I just love, love, LOVE little plastic towns with fake people who are real about being faux. I would so eat at Frank's Diner if I could just shrink and plastify myself.
Monday, October 19, 2009
My Kind of Diner
I just love, love, LOVE little plastic towns with fake people who are real about being faux. I would so eat at Frank's Diner if I could just shrink and plastify myself.
Visiting German
MK and The German in front of Phipps Consrvatory & Botanical Gardens, October 16, 2009
Last week MK hosted a visiting German High School teacher, Elke. We had a wonderful time and I will say no more lest I cause an international incident.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Babysitting
Junior called me last night for several reasons, not the least of which was to ask me what's wrong with the Steelers so far this year. She and D-Man have season tickets. They're totally obsessed. Their livingroom has a black and gold color scheme that she somehow makes work. Maybe it's the medieval weaponry peppered around the STEELER COUNTRY banner. I dunno. I'm not into interior decorating.
Seamless segue, she wanted me to stop by this morning to drop off some recipes I'd printed up off the computer for her (all Serbian dishes that seem to be based on butter, sausage, and heavy cream), along with what was leftover of the pot of sauerkraut and navy bean soup that I'd made the other day. I said sure because, why not? I wouldn't dare go near that soup, even though the kids ate it and survived. I just think that my ass would become a noxious area and I would like to think that I might have sex at some point this week. Not ass sex, regular sex, but my ass is nearby, and you probably get the too graphic picture by now, so I'll cease and desist.
Well, Junior had all three of her grandchildren today, babysitting on her day off, and of course I got roped in to help. Three hours of playing Nerf golf with a two year old who walked around in his underpants just in case we had to get him on the pot in a hurry. I love how he says my name, which made up for the mind numbing boredom: jenn-uh-FUR. Tacking the 'aunt' on the front of it is too much bother for him. He's a little dude of action, not words or titles. I can respect that, and technically I'm Great-Aunt jennuhFUR, so what the hell.
One cool thing: I got him to stick his finger up his nose while I was taking his picture. The biggest grin with his right index finger up there to the main knuckle! Can't wait to get the film developed.
I was glad to make my escape, though. I don't know how Junior watches all three of those kids at once. At least the baby is a sleeper, so that's one shred of mercy. But the other two just go nonstop. I think that this is why stay at home moms drink in the afternoon. It certainly would explain a lot.
Seamless segue, she wanted me to stop by this morning to drop off some recipes I'd printed up off the computer for her (all Serbian dishes that seem to be based on butter, sausage, and heavy cream), along with what was leftover of the pot of sauerkraut and navy bean soup that I'd made the other day. I said sure because, why not? I wouldn't dare go near that soup, even though the kids ate it and survived. I just think that my ass would become a noxious area and I would like to think that I might have sex at some point this week. Not ass sex, regular sex, but my ass is nearby, and you probably get the too graphic picture by now, so I'll cease and desist.
Well, Junior had all three of her grandchildren today, babysitting on her day off, and of course I got roped in to help. Three hours of playing Nerf golf with a two year old who walked around in his underpants just in case we had to get him on the pot in a hurry. I love how he says my name, which made up for the mind numbing boredom: jenn-uh-FUR. Tacking the 'aunt' on the front of it is too much bother for him. He's a little dude of action, not words or titles. I can respect that, and technically I'm Great-Aunt jennuhFUR, so what the hell.
One cool thing: I got him to stick his finger up his nose while I was taking his picture. The biggest grin with his right index finger up there to the main knuckle! Can't wait to get the film developed.
I was glad to make my escape, though. I don't know how Junior watches all three of those kids at once. At least the baby is a sleeper, so that's one shred of mercy. But the other two just go nonstop. I think that this is why stay at home moms drink in the afternoon. It certainly would explain a lot.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Sameness Not Being The Same
I'm reading "Driving With Dead People" by Monica Holloway. Actually, I pick it up in fits of girded loins to read because her childhood is just a wee bit like my own: Terrible father, absent mother, left to your own devices as a teen. I read this woman's account of her childhood and instead of completely embracing it, I find myself finding her not telling the story right. As if I want her to tell my story in some respect that I myself have not had the guts, or talent, to tell on my own. So, instead of precisely reading her story, I'm looking for my own relatable touchstones that then I can hurl at her.
But, and I've been thinking about this all afternoon while watching football, the one thing that she does get spot-on right is that everything isn't horrible without reprieve. There are moments, in even the worst childhood, of startling beauty, familial connection, warmth and caring from friends that in memory stand in such stark contrast to the horror and strife that you daily not so much endure, as try to avoid. Junior and I always referred to it as 'flying under the radar'.
While I wend my way through the final chapters of the book, I think that I've finally started to appreciate how the same paths don't necessarily run parallel so much as become entirely divergent, while maintaining a commonality. How could it be otherwise?
What I want from this book it can never give, but at least it's made me think, and for that I think that it deserves an audience to consider all of the balefulness that lies within.
But, and I've been thinking about this all afternoon while watching football, the one thing that she does get spot-on right is that everything isn't horrible without reprieve. There are moments, in even the worst childhood, of startling beauty, familial connection, warmth and caring from friends that in memory stand in such stark contrast to the horror and strife that you daily not so much endure, as try to avoid. Junior and I always referred to it as 'flying under the radar'.
While I wend my way through the final chapters of the book, I think that I've finally started to appreciate how the same paths don't necessarily run parallel so much as become entirely divergent, while maintaining a commonality. How could it be otherwise?
What I want from this book it can never give, but at least it's made me think, and for that I think that it deserves an audience to consider all of the balefulness that lies within.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Former Soviet Union
Last week the mother of a friend died and I went to the early viewing at the funeral home with one of my sisters-in-law and Reichter. I doubt that when I die I'll draw such a large crowd. Maybe I should start working on that. Making friends to mourn me someday, weep over my corpse and say what a saint I was.
Anyway, my mom and other sister-in-law went to the evening viewing and swung by my place afterward to pick up Reichter (he had some yard work to do for my brother). They parked across the street and Reichter dashed over and got in the car. My mother leaned over from the passenger side and said out the driver's window, "Angel! Your hair looks wonderful! Of course now you'll go and ruin it, but today it looks great!"
And then the lot of them drove off. Yes, there is no compliment that is not accompanied by an insult. At least as issued from mom. She's exactly like Russia that way, an enigma wrapped in a riddle basted in a mystery. Junior first pinpointed this tendency several years ago and since then we've kept a keen ear trained for it. My insults almost always revolve around either my hair or the way I dress (What a darling sweater. Is it used?). Junior's insults usually involve her make up choices (You look pretty today, but I would never dare wear that much foundation), but can also include clothes and hair color choices.
Mom is this boundless source of amusement for us, and we try not to mock her too openly because then she clams up, and nobody wants that.
Anyway, my mom and other sister-in-law went to the evening viewing and swung by my place afterward to pick up Reichter (he had some yard work to do for my brother). They parked across the street and Reichter dashed over and got in the car. My mother leaned over from the passenger side and said out the driver's window, "Angel! Your hair looks wonderful! Of course now you'll go and ruin it, but today it looks great!"
And then the lot of them drove off. Yes, there is no compliment that is not accompanied by an insult. At least as issued from mom. She's exactly like Russia that way, an enigma wrapped in a riddle basted in a mystery. Junior first pinpointed this tendency several years ago and since then we've kept a keen ear trained for it. My insults almost always revolve around either my hair or the way I dress (What a darling sweater. Is it used?). Junior's insults usually involve her make up choices (You look pretty today, but I would never dare wear that much foundation), but can also include clothes and hair color choices.
Mom is this boundless source of amusement for us, and we try not to mock her too openly because then she clams up, and nobody wants that.
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