knight in shining armor

i needed to run some errands at target today, and on my way there i drive perilously close to the tj maxx homegoods store. there's never any harm in taking a quick spin through that place... you never know what interesting item or good bargain they may have. unbelievable! they already had their halloween decor in stock. halloween is 2 months away! ah, no bother. and there, shining among the witch-painted nutcrackers and pumpkin-shaped cast iron tureens was a knight. a knight in shining armor. a handsome fellow at about 6.5 feet tall, he beckoned to me. thinking that he may be a fixture belonging to the store, i scanned for a price tag. "$99," it proclained on the sticky tag between his shoulder blades. now, that's a load of cash, but not for something that i so clearly needed for the rest of my life as this knight. he was the kind of item i'd be kicking myself over forever if i didn't buy him.

i went to pay for him, and assistance was needed to spirit him to the front of the store. the kink in the plan? i had not brought the minivan, but had instead tried to conserve both gas and mileage by taking the little sedan. no way was my new friend going to fit in the car. not to be discouraged, i had them place a hold tag on him, with the promise that i would return in the minivan later.

i raced through target, raced home only a mere half-hour away, then jumped in the van in the hopes i could get there and back again in time to get the kids off the bus. in record time i got there, paid, and hoisted my man into the minivan. several people stopped & rolled down their windows in the parking lot. "is the knight INCLUDED with the shining armor?" one woman asked.

who could resist dragging him to the end of the driveway to meet the kids at the bus? it was fun to see their faces as they got off the bus to see our new family mascot waiting for them. we decided that he could live on the front porch for now to herald all visitors. our dilemma now is what to name him? any suggestions are welcome, as long as the name begins with "sir."

here he is, in all his splendor, on our front porch.




postscript: what do you think of the name sir ferrous oxidable?

FREE AT LAST!!

no, that's not REALLY how i feel. the kids going back to school is bittersweet. at the same moment i miss them, i'm happy for them! they're excited to get on the bus, see their friends, and experience another year of learning. luckily, they still love school.
this morning was not the best for h. t and the kids camped out in the backyard on friday night, and as a result, he is riddled with bug bites. the worst bites being... where else?... on his scrotum. honestly. so the poor kid, despite globs of hydrocortisone cream, was clutching at his crotch whilst awaiting the bus. it's bad enough that i'm telling the story online; i won't mortify him by adding the photographic evidence. so if he looks less-than-thrilled in the photo, that's why.

he's going into 3rd grade, and has a veteran teacher that everyone says is big on projects. i say... BRING IT ON! hopefully she'll be cool about me volunteering in the class once a week. s's teacher... SURPRISE!... is the same one as last year! i am pleased as punch that this teacher got moved to first grade because I LOVE HER and the assistant teacher to bits. they create a classroom of fun, love and laughter that i am thrilled to be a part of (inexcusable dangling participle). also, we've had some separation anxiety issues with our daughter over the summer, and having teachers to whom she's already attached will ease the transition. heck, she bawled a few times over the summer because she missed her TEACHERS so much!

hope everyone's transition back to school is going as well as ours! well, except the itchy balls part.

you alright?

while in london a few weeks ago, i noticed that friendly folks here and there were asking me if i was alright. "you alright?" they'd ask. or maybe, "are you okay?" i don't know about you, but i was really starting to think that maybe i had a large pustule on my face. or perhaps i looked quite lost. or maybe, just maybe, i looked so stupid that they couldn't help but ask me if i was okay since i could be a damsel in distress in need of rescuing.

this question got asked of me one too many times, and i began to get suspicious. either there really WAS something visibly wrong with me, or it was an idiosyncrasy of british english rather than american english. i asked a very nice british guy named jake (a talented and hilarious artist) if i was going crazy or what.

he kindly informed me that "you alright?" is a kind of british way of saying "how you doin'?" AH! problem solved. we had a long talk about all the ways that british and american english are entirely different. like "lift" and "loo" instead of elevator and bathroom. it's funny that although we're technically speaking the same language, "to get pissed" there is to get drunk, while here it is to get angry. hm.

well, here's an obligatory photo of t 'n' me in front of the tower bridge.

walking the dog

this accidental photo of jane and s was taken at sunset the other day... gives new meaning to the phrase "walking the dog," doesn't it?

it's my 34th birthday and we're still chilling at the lake. we celebrated at dinnertime saturday night with my favorite cake- triple chocolate, what else? i am so predictable. my gram, my little brother and kate, and my folks were here. they gave me lovely jewelry, a cookbook, and what else? chocolate. hey, a gift of chocolate to me is a guaranteed success.

t and i are separately, and in 2 states, preparing for our thursday trip to london. no, no, it's not a fun sightseeing trip this time, but a working trip. he and i are flying separately, then meeting up at the airport. we'll only be there 4 days, and most of that time will be at the STAR WARS CELEBRATION EUROPE where he will be displaying his limited edition star wars print. it will be so nice to see my love again after a couple of weeks apart!

what a trip

a week ago tomorrow, we started out on our annual trip to michigan to stay with my folks at their place on lake michigan. when i say "we" i mean the kids, the dog, and me. t stays home and slams down as much work as possible in the month that we're gone. he keeps meaning to come with us, but work keeps getting in the way.

my dad, who is retired, is kind enough to fly to nc then drive a minivan full of madness through 5 states back to his own home, delivering us safely to grandma. what a guy, huh? let's hear it for my dad.

we started out on my almost-bald tires, but when we discovered that there would be rain in the mountains of west virginia, a detour to discount tire was in order. this, of course, set us back a couple of hours and several hundred dollars (not to mention a pleasant 2 hour walk around a shady parking lot with 2 kids and a dog), but we kept on trucking. 8 hours of driving, and we were through akron, ohio, and decided to stop at a motel. finding one that took dogs proved to be a little tricky, but the shady-looking motel6 said okay, so there we camped. turns out it was a "ho"-tel with lovely ladies turning LOUD tricks in the next room. good thing dad didn't have his hearing aids in.

on the road again on friday morning, we realized that after many stops and many walks, the dog still hadn't done her business. not any kind of business. well, you can't force a dog to go, so we just stopped every couple of hours and let her walk, but to no avail. 15 minutes before reaching our destination, the dog finally couldn't hold her bladder any longer, and the splashing noise coming from the back of the van could only mean one thing.

for the past week, we have had a great time playing with my older brother, nephew and niece who are close in age to my kids. here's a pic of the cousins:



and here's a pic of me with my BIG little brother and my little big brother.




everybody (but us) left today, so it's a little quieter around here.

whatever happened to kabbalah?

the ancient religion, passed down through thousands of years of religious scholarship?

adopted by madonna, and her family by proxy, it was trendily passed along to the likes of britney spears, lindsay lohan and paris hilton who were all, at one time or other, seen sporting the red string around their wrist as a sign of their true learning of the mysticism.

ashton kutcher and rocco ritchie followed the rites, possibly only as followers to their wife and mother, respectively. we all remember the photos of ashton in white, rocco with long hair.

what the heck happened? have celebrities turned even an ancient religion trendy? has kabbalah HAD it's 15 minutes of fame? after being in existence for thousands of years? the shallow celebrities have turned it into a mockery, amongst outdated fashions like bubble skirts and zip-ankle jeans.

for shame, for shame.

whatever happened to kabbalah?

curl experiment

do any of you remember those little pink sponge hair rollers from when you were a kid?

you'd wash your hair at night, then your mom would wind sections of your hair onto a zillion rollers which snapped securely at the top. then, you'd feebly attempt to sleep on a pillow of pink plastic and crackly-sounding sponge, tossing and turning, and pulling your hairs out by the scalp in the process.

in the morning, mom would carefully unroll the curls, one at a time, and you'd have a headful of curls that would make shirley temple blush.

well, my girl wanted to test this theory. so we went to target, bought a pack of old-fashioned rollers and a pack of newfangled "spiral" rollers. we washed, conditioned, gelled, and rolled. she slept, but when i asked her in the morning HOW she slept, she said, "OK." when i asked if she'd do it again for curls, she said, "sure." we unwrapped the curls, and here is the result.




hey, susan, if you're reading this you can see the tomato plants peeking into the corner of the top photo. they are hugely insane and out-of-control. more later on them...

7 things...

ML at zee's space tagged me to write about 7 things that happened to me as a teen. reliving even a moment of those years makes me want to choke, but i'll give it a shot.

1. my friend jill was housesitting our senior year and asked me to stay with her so she wouldn't be alone in a strange place. she and her boyfriend were having a fight, so i went to bed. when she finally came up to bed (we were sharing the same one) i was half-asleep, but heard her clearly and distictly say, "keep your tongue and your lips AWAY from my body." "were you worried?" i replied. turns out she was talking to the dog. it's been a running joke ever since.

2. i took a trip across the country with my friend leslie (shout out to les-o-lee!) and her mom and dad when i was 13. we traveled in their naugahyde-upholstered station wagon hauling a camper. it was the first time i had traveled ANYWHERE, and these folks have no idea how badly i was bitten by the travel bug after that. we saw mt rushmore and yellowstone, as well as countless gorgeous campgrounds. check out the extreme hair on my head. leslie and i reconnected a few years ago after i google-stalked her, and have had fun getting to know eachother again.

3. i met my husband. i moved from suburban indianapolis to suburban detroit between my sophomore and junior years. we were 16. here's photographic evidence from the yearbook... we were in a play together. he was my father in the play (the guy holding the plant on the left) and i was a bride (in the middle). so i've known him more than half my life. jill, from #1 was also in the play, and it's where i met her, too.

4. tommy and i were voted class artists our senior year. hoo boy! more extreme hair.

5. i spent the summer after i graduated from high school out west with a geology program through the university of michigan's camp davis. it was based near jackson, wyoming, but during the program we travelled to montana, utah, nevada and idaho. i'll never forget the incredible time i had or the stunning sights i saw. oh, and it was a great way to kill 8 credit hours of science... not my best subject. i have many, many photos, but don't feel like scanning at the moment.

6. after i got back from that trip i had both of my jaws cracked open, replaced, and screwed back together. it was supposed to correct my bite. it was interesting.

7. when i got my driver's license, my folks gave me my dad's old company car to drive. it was a late 80's model 4-door black cutlass. i named him slick elliot. i loved that car. senior year, my friends and i painted poster-paint on our cars before graduation, and the paint baked into the finish, permanently etching the inane crap we had written into the paint of the car. my parents sold him after i graduated and went to college, and he was shortly thereafter wrecked. boo-hoo!

don't get used to it!

two posts in two days... i'm not sure i can live up to it for long! let's take things s-l-o-w-l-y, ok kids? mama can only do so much in a day (if i had a penny for every time my kids had to hear that!).

last day of school for my babies! and, with CAMERA IN HAND (wahoo!) i walked them to the end of the driveway to meet their fate. the bus, that is.


they haven't seen a camera in weeks... probably the longest they've gone in their lives without me in their faces, snapping shots of them. i'm shameless with a camera in hand! we have archives in the thousands. well backed-up, of course.

they were adequately corny on this muggy, doomed-to-be-hot morning.


where have i seen this face before?! i don't know where she gets it.


the dog got in on the action... poor jane is inexplicably scared of the camera, so i have very few shots of her looking anything other than terrified. she gets this sheepish, pathetic "don't kill me" look. what a funny girl.

i'm a mess

well, now that i actually visited my own blog, there's hope that i may be able to read all of YOUR blogs soon, too.

sorry it's been a while, folks.

the last remaining camera broke, so i couldn't post photos. of anything. seeing as how i'm visually oriented, that was a big blow.

the dog rolled in poop the other day and when i told her to stay outside while i got a bath ready, she disappeared, only to come back "bathed." i think she went to a pond or ditch and washed herself. is that weird?

if we have to go to another rehearsal, recital, holiday party, birthday party, end-of-year party or party to celebrate all the parties i'm going to fall apart. at the school today i started crying. what a dork! it was just so sweet and emotional.

there's so much more, but at least i put up something.

tomorrow, summer officially starts at 12;30 pm.

ilex vomitoria

i just love the name of the holly i got the other day. the english name is lovely as well... weeping yaupon. isn't that poetic? i now invite you to write a poem on the name of your choice... ilex vomitoria or weeping yaupon. you choose.

my friend jen, our neighbor angie, and 2 of jen's kids piled up in her big red truck (i kinda felt like the wiggles... "toot toot chugga chugga big red car") and drove the distance to broadwell's. what is broadwells, you ask? why nothing less than landscape mecca. it is a huge landscape supply company, which means that it sells plants to garden centers and nurseries wholesale. and to 3 women and 2 kids in a big red truck. wholesale.

now, broadwell's is not for the wimpy woman, the squeamish or the faint of heart. what you do is drive your truck down the rutted and dusty trails between the acres of potted plants, carefully avoiding the sprinkler poles, and load up the truck with whatever you want. it's a little tricky as there are NO PRICES and NO LABELS. it's your guess as to what a plant is and how much it might cost when you get to the guy at the front.

huge, heavy, dripping buckets of cherry treees, messily heaved in to the bed of the truck. dwarf junipers by the dozen. big manly woman arms hoisting hollies upon hollies. we easily packed that truck chock-full of more plants than we could possibly have time to dig holes for. no matter. this was broadwell's! and it inspired all of us to bite off more than we could chew.

strutting through a barn were two peacocks and a peahen. we breathed the dusty, hot air. we bumped down the road. we carefully navigated the turns until at last, we were sated. tired, thirsty, hungry and dirty, we approached the man in the cowboy hat for our grand total. he contemplated with his calculator our bed full of greenery. "$221.50," he said. it's criminal how much we got for just a bit over $200. he helped us wrap the branches in a tarp for wind protection, and we were off to chick-fil-a and dunkin donuts for some much-needed reparations.

i got home and the golden glow abated. i was stuck with a bunch of plants, rock-hard clay soil, and no one to dig me a hole. my back ached just THINKING about planting all this stuff. when i awoke this morning, i found that jane (2 year old border collie) had taken care of at least 2 of my little problems by decimating some dwarf barberry shrubs. no bother! they were only $3 each! and 2 less holes to dig!

at about 5:45, tommy was leaving to go on a motorcycle ride with his pals, and hollered in to me, "lance and his friend are here to dig holes!"

WHAT?!

jen had sent her 13 year old son and his friend robbie to dig my holes for me. they spent 2 dutiful hours digging and planting ALL of my shrubs and plants. i'm so relieved i could cry! and of course i spent my last scraped-together dime to get my wolfman son a $12 (cash only) haircut earlier today. so i couldn't even slip the kids a twenty. no matter, i'll get to the atm asap in the morning and show my gratitude in monetary form. that IS what 13 year old boys want, right?

i called jen, and we have plans to return to broadwell's next wednesday for more. gluttons for punishment, aren't we?

there's a stormtrooper on my driveway!

you always have to stay tuned at our house, 'cause you NEVER know what might happen next.

when we got home from dance class, there was a stormtrooper and some imperial officers in our driveway!
they came into our home and invaded our kitchen...

they proceeded to seize control of our children!


they blasted their way out to the studio...

where they presented tommy with the almost-unheard-of honorary membership into the 501st legion. he is now an official plaque-toting, card-carrying member, and will soon even have his own collector's trading card. why? for his contributions to star wars through his art.

ain't it cool? what a fun day for us all.

once were babies

each school day, i walk down to the end of the driveway and wait for the big yellow school bus to pull up and spit my babies out and back into my arms.

you'd think it would stop being shocking to me when the babies that get off the bus are tall, with long, thin legs. they are laughing at friends' jokes, they are toothy and a little gawky. they ARE NOT BABIES. they are KIDS. they hug and kiss me as they always have, even though their friends are watching, and i'm wondering when this, too, will stop. hopefully never!

i still see them as my babies, and there's a good possibility that i always will see them as my babies, even though they are no longer babies.

the above photo sits on our mantel and reminds me of those funny and difficult days when they were very small. h was a total nutcase... into everything, never sleeping, and very dynamically creative. a shy in public mama's boy. s was bright, sunny, easygoing, and sweet. the photo has their personalities... from both then AND now... intact.

ride for kids

please check out tommy's post on his weekend charity motorcycle ride for kids with brain tumors. i can't say it any better than he can... other than to say how proud i am of him and how grateful to all the bikers for raising funds that help these kids' families afford to care for their sick children, and for the surviving kids to be able to attend college. how cool is that?

all these QUESTIONS!

recently j from thinking about... had a different kind of question meme on her blog. she answered the personal interview questions another blogger had asked her, and she in turn offered to interview anyone else that asked.

here are the questions that she asked me....

Is there any food you could eat every day without getting sick of it?

absolutely! i could eat chocolate in it's many and varied forms day in and day out without fail. and i do.

Are there brands you are loyal to? Anything, car, computer, food products, whatever.

hmmm... i suppose we are (now) loyal mac users. as far as clothing & food go, i go for the cheapest brand.

Salty or sweet? What’s your favorite craving?

salty then sweet then salty then sweet. i alternate. right now i love "take 5" candy bars which combine salty and sweet and it's deadly.

TP….over or under?

over! of course! is there any other way??

Could you give up your cell phone for a month?

without even batting an eye. i hardly ever even use the thing. i hate being bothered/interrupted by it. i have no idea how to text message.

Here are the rules, if you would like to be interviewed:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

a big thank you to j for the questions, and if you'd like to be interviewed, let me know.