list

things I’ve made for dinner this week:

three-bell pepper stir fry with sesame oil sautéed wheat berries
veggie sloppy joes with TVP and bulgur
shrimp tacos
giant green salad and veggie burgers

great events of the past week:

Brent gets a call from a scout for the Braves.
Anthony sends Zelda and I Mother’s Day roses.
Justin Verlander pitches the no-no on Tuesday…and bonus, Mom, Dad and Christian were there.
Evie’s first visit to the beach on Saturday.
clothing swap with Becky, Michelle, Randi and Jen S. great great fun.

what I am looking forward to:

fresh herbs from the garden (I will have to wait a few weeks for them).
Amanda and Mike’s wedding.
a phone call from my little brother in Germany.
talk of the nation on NPR.

the plan for the day:

cleaning of the house…fun. seriously.
swimming in the pool.
dinner.
finishing “the crying of lot 49”.
starting a new book!

that is all for now, pals

while daddy's away...

jeremy was gone on business (doesn't that sound so grown up? we are getting old, folks) evie and i went to my parents' house for a few days. well, it was supposed to be only a few days, but then the entire household was struck by the most devastating stomach flu i have ever encountered. first christian on sunday (tho we thought he was reacting to an accidental overdose of some medicine). then mom on tuesday, rj wednesday morning, and evie, dad and i wednesday night. as we had left lansing monday night, my lovely and amazing friends continued to stop in on beans until friday afternoon, allowing evie and i to recover at ma and pa's house of healing.

*gross alert*

i am famous (in our family) for being the child making giant puke messes. fitting then, that evie began getting sick just before me. and being that i absolutely HATE to vomit, i am cleaning her up, holding her over whatever available recepticle i can find, all while trying to control my own growing nausea. at one point, somewhere between two and three am, i am in the bathroom with evie. she is vomiting into the sink, i am holding her, and calling to my mom to hold her so i can go vomit in the toilet. (god is funny--i didn't start getting that sick until 4 am). that's right, three generations in the bathroom, but only two of us ill. my mom rules. meanwhile, i'm trying to (unsuccessfully) to get it done and over with, and evie (who is fine for the moment and chipper as all hell) stands next to me, holds my hair, and says, "it's ok, mommy. your body will tell you when to do it, then you open your mouth and spit. ok, do it." ha! of course, that is what i'd told her earlier...sweetest, funniest child.

(end gross alert)

after recovering, we came home friday, to find that beans had gotten hold of the sunday new york times. see for yourself:






suffice to say, my parents and friends are amazing, and fun times were had by all!

potty training tips

don't let your man-wife pee standing up in front of the potty-training child, especially is said child is a girl.

i have cleaned the bathroom floor probably 300 times in the past 2 months.

no wonder i am so achy!

see what I mean about bob dylan and johnny cash?

FOR THE MAN I LOVED, WHO WAS SO OFTEN SILENT

I have always heard that women fall in love
with men who are like their fathers:

my father sings to me, old Johnny Cash and
Marty Robbins--out in the West Texas town
of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl, and you
who couldn't even remember my whole last name,

who played Bob Dylan records at night to hush the speech
of the bed, and me timing out the pregnancy test to
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. I never told you
this--something lovers, fathers,
lovers who are already fathers
do not want to hear.

You were silent mornings when I was waking, the alarm
shut off before its eruption, no sound but the mumbling
of the sheets when you pulled me, hands clutched into ribs,
onto you. The white noise of dressing sometime later.

If I had spoken, I'd have told you I loved you.

But you were not my father, you who made no sounds
as you went, nothing from your mouth but breathing,
the stairs wordless, no apology from the back door.

I know. I was listening.

bob dylan, johnny cash, jim leyland

while little one naps, I'm attempting to write. and of course I am thinking about the men of my myth—bob dylan, Johnny cash, mark rothko, doc holliday, (soon to be jim leyland when I finish the damn poem!) and so on.

 

a few things strike me:

 

1. there are substantially more men in my mythological history than women. (for example: my abuelito has a whole series of poems, my abuelita perhaps three.)
   
2. many of my myth-men were connected to each other somehow—bob dylan and johnny cash are an easy example; if I ever pursue a phd, my thesis will be proving what Caravaggio and Rothko have to do with one another.
   
3. why don't I have more "women heroes"? I mean, yes, in my life, I do—but they are women I know and love and look to for a substantial amount of guidance. of these, only my mother and sister really make an appearance in my poems. and, if I am rewriting my own history in terms of myth, why I am choosing men who are "distant"? there's something vaguely troubling about this, both poetically and personally.
   

 

hmmm. food for thought. I have another headache—I am very much hoping that this isn't the beginning of another month-long sinus infection.

god is testing me

and quite possibly the devil himself as well.

being a stay-at-home again is a bit of a rough adjustment in and of itself; add in the dog, who is basically a 60 pound toddler, and rough becomes an understatement of magnificent proportions.

one of my first thoughts upon being informed that my "position was being eliminated" (well, after the nasty ones and the urge to laugh very very hard) was, hey, now i can have nice time at home with evie and beans, and get all the thing done we haven't even begun to deal with since we moved!

safe to say i was a bit optimistic. the frustration of being home all day with the toddler and the terror is building. while evie can get things for herself at times, it is contingent upon her wanting to (toddlers are, in a word, moody). or, worse, she gets into things!

list of things i have found evie getting into while she is supposed to be sleeping:
1. mascara
2. lotion (three separate times)
3. suntan lotion
4. shower gel (she dropped something on the floor and decided to clean it up)
5. toys (including her "corn popper"--once at 3 am)

today, i thought she was at least staying put in her room and went to take a shower. this was a treat--the last few showers i have had have been with evie. (think it's hard to contain a toddler? try doing it while they're covered in soap, and you have shampoo in your eyes!) and since my days are pretty much already taken up by chasing after/cleaning up after/putting back into bed/feeding evie and beans, showers are a little tough to come by.

so i get out of the shower, and am getting dressed when i hear evie yelling at beans to "come on". only her voice is muffled....BECAUSE SHE IS OUTSIDE!

little one had packed a purse and a backpack and taken beans outside. (was she running away already?) i lock the doors to keep such things from happening, but apparently, she has figured out how to unlock the deadbolt. i, pants-less, throw on some shorts (my hair still up in a towel-turban) and run outside to chase the two delinquents down.

i swear, i swear, i am beginning to believe more and more in descartes' "evil genius" theory.

time to keep my head from going through the wall.

i just realized it!

why was "the cosby show" named as such, when the show is about the huxtable family?

(yes, this is the great question i am asking myself today).