pic

It's late and I'm getting tired. I still have plenty of laundry to dry and fold and then I'll probably read a bit before I go to bed. I just wanted to share a few things before I headed off with the b-52s to dreamland.

First of all: a big Congratulations to Ms S who just received news that she was accepted to a Masters program at Kings College in London! Best of luck next (school) year.

















Tuesday night was Pajama Night at the library. This is one of Pic's favorite events. During storytime on Tuesday morning, Pic informed me that she didn't want to attend Pajama Night, but when Ms Judy asked her if she was coming, she said "Yes!" Of course. As Pic and I were about to head off for our walk to the library, I sent her upstairs to find her pajamas. After a few minutes, she called down to me, "I found my vagina!" She paused a moment and then called down, "I found my...pajamas!" Yeah, I thought so.

We are on day three of antibiotics for Pic's UTI. The moment she tells me she has to pee, I get her to the nearest toilet asap (faster than usual, just in case you were thinking I usually made her hold it in). Yesterday, Cardo, Pic and I were at the bank when nature called. There was no restroom available to us at the bank, so I took Pic over to Gottschalks (Yo daddy Gottschalks...hi Ms P!), leaving Cardo at the bank. As we ran in, franticly in search of a restroom sign, an employee at a display table remarked, "She's really tan." As we rushed past, I assured the woman that we applied tons of sunscreen everyday. I think she understood Pic's "tan" as we were leaving, though. Cardo came in to meet us and Pic ran down the aisle yelling "Papi!" as if it'd been days since we'd last seen him. (Just in case I somehow have random readers who've never seen us, I'm just a wee bit light-skinned, but Cardo is a self-described "brown guy." Pic got a good mix of our skin colors.) (Does anyone remember the Jackie Kay campus visit when she related a similar anecdote? While she was clothes-shopping with her mom, one of the salespeople remarked, "She's rather tan"...except you have to imagine Kay's Scottish accent there.)

I'll end with food pictures because I haven't posted any lately. I'll save tonight's dinner for another post because I still haven't shared Father's Day dinner pictures. We celebrated the day after because Cardo worked Sunday night (we took him to breakfast on Father's Day).



Here are Pic and me in our aprons from Poke:













Dinner was whole wheat spaghetti, mushroom-marinara sauce to which I added carrots, turkey, mozzarella, nectarines and sparkling white grape juice:





















Dessert was caramel cake and milk on dessert ware given to me loooong ago by Poke's mom:

peeved

As usual, I had a difficult time falling asleep last night. I finally came downstairs at about 1:30. At two, the neighbors began noisily going into and out of their apartment (I think it was some of the many kids who are always congregating there). I finally started falling asleep a little after 2:30 when there were two loud slams on the door at 2:45. Little punks. (Believe you me, there are/were many other not-so-sweet words going through my head.)

Because I had just fallen asleep, I was completely out of it when I heard the noise, so I didn’t react quickly. By the time I managed to figure out what was going on, the delightful and considerate little joys were inside. They woke Cardo up, which irked me even more. He’s been sick for over a week now and he needs his rest. They didn’t wake Pic up and thanks be for that. Next time, we’re going to go over and pound on their door. Seriously, parents? I remember being a kid (it really wasn’t all that long ago). I remember staying up all night at sleepovers and being obnoxiously loud and giggly (I hope not too loud, but I’m sure my parents just had to listen for a minute to confirm that all slumber-partiers were still present). However, we lived in a house, we didn’t slam doors or shove each other into walls or rearrange furniture or whatever the crap my neighbors seemed to be doing all night. And we never threw crap at or pounded on neighbors doors in the middle of the night (or at any other time, mind you).

Argh. Just as I thought it was getting quiet.

In other non-news: Pic has been blessed with a UTI. I went to check on her last night and her room smelled like concentrated urine (I don’t exactly know how to describe it, but it was a very pungent urine smell). I took her out of her bed and slipped her out of her pajamas and panties. I made her a little bed on the floor and I took her bedclothes downstairs so I could wash them today. Rarely does she wet her bed. I can’t even remember the last time she did it.

Then, this morning, as we were waking up, she called out to me “I pee-peed in my panties.” She was upset. I didn’t see any blood and she told me both “yes” and “no” when I asked her if she was hurting. Ten minutes later, just after I got her dress on, teeth brushed and sunscreen slathered on, she peed in her underwear again. She never pees in her underwear.

She was at school for less than a half-hour today. I made a sick-visit appointment for her at the doctor’s office (such an important convenience: the ability to schedule a sick-visit at the pediatrician’s office). She freaked out when she realized where we were going, but the visit went surprisingly smoothly. Even the peeing in the cup. She’s had to have a catheter put in before, once, when we thought she had a UTI before (turns out all the fun of putting the catheter in was for nothing). This time, the nurse handed me a cup and we hoped that Pic would be able to go in it. She did…kind of. She wanted to stand as she peed and she ended up peeing in the cup, down her legs, on the floor and on me. I really didn’t care, as long as the sample was big enough, and it was.

Since then, we’ve dropped off the urine sample at the lab, purchased her antibiotics, administered the first dose (“It’s milk!” she exclaimed before tasting it. After tasting it, though, she spit a large amount out and wailed, “It’s baaad.”), eaten lunch, bathed, done laundry and we’re both “resting” right now (I can hear her upstairs singing to her toys). Now, I’m going to lay on the couch like a useless lump until Cardo gets home (he gets off at three today, so I have a limited amount of useless-lump-laying-around time).

who is johnny?

Can someone please explain to me why the new Disney-Pixar character looks so much like Johnny 5? Is this intentional? I don't think I'm seeing a resemblance where there is none.














Okay, now that I see them together, I have to admit that they're not as 'exactly' alike as I had thought, but still...

mama's got a squeezebox...or not

I haven’t been able to find the faceplate to my car stereo since I returned from Seattle, so my car has been NPR and music free. I’ve been very sad. And a little crazy; I only know one song non-obnoxious-children’s song completely by heart (this can’t be right, I keep thinking, but I can’t think of any other songs I know completely by heart). So, for the past three weeks, I’ve been on repeat of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz”*. I’m annoying myself, but I can’t help it. Before I realize it, I’m on the Dialing-for-Dollars stanza and then it just becomes a seemingly-endless loop.

Anyway, here’s a today in history note: 1967
The three-day Monterey International Pop Music Festival - which catapulted Jimi Hendrix, the Who and Janis Joplin to stardom - opened in northern California.

* This is a different youtube video than I linked to before. I love that a night on the town is a trip to the library.

a day in the life of an undomestic

Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head…

Thanks, boys. My morning’s resemblance to the song ends here. Well, there were stairs involved and I did feel late. However, there was no “cup” (only, now I am having a glass of water), no smoke and no bus.

Actually, after Cardo left for work (late?), I was treated to several more minutes of sleep before naked Pic joined me in bed. She plopped her favorite purple dress in my bed so I could help her on with it. We brushed our teeth and she went to grab underwear and stockings. (One day, I said “stockings” instead of “tights” and it has stuck.) We applied copious amounts of sunscreen and tramped downstairs where I threw the rest of her lunch together, poured her juice, grabbed her napmat and a just-in-case pair of panties. After a bit of playing, shoes were on and we were out of the door. Two minutes later, we had walked across the street to her school and, less than ten minutes later, I was back home.

And…I’m done. Have I always been this tired, I wonder? I think so. And I don’t think so. I just want to crawl over to the couch, drag myself up and sleep until it’s time to pick Pic up from school. Of course, I cannot, because that’s just not how life works, most of the time.

Ah, well, I’ll head over to the mall and select even more stationery from Papyrus (sale!). Then, I’ll come home and work, clean, do some yoga, turn a movie on, turn the movie off because I can’t concentrate on it, go to the library, fetch Pic, make a cake, comfort sick Cardo, make turkey breast and something for dinner, stay up too late, go to sleep and start all over again.

I’ll end with another song (and, yes, I felt it necessary to alert you that the following is a song): Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. (Thanks Phoebe.)

tag and other randomness

Poke has tagged me, so here goes:

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tag people and posts their names, then go to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. What was I doing ten years ago? I was on summer break, between junior and senior year. This means I was probably having a sleepover which included making disgusting ice cream concoctions (yes, it is possble to add too many toppings to your ice cream, especially when they include large amounts of food coloring), staying up all night, watching the neighbor do a horribly robotic version of the Macarena and playing a track and field game on an NES.

2. Five things on my to do list for today: Um, it's late, so I'll pick five things per domani: offload the old washing machine, do laundry (or most of the laundry steps, at least), write and send correspondence, see the Indiana Jones movie with Cardo, eat belated birthday lunch with Cardo.

3. Snacks I enjoy right now: dark chocolate covered pretzels, farmers' market strawberries (the first Sparks hometown farmers' market was today) and just about anything from HOB

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: pay off debt, spread the wealth...and buy books (how would I achieve this status, I wonder??)

5. Places I have lived: Lake Isabella, Van Nuys, Blythe (and maybe a few other CA places), North Las Vegas (before Las Vegas crept halfway up the state, before North Las Vegas became all fancy), Las Vegas, Reno

6. People I want to know more about: anyone interested...I'm not good at tagging people


---------------------

Who needs “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” when you could have “Jelly-like above the high wire, six quaking pachyderms kept the climax of the extravaganza in a dazzling state of flux”?


---------------------

I'll close with a picture of Pic in a tree pose (I had to take a billion pictures to get this one because she kept moving, and she finally got tired and rested her arm on the entertainment center). She's wearing her new bathing suit. I'd like a similar one in green, please.

happiness is...

Just a minute ago, which was really “just” last summer, but it seems so recent, we were living in the house and I was a woman who did yardwork. Okay, so I didn’t do much, but every few weeks, I faithfully pulled out my reel mower and snipped short all of those blades of helpless grass. I usually left the clippings for Cardo to rake up, because I’m actually pretty lazy and because pushing the mower around our small yard was enough work, I thought. (Great arm work, by the way.)

We lived down the street from a middle school, on a pretty long street, so we had frequent traffic cruising (often too quickly) down the street. Most of the people who passed while I was mowing the lawn would give me a strange look, something like “Why would she be using such and arcane implement to cut her grass. Hasn’t she ever heard of gas mowers? Hasn’t she ever heard of landscaping companies?”

I loved our reel mower. We got it for a steal at the Salvation Army for $12 (seriously, look up how much these things cost new). I loved the workout. I loved watching as I cut patches through the thick, shag-carpet of green. Also, I drive a Kia Rio that, while small, doesn’t get the greatest gas mileage. I figure using the reel mower was the least I can do (because I tend to obsess about these things) to cut down on my contribution to air pollution.

When we moved a couple of weeks ago, we gave the mower to a friend who father has a yard. Although we moved into an apartment, part of a complex that employs a landscaping company, and I won’t be doing any yardwork here, I was sad to watch the mower go.

As I was driving home today, in my gassy little Rio, I watched a man pushing his reel mower over his grass. It made me happy.


P.S. That picture is not of any yard I know. My yard was much, much smaller than that.