Today, I am peevish about...

... relatively little, really.

It's midterm week here at my school, so I have students taking tests and generally behaving in the mornings, and then afternoons for grading with no students.  Granted, I have a metric shit-ton of papers to get through, so I can be righteously peevish about that.  It's still a pretty sweet schedule.

I also get to go out to lunch with some of my colleagues, which I usually enjoy.  The work-husband is usually in fine form over lunch, as is my new work-boyfriend (OMG, hello?  I've somehow picked up a work boyfriend - a 27-year old flirt who has relatively few social boundaries and a thing for "older women."  Does that mean I'm cheating on my work husband?  And wait - I'm now an "older woman?!"  Fuck me running!  Oh, the tangled web we weave...).  Plus, I have my favorite girlfriend teachers around if I get my stuff done, so it's all fun and games by Friday.

So, no peeves here today, really.  Hope your day is relatively peeve-free, too.

Today, I am peevish about...

... the fact that I have a cold.  Again.

It started as a tickle in my throat, then a chesty cough, and now congestion everywhere.  My head is a snot factory, to which my nose is the spigot.  I have lost my senses of taste and smell, and I'm sure I have Zombie Breath of the Undead.  You think that's redundant?  Nope, merely uber-descriptive.

It's not as though this was the first cold of the season, either.  I was sick over Thanksgiving, up until a few days before Christmas.  Then, I caught this beauty just after we rang in the New Year.  W.T.F?!

I would really like to catch a break and get some immunity from these farking miserable colds.  'Scuse me, now, as I go gnaw on some vitamin C.

Today, I'm peevish about...

... my trousers.

They are a size XS (Extra Small) yet they are at least two inches too long.  Honestly, I'm not that short!

Moving into the New Year

So, here we all are, perched on the precipice of a new year. A brand new year, full of promise and possibilities, that's just itching to get started - a blank calendar ready to be filled with appointments, memories, dates, and events.

The WCM and I had an epic argument about a week ago. It was the most powerful argument of our entire marriage, indeed, because the marriage itself hinged on that argument. It lasted two days. Those were tense, miserable days indeed. I am not a confrontational person by nature. I tend to pull back and wait things out - not the best strategy when dealing with my bullish spouse, who will make a big noise, pawing and stamping, charging to get his way. This time, though, I stood my ground and got what I needed. I said my piece - reiterated it, restated it, rephrased it until it was completely understood - and finally won my concessions.

We will be starting therapy this year. We need it. I will no longer accept coming in last in my husband's attention. He will endeavor to remember that intimacy in marriage is as important as companionship. Without the former, one might as well have a roommate.

Peevish Place will be starting out 2010 at the bottom of the hill. It's a good place to start, in my opinion, as one can only climb up.

Mirrors

She was a small child, dark haired, with big eyes. More used to speaking to adults than to other children, her speech often surprised grown-ups, as she used words that to them, sometimes, were unfamiliar. The playground was a strange place for her, and negotiating those first friendships wasn't easy. She didn't speak the language that the other kids rattled off so fluently. School was a place that she went during the day, where she got to go to art and music classes, had to learn boring math, and was always sent to the library during reading and spelling time, as her own reading level was several grades above the rest of the class. There, she would pore endlessly over the stacks, losing herself in new and different worlds, inventing her own, authoring her childish fantasies in volumes bound with construction paper and yarn.

When things interested her, she was very involved in them - to the point of leading the group work, bullying the others into doing things her way. When she was not interested, however, you often found her ignoring the task at hand, staring out of the window daydreaming, or lost, once again, in a book. Her parents, feeling she needed structure, provided lessons of all sorts - ballet, piano, gymnastics, girl scouts. She did all with some degree of success, ultimately discontinuing all but piano. She was good at it, and it provided her with some degree of identity - The Girl Who's Good At Music.

Her parents, still unsatisfied with her inconsistency, had her tested psychologically. The tests revealed above-average intelligence and an eye for details, but no more. She had a very vivid imagination, and needed to be motivated to learn what didn't interest her. Learning for learning's sake was not something she thirsted for.

This little girl grew into a woman, married, and had a child who is almost a clone of herself. With a few differences, such as more ability and interest in math and art and less in reading, her child's elementary school experience is mirroring her own.

***

Today, I took Miss Peanut to a psychologist to be tested for Attention Deficit Disorder - something that they really didn't know about when I was a child. Her last three teachers have all suggested, some more gently than others, that she should be tested. I finally caved, knowing the kind of child I was, and knowing just how much she is like me. It's been very difficult for me to do this - nobody wants to think that there could be anything wrong with their precious perfect angel. In this, I am no exception. I was prepared, though, to hear the worst. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.

The psychologist asked, after interviewing both me and Miss Peanut, then Peanut on her own, if I'd ever had her intelligence level tested, as she seemed to be off the charts (in a good way!). She said that without further testing, her diagnosis at this point would be inconclusive, but that it could be that Miss Peanut does indeed have some ADD. This, when combined with an overactive imagination and high intelligence, leads her to be distracted in class when she's bored. Having heard that countless times from parents of students (and having mentally rolled my eyes every. single. time.) I felt compelled to point out that even if the work is boring, she needs to do it and understand it without the distraction of ADD symptoms. The psychologist agreed, and we're going to explore further testing, to either rule it in or out.

It's an interesting nature versus nurture question for me, though. I've been raising Miss Peanut in a much more open and much less strict environment than the General raised me. Mr. Peevish and I are still married (for better or for worse, it seems), where my parents were divorced before I reached Miss Peanut's current age. She is an only child, where I had a pesky younger brother. I went to private school, and she does not. Yet, we are, it seems, still as alike as we look..

Friends and laughter

I have a long road ahead of me, teaching this new course. Already, I've had some bumps on that road, and will now have to redouble my efforts just to stay on target. I know that this uncertainty about my abilities has played a part in my depression this last month.

For my whole life, I've both judged myself and been judged on what I can do - my worth was always measured by my intelligence. Twisted as it sounds, it was one of the things that allowed me not to care about how I looked: as long as I was "worthy" inside my skin, it really didn't matter what the outside of me looked like. It reinforced my belief that putting emphasis on one's looks made one shallow. I've since achieved a slightly less skewed balance on that viewpoint. Because my self-perceived worth has been challenged this school year, I've dropped into this depression.

Today, I spent the afternoon surrounded by friends at a bridal shower. Tonight, I'll be helping another friend celebrate his upcoming 40th birthday. I'm thinking some friends and laughter will be just what the doctor ordered to drag my out of this.

On the verge

For the last month, I've felt as though I've been constantly on the verge of tears. I usually only get this way a couple of days out of the month - why, hello, Aunt Flo. So miserable to see you. - but this went far beyond those days. This was systemic. It affected my work and my relationships.

I'm familiar with depression and how it feels - like being constantly shoved underwater, unable to surface through the thick barrier of ice above you. I've been there. This is similar.

I've deliberately kept myself busy, attempting to push through the feelings and come out on the other side of this mini-depression. That has failed, colossally. I've tried to smother those feelings in chocolate. That was a major disappointment. I've tried losing myself in the internet. Nope, didn't happen.

So now I have to feel these feelings - and just what am I supposed to do with them?

Enough is as good as a feast

Recently, Mr. Peevish and I adopted a 16-year old.

Not formally, you know. Just, informally, as her mother is having trouble providing some of the basic requirements of parenthood - things like transportation to and from school every day, meals, and emotional support. Her mother, the lawyer, is doing interesting things like locking her child out of the house, not allowing her to eat anything unless she pays for it herself, and refusing to take her child to school every day. So, I've pretty much just adopted the kid.

I pick her up for school every morning and drop her off at one of her two part-time jobs after school. On days when she doesn't work, she comes to our house for dinner and to do her homework on my computer (and to raise her crops on Facebook's Farmtown, but hey, we all play there, right?).

She's a good kid. And I have enough of everything - food, support, time - that I can be generous with what I have. For that, I am thankful. I'm glad that I have the luxury of being able to give to those who need it. I hope that it makes a difference for her.

Cheesiness!

One of my mother's best Sunday dinners came from cans and boxes - it was better for all of us that way, as there were clear instructions, times and temperatures given, and very little room for improvisation allowed. She'd make a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, dump a can of stewed tomatoes into it, and boil a few hot dogs. Voila! Dinner!

Quite frankly, I learned how to cook because I have a strong survival instinct and refined tastebuds. Thankfully, I was only subjected to my mother's "cooking" two weekends every month, since I lived with the General and my stepmother. Not-quite-feigning an interest in all things culinary, I pored over my mother's cookbooks and gently took those reins out of her hands. Sometimes, I'll still find myself cooking dinner if I'm invited over to her house. She's a piss-poor cook, but she's quite clever, huh?

Anyhow, I make my macaroni and cheese from scratch, since it just tastes so much better that way and isn't loaded with mono-whatever and hydrolyzed-whatsit. It's also quite speedy, if you can plan it.

Tip #1: when you're cooking pasta, cook the whole pound whether you need it or not. Once cooked, put whatever you're not using into a gallon sized ziploc bag, add a glug of olive or canola oil, shake it about to coat the pasta, and throw it in the freezer. When you need cooked pasta to add to hot sauce sometime, you take the bag out of the freezer, empty the frozen brick of pasta into the colander and run hot water over it.



It thaws in a flash!



Tip #2: when you're making cheese sauce, do as I did and make a monster batch. Freeze the leftover sauce. You can thaw it in the microwave, dump it on the pasta, stir, then bake. You've got homemade Mac & Cheese in under 30 minutes, which includes the baking time.


Tip #3: when you go to Costco or whatever huge warehouse store you may frequent, and you see the packages of ham steaks, don't think "Jeez Louise! Who the hell is going to eat that freakin' much ham?!" Instead, throw one into your cart. You've got 3 ham steaks in there - that's 3 mac & cheeses, or 2 mac & cheeses and one ham & cabbage soup, or breakfast for a family of 9 minus the eggs and homefries. Just buy them. They're lovely.

Ok, tips done, time for some fun! Ingredients - Half & half (not necessary, but nice!), milk, cheese, flour, salt, Colman's dry mustard. Note the number of open bags of cheese I have. It would seem that instead of looking for an open bag, a certain spouse instead just finds any old bag of cheese and rips it open. So, if you have one of these spouses, you may find yourself in a similar situation. This is a great way to use up all of those bags. I'm all about space consolidation.



So, first, melt you some butter. Plop a whole stick of the stuff into your saucepan.


Let it melt all the way, then dump in 8 tablespoons of flour, one teaspoon of salt, and one teaspoon of Colman's dry mustard. Whisk the bejesus out of this, because you don't want it to burn!


Then, add 4 cups of the white stuff. I used one cup half & half and 3 cups of milk. You can do it however you like, though. Go wild. Once again, stir it like crazy, otherwise you're either going to have lumps or you're going to burn it. Neither scenario is desirable. So stir. You'll be stirring until this comes to a near boil and gets quite thick. I recommend using a whisk, since it eliminates the lumps better than a wooden spoon.

Now, take it off the heat and dump in as much cheese as you think it can handle. I thought my bechamel could handle about 6 cups of cheese. I was right.


Once again, sing it with me, you've got to STIR this shit until it's smooth and velvety, because lumpy cheese sauce is nasty. Once it looks like this:

then you've got something.

So you reconstitute your pasta that you'd made sometime last week, easy peasy. If you're a vegetarian, you can add the cheese sauce and continue living your virtuous meat-free life. If you're an unrepentant carnivore like me and cannot imagine a meal that doesn't feature some slain animal carcass, then continue on to the next bit.

Ham! You remember that ham steak? Cube it, then throw it into your casserole with the pasta, cover the whole mess with about a third of that cheese sauce, give it a stir, sprinkle it with more cheese, cover it with a sheet of aluminum foil, and bung it into a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

This was before Miss Peanut and the WCM went back for seconds. There's enough left for Miss Peanut to have a meal of it tomorrow. The WCM accompanied his Mac & Cheese with my homemade Stewed Tomatoes. I'm going to save that recipe for tomorrow. Lord knows, I've little else to report on!

Facebook ate my brain...

That damned Facebook done ate my brain! I spend waaaaay too much time there these days, frittering away my summer vacation.

I've also been cooking and baking a lot, since our garden started producing vegetables - tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, and eggplant. Our blackberries are ripening now, the strawberries are flowering, and the raspberries are just putting out fruit. The fledgling fig tree has a few figs on it, but, as I am not a fig fan, I refuse to wax rhapsodic about them. I couldn't give a fig. (har, har, har... groan...)

But mostly, I've been reading like a woman possessed and making ice cream. I've gone through a book a day for a whole month, pausing this last week to collect myself before launching into another spate of devouring pages. The ice cream, well, let me justify it this way: I have an ice cream maker, see? Why should I pay for inferior ice cream when I can make delicious additive-free confections at home?

So far, I've made chocolate, vanilla, mint chocolate chip, cappuccino chip, and butter pecan. I've been all over foodgawker for recipes - next up is peanut butter with chocolate covered peanuts and fudge swirls or fresh strawberry. I really don't know which one I'm going with, but whatever it is, I can guarantee that it won't last long in our house.

Hey, didja hear that?

Didja? Huh? Didja hear that?

Listen very closely, now, as you'll soon hear it again.

Wait for it...

Here it comes...

AAAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........

Summer vacation is here.

Tomorrow is a day where I have NOTHING to do. Nothing planned, nothing required beyond a few phone calls in the morning. NOTHING.

I'm looking forward to it.

So, how've you all been?

Runaway

Whoops!

See the thing is, I got really busy recently. First, I took up this running thing (still not a fan, by the way), and then I got a social life with some visiting friends, and then I got sick (upper respiratory infection, ick!), then I found this trilogy of cowboy romances and just didn't even turn on the computer for, like 2 days, and do you know how many Facebook notifications you get if you don't log on for 2 days?

And don't even let me mention how busy May is for me in school terms - and the last two weeks are killer, what with Senior Final exams, being a single parent for a weekend while the WCM goes searching for the preserved remains of deceased crustaceans in upstate New York, then regular final exams, then packing everything up, then getting my grades in, then finally, about the second week of June, just being able to lean back and go "AAaaaahaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh" with a tall glass of iced tea and a cookie.

So, I'm ready to run away for a while and hope I don't wig out too badly before that blessed second week of June.

Running

In the past, if you've been reading a while, you may have heard me wax rhapsodic over Pilates. I've enthused about the Wii fit, as well. I may even have penned a sonnet or two about walking, though it was more on the ability to do so than on any enjoyment received from such.

Just recently, I've started running, as I want to do that 5 K. I can promise you, I believe, to never wax lyrical about the joys of running. Quite frankly, it's almost more than I can manage to get one foot in front of the other in a synchronized fashion and propel myself forwards into motion. I can just about run a quarter of a mile all at once now. While shamefully proud of this rather negligible accomplishment, I will tell you that the joy is only in the accomplishing it and not in the actually doing it.

Frankly, I have always thought that the process of doing something - for a hobby, mind you, not professionally - was far more important than the end result. For me, I have always found more enjoyment in the creation of a scrapbook page than I ever have in regarding the finished page itself. The crocheting is more fun than smoothing the finished afghan on my lap, and the reading of the book, getting lost in the words and the story, are far more delectable than merely finishing the requisite number of pages.

I am struggling, therefore, with running. I want to like it, as it's a very healthy habit that I'd like to be able to adopt. Many of my friends are running now, and I'd like, literally, to keep up with them. However, for the life of me, I can find no joy in doing it.

GTFO!!

You know, sometimes I really wonder why certain people became teachers. They whine, bitch, moan, complain, kvetch, and kvell so damned much about every little stinking thing - the students included - that you don't half think they'd have made far better use of their lives doing something like, oh, selling insurance or cleaning the streets or scooping poop in public dog parks.

See, there was this faculty meeting after school today. It was unusually long, as there've been a lot of issues raised recently regarding our governor's controversial wage cut for all state employees. People are understandably grumpy about it - after all, who in their right mind ever welcomes a ten percent reduction in salary? Yeah, that's right: nobody. However, there was one complete castrating bitch strident harridan today that just had to pipe up about the plight of the teacher. You know, how we don't receive paid holidays, take work home all the time, and are generally unappreciated.

Ok, so sure, she has a point. However, there are some perks - at least for me, personally - that make up for those things.

• One, I don't ever have to work on my birthday. It's during the summer. I have a whole summer free - sure, I don't get paid for it (although it seems like it, since I elect to spread my salary over the 12 months instead of taking it only during the 10 months of the year that I'm in the classroom), but then nobody can compel me to set foot into my classroom on that day.
• Two, I get to exercise my creativity on a daily basis. I'm not stuck in a cubicle, chained to a computer, slogging through reports and figures. I tried the cubicle-farm wage slave thing and didn't like it. The soul-deadening experience was not an experience I want to repeat.
• Three, I actually get paid to do something I love. During my very first teaching job, where I didn't have direct-deposit and had to pick up an actual paycheck every week, I routinely forgot about payday. The school secretary would chase me down to give me my money. It was, and still remains, somewhat of a bonus to me - I get paid to come to school every day.

All of this doesn't mean that I don't actually work, because I do. I work hard. It just means that I love what I do. This colleague of mine, well, let me just tell you that this is her second career. She started in industry and has come to teaching through the alternative route to certification. I think it's time for a reminder to smack her upside the head: if, once you've been teaching for a couple of years, you find yourself lamenting the downsides of the classroom and longing for the cubicle, just remember - you're not tied to the profession. If you don't love it, then do us ALL a giant favor and GET THE FUCK OUT ALREADY!!!! Quit your goddamn bitching, STFU, and get on with your life. Nobody wants to hear it, I promise you! You are obviously not cut out for teaching and should do something a little more personally financially rewarding for you.

Thus endeth my rant. Thank you for listening.

Hot and Delicious

Did you ever have a day when you got exactly what you wanted and needed at exactly the moment you both wanted and needed it?

I had that day today. It was a Professional Day, which meant no students in the school so teachers could get their grades in the computers. After a morning of hard graft grading papers, I stumbled down to the Work Husband's classroom nearly incoherent with hunger, and stood in front of him, wild-haired and dead-eyed, mumbling "Food. Me. You. Now."

Bless him, he chuckled at me and took me to lunch at the diner down the road. A quick glance at the menu inspired me to order the Cheesesteak Wrap. Now, if you're not from around Philly, you're not going to know the glory of a cheesesteak. This is a sandwich made from very thinly sliced beef that's been thrown on a grill and shredded by two metal spatulas until it resembles a pile of brown rags. This is then slathered in cheese and cushioned on a soft long Italian roll. I prefer mine with fried onions, American cheese, and thick lashings of ketchup. This was what I had today, but in a wrap, not a roll.

People, it was hot, juicy, meaty, thick, salty, greasy, and delicious. It was everything I needed in that exact moment, and completely satisfied me in a way that very few things have ever managed to do. Gawd. I'm shaking right now just remembering it. Mmmmmmmm...

So, fortified by both the food and the convivial conversation - the Work Husband is not the Work Husband merely for his looks alone, you see - I was able to very nearly finish my work today. All in all, it was a very nice way to come back to school.

Perhaps the last bit of creative writing you'll see from me

So, I've been fiddling about with this creative writing for a while now. It comes in fits and starts - more fits recently - and this whole "bien aime" business has gotten a bit stale. So, I'm fictionally saying goodbye to him. I had this strange epiphany about it at Target the other day when I was trailing Miss Peanut around the dollar section, watching her select bits of cheap tat on which to spend her allowance and thought that, you know? it was really time to be done with this.

*******************

Crying doesn’t help. It doesn’t take away the humiliation, the feelings of failure and inadequacy, or the helplessness you feel at being unable to smile. Crying doesn’t remove that nagging ridicule gleefully dancing a malicious flamenco on your psyche with its pointy stiletto heels. Crying resolves nothing, fixes nothing, and helps no one.

Finger-pointing is equally unproductive. After all, I am the only person in the room. I am the guilty one: guilty of prolonging the affair long past its viability; of placing more value on it than it deserved; and of assuming too much about my place in his life. Granted, I didn’t act alone, but there is no one but me who can take the blame for my actions.

I was the one that initiated our trysts. I was the aggressor. I sought him out when I felt lonely, and hinted, intimated, slowly seduced him into my arms. If he had qualms, I crushed them. I inveigled and invited, drawing him to me with promises of pleasure. What he needed to hear from me, I willingly told him, though, in my heart, I didn’t always mean it. I schemed for this man. I had to have him. And, for a short while, I did have him.

I loved sliding my arms up his back while I kissed him, feeling my neck stretch as I tipped my head back for his lips to join with mine. Feeling so small, so tiny, next to his tall strength was a gift I’ve never before had. I would breathe in his scent – spicy, fresh, male – as I dropped kisses on his chest and feel intoxicated by it. The softness of his lips as they twisted with mine made me shiver with need, and the silken swipe of his tongue anywhere was enough to raise gooseflesh.

Later, pulling groans from him as I used my mouth to tease his proud member or sheathing him inside me to ride astride, I would feel triumphant, powerful. He filled me completely, with not a fraction to spare. Pushing, grinding, swirling my hips produced twin moans from us both. His strained exhortation to slow down would drive me to use my hand to gently massage my own proud flesh so that we could finish together. Rocking slowly, incrementally, I teased myself with him, loving the friction and his sheer size, waiting for the moment when I felt the wildfire begin to coalesce at my knees. Streaking its way towards the point where my hand would be working, it bathed my whole body in its fulminating warmth. Stars exploded behind my eyes as I collapsed, helpless, on his chest where his final shout still reverberated.

But no more do we meet. No more do we talk. All communication is ended, and I am bereft. Our orbits, which once intersected, are now completely separate. Part of me feels discarded, left behind, destroyed. The greater part of me, though, feels resigned and calm, even. That is the part of me that believes that I can move on from this. That I can learn from it. That someday, I will no longer be sad that this part of my life is over, but will instead smile because it happened.

In which I am all thumbs and spasms

Not only am I an inarticulate knitter, I am a profanely clumsy one, too. At least I know how many stitches I started with, and haven't dropped one yet, so nothing's really lost. I very nearly lost my shit though, when I had a freaking spasm in my hand and yanked that slippery green metal needle completely out of the row. I have about one inch of sock cuff knitted, for those who are keeping track. Nothing much, really, but for me, quite an achievement.

I also ran today for the second time in several hundred months. I was a little sore and stiffish today at work. I can tell you this, though: sore and stiff though I was today, I'm likely to be thrice that tomorrow! Christ on a cracker, I am actually hurtin' right now. I'm also a weensy bit impressed with myself. Only once did I give up in the running, and that was on the last stretch of it, uphill, and for the last seven seconds. I counted. Knackered, I am, but come Wednedsday, I'll be doing it yet again.

School today was hard. We're just all getting back on track after the chaos that was the State testing program. After seven days of laxity, it's very difficult getting anything closely resembling work out of my students. Even the rocket scientists were ridiculously chatty and difficult to corral. That's only to be expected, though.

I have a few friends, who all independently of themselves, have recently suffered personal setbacks. I want to hug them all, shelter and shield them, fight for those that need it, and let the others weep on my shoulder. Unfortunately, not all of them are geographically close enough to me to do that. For those of you that aren't, expect a phone call soon. For those of you that are, you may find yourself taking one for the team - even though you personally don't need a hug, you may find yourself receiving one intended for another. Please accept it and karmically pass it on. It's well-intentioned.

And hell, while I'm giving out the karmic hugs, if anyone out there would like one, I'm sure I can pass one on to you. All you have to do is ask.

The Bucket List

I've started Bucket List. I'm not in imminent danger of death - that I know of - but I figured there was enough stuff that I haven't done in my life that I should do, that I should organize it. This weekend, I got a start at two of my Bucket List items.

The first, Run a 5K, will happen this July. Since I am about as out of shape as Jabba the Hutt, I figured I'd better get started on this now. I downloaded an interval training podcast and began the arduous task of running and walking. I looked like a complete ass, alternating between minutes of walking and mere seconds of running, but I did it. I'll keep doing it, until I can run five bloody kilometers. It's more than I've ever run continuously in my entire life, but I'm determined. This will happen. Even if I hate it. Which I currently do. Hate running. Yuck.

The second item begun is slightly more fun and entirely more sedentary: Knit a Pair of Socks. My grandmother taught me how to crochet, embroider, cross stitch, needlepoint, and sew. My mother taught me how to knit a scarf. Socks, however, are something that I've wanted to do ever since I saw my friend Cathy doing it. I asked her to teach me, and she has graciously acquiesced. Today, with another Kathy, we had our very first Stitch-n-Bitch.

Today's Stitch-n-Bitch deserves its own paragraph, as there was quite a bit of bitching. Kathy and I are pretty much rank beginners, able to turn out a mean scarf or potholder. Socks, however, reduced us to language that would do any dockhand proud. Or, at least they reduced me to this language. Kathy may have been a bit more appropriate and ladylike. I do believe we two are the founding members of the First Guild of Inarticulate Knitters, as much of our frustrations were expressed in wordless utterances - "Whaaaaa? Gaaaah! Meh! Feh! Bleaaaaargh!" Of course, we were trying to knit both socks at the same time on two circular needles. Glah! Eeep! Floooo!

Two weeks from now, at our Second Stitch-n-Bitch, I imagine we'll be slightly more articulate, as I intend to practice and get a few more inches done on these two socks. Maybe I'll be ready to turn the heel by then. And then? After I finish these socks? I'll never have to do another pair. But who knows? I might! Why? Because I'll know how. Further down on my Bucket List is to pass the knowledge on to my daughter, should she want to learn - not just socks, but all of the nearly lost feminine arts I learned from my grandmother. But that's not something I'll be doing on my timeschedule.

So what's on your list?

My Boyfriend

I've had a boyfriend for a while now.

Don't wig out - my husband knows! He even thinks my boyfriend's adorable. He is, too. He's three years old and lives with one of my best friends (who happens to be his mother, see). His name is Max and he's just been introduced to someone new - his baby brother.

Max, I have news for you, boyfriend. This squawking little blanket burrito will completely change your life. He will drive you nuts, yet at the very same time, can be your best friend and biggest ally in the world. You will share a lot: clothes, toys, parents, to be sure, but also the family slang and inside jokes that you will have a large part in teaching him. Oh, I didn't tell you that yet! You get to teach this little critter, this baby brother, all of that stuff. You have now gained some responsibility.

Yours is a very important role, Max! You are the BIG brother. I'll bet you're more apt to be the voice of reason in this duo than the one who charges headlong into trouble. I'm also pretty sure you'll receive your share of hero-worship, noogies, wedgies, and flying tackles. You'll also get a friend for life, a partner in crime, and someone to watch your back from here on out.

In short, Max, you've got a brother. Treat him well.

(PS - hi Robbie!!!! Can't wait to finally meet you in person, pal! And you know everything I just said to Max? Goes double for you, shorty. Oh, and your job as the little brother? Why, to give your big brother hell, of course!)

Potty Mouth

Ok, so I have quite a potty mouth. I keep it leashed at school, for the most part. When I do let fly, it's usually in French, so the kids don't always understand it. Mostly, though, I make do with substitutions, like "shoot," "dagnabit," and "mother-of-pearl." Not quite as satisfying as the real thing, but they get the job done.

This video, though, made me giggle and wonder "what if... ?"

Swear Jar--Funniest Commercial Ever! - watch more funny videos