one wink that night, btw.)

My daughter (from now on known as Triple P, for Pretty-Pouting-Preteen) flew in the day after Christmas, so we held off on gift-opening until she got here. We played board games and card games and reindeer video games for days, and then we went bowling. I hadn't done that since I was a kid, but it was super fun. We very stupidly braved Embarcadero for New Years Eve, where the fireworks were LOVELY but the people beyond stupid. I'm grateful that we made it out of there without incident; my New Years Resolution is to never do that again.

I guess I had some kind of premonition before the storms hit the Bay Area, and I decided I wanted to get out of the city.* I felt really anxious and itchy, so we went to Sacramento for a couple days to play where we did over the summer. (I guess I could have heard the prediction if I'd turned on the tv, but I hadn't. This is only interesting and lucky in that I am absolutely phobic when it comes to high-wind storms. Where I'm from, that means Tar-Nadas, and my entire nervous system says Noooo-oo-oo, Thanks.) So we spent a few days out there, and we didn't fully escape, but at least I did not witness any trees fall over and land roots-up. I saw plenty of that when I got back to San Francisco.

Since I've been back, I've been getting up every morning, working out for an hour at the gym, and then walking a mile or so down the beach. Ocean Beach looks NASTY from the oil spill and (worse, even) the assholes who tore it up on New Years Eve. There is trash everywhere-- bottles, plastic, fireworks detritus... and dead jellyfish.

Oh man, the jellies. God knows I have been stung enough times in my life to feel an aversion, but they were everywhere, their clear forms limp along the line of dark wet sand where the tide had been. One little guy was still kind of pulsing, so we put him back in the water, but I don't know if that actually helps. I hope so. Depressing. I've heard Ocean Beach derided as being disgusting, but this is the first time I've actually seen it look bad since I've been here.

Anyway, after my beach walk, I hang out and write for a couple of hours in a little neighborhood cafe, eating granola and milk or sipping hot peach tea. My stress level feels much lower than I can remember it being.

and THAT... has been a long time coming.

Happy 2008 to you, and I'm sorry, but Good RID to '07. The most I can say for last year is that I hope I learned some lessons.

*FTR, I do not think I was actually making psychic storm predictions.

The air was choking on a thick rain that stunk of sulphur. Cars shrugged through stoplights where the intersections were clogged with puddles, grey pools that swirled with the rinsed yellow pollens and refinery chemicals that daily coated the town. Inside a dirty white minivan, the scornful tone of a middle-aged woman toward her teenaged daughter was punctuated mightily by the steady thump of drops on the hood and the screeching, wagging fingers on the windshield.

“If you don’t care about appearances, I do. Do you want everyone to think you’re not a virgin?”

At the last word, the bony passenger recoiled. Barricading herself from her mother’s lecture with a sharp shoulder and a mass of thick brown hair, she turned abruptly toward the passenger window. “Please. Why would they think that? Do you think that?”

“You tell me.” Aurora could hear her mother’s lips purse, her eyebrow raise, her suspicion louder than reason. Louder than love. She whipped her head back around, ready to boil with righteous indignation but stopped short with the heady realization that greater suffering could be repaid by allowing her mother to continue to doubt. No display of rage could hurt like the vivid mental images of a parent who didn’t trust her child. Aurora was wounded by the doubt; she would not relieve her mother with the truth.

“Well, I just don’t want to wear a white dress,” Aurora sniffed. “It’s my wedding, and I look like a dead person in white. I’d rather have people wonder about my virtue than speculate about my freaking pulse, if they’re going to be so rude. Being suspicious of the bride is not very Christian,” she added pointedly. The small guest list was comprised mostly of congregation members.

Aurora’s mother swerved to avoid a stalled truck and narrowly missed a ditch. “Don’t you dare speak that way to me!” She kept her angry eyes on the road but held up her small round hand as though she intended to slap. “I will not tolerate language of that sort, and you are not too old for me to spank.”

Aurora snorted and stuck her forehead to the foggy glass above her door. “Give me a freaking break,” she mouthed, queasy and filling with adrenaline. Her heart was heavy, but she had mustered the futile resolve to silently repeat the offending word. The van felt small under the endless shadow of the storm, swimming like a rat through the soggy streets.

Why is it always the most insecure, unfortunate-looking, mean-tempered women who find themselves trying their damnedest to look like Bettie Page? I've noticed this and the whole "I'm a smart librarian chick" become costumes for the unhappy over the past five or six years, whereas before that, the girls copping that look were either ACTUALLY smart, librarian chicks or super-creative subversives. I guess like any "look," it turns into a costume when those with low self esteem think adopting the image will magically GIVE them smarts/cool, or at least cause others to assume things about their personalities without any real proof. Every day is Halloween, indeed. It's like a stand-in for character. Worse, it's sometimes like an admission that a person doesn't think they are any good as they are, without some kind of subculture with which to identify herself. (This bugs me particularly when I think it's all about an attempt to be considered 'hot.')

I don't know. It's not that I think I'm so much better. In fact, part of this feeling is thinking I recognize the pressures and inferiority that create it. It just sometimes makes me really sad and frustrated... angry.

Word games are serious business in this household. Cut-throat competition. While playing Quiddler with Mike and Steve in the hallway tonight (we do the most random things), I decided to play a hand that wasn't worth many points, just because fate had dealt me some fine comedy. I don't think this counts as a proper noun so much as a calling to my true inner being:



It was worth trashing the superfluous "a."

I am loving kindergarten, living it vicariously through Wee-Man. The kids bring home the most delightfully misspelled love letters, barely-hanging-together crafts and art projects. Every day, my little monkey has some fantastic story about who did what to him on the play yard (usually it's Olivia, scratching him in her kiss-chase reaching) or who brought what to Show and Tell.

With the approach of Thanksgiving, the kids planned a big classroom feast and a Talent Show. In preparation, each child was supposed to pick a talent to perform and choose an "Indian name." (Which is actually pretty shocking to me, that this flies in San Francisco without protest. Even I kind of twitched a little, and I grew up thinking PC stood for "Potata Chips.") Wee-Man refused to let me aid in his choices for name and talent. I asked him if he wanted to sing a song or do a magic trick, but he told me he already had a better idea: He was going to do some gymnastics and tell a joke. Please note that my kidlet does not take gymnastics. I was surprised, but he insisted he already had his act together. So to speak...

He kept telling me I was going to be so surprised. I figured the teacher was helping.

So the big day rolled around, and all of the parents filed in to Wee-Man's classroom. The kids were acting as "Indians;" the parents were to put on hats signifying Pilgrims. Children trooped around in their paper-bag vests and construction paper headbands with feathers. The kids "taught" the adults how to make popcorn, and everyone ate donated turkey and trimmings. After the feeding frenzy, noise built to fever pitch, and the Talent Show began. Various children shyly presented their adorable-if-less-than-skilled performances (fumble-reading a story, singing a bit of a song, showing some karate or ballet moves learned), and finally Mrs B announced, "And now... with some gymnastics and comedy for us... LIGHTNING THUNDER!"

Lightning Thunder, AKA Wee-Man, BOLTED up out of his chair to run full speed to the front of the room, but in his excitement, he knocked his chair over and fell.

As Mrs B had declared his a comedy performance, most of the parents thought this was part of the act, and they began to laugh.

Lightning Thunder leapt to his feet and struggled. Should he roll with it? As comedy, it killed. But he had a small red mark on his neck, and already Mrs B was asking if he was okay. Should he deny a moment of sympathetic cuddles and attention?! COULD he? When faced with the dilemma of getting attention for being funny, or cuddles for being hurt, a Wee-Man is torn, indeed.

Excuse me. A Lightning Thunder.

In the end, he decided he could achieve both. He requested a cold paper towel for his neck, and Mrs B suggested he sit one out and wait a turn. Lightning Thunder accepted the towel, but he soon realized the harsh chill of the spotlight's perimeter. He must have its warmth again! Halfway through the next kid's act, Lightning Thunder declared to the room, "I'm ready now!" He sprang to his feet and usurped the stage. To my delighted shame, he was actually allowed to do this.

Then began his gymnastics. "I'm going to do a handstand!" He flipped twice, grunting, and then announced, "I've never tried this before!" After a couple more somersaults, Lightning Thunder bowed to the audience and announced, "Well! Those were flips!" He was going to do more, as the audience of parents was appreciative with their cheers, but Mrs B suggested we move on to the jokes.

"KNOCK KNOCK!" Lightning Thunder prompted.

"Who's there?" Parents and kids queried.

"Hoo!"

"Hoo Who?"

"Don't cry, Don't cry!" This, like gangbusters. Even though personally, I always heard it before as "Boo Hoo." Those kids loved it!

He told the "Banana, Banana, Orange (You Glad I Didn't Say Banana)" Joke, and then "Police (Poleese, will you open the door)" joke... and realized he never wanted to leave.

Lightning Thunder began trying to make up Knock Knock jokes on the fly, but sadly, none of them were making sense, and the audience was losing understanding (but not yet the will to live, mercifully.) Some of the kids kept laughing anyway, for... solidarity?

Mrs B stepped in, and Lightning Thunder took a most MAJESTIC bow.

CAN I TELL YOU HOW PROUD I AM?! DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU?! I wish you all could have seen him.

Wee Man turns six this month. He is reaching the age where he is getting totally excited about holidays because he finally really understands what it's all about. We have sort of divorced religion from the whole extravaganza, for many reasons, but I still do love twinkly lights and vacation time to spend with family and loved ones, baking goodies and spreading joy, I hope, rather than winter colds. It breaks up the dreariness I feel in the winter season, and I love it. Looks like Wee-Man does, too:



I know I'm his mother, but I find him adorable in a way that makes me ache. Yesterday, out of nowhere, he said to me, "Do you know what N.S. stands up for?"

(stands up? stands for?)

"What?" I asked.

"(k)Nuckle Sandwich!" And he died laughing, so I did, too.

I would like your addresses for Holiday cards/treats. Please send to lanaboren at gmail dot com.