It’s another cool and rainy day here in The Circle City. I am loving this weather. Sure my grass is too tall and the dog smells a bit more corn-chippy than usual, but I love the weather. Everything is so much greener in the rain, isn’t it?
I want the windows open and my family wants to be warm. It’s upsetting how they gang up on me and close the windows.
“Everyone has to freeze so you can enjoy your precious fresh air?!?”
He says it with such spite.
The Mister acts like 48 isn’t great sleeping weather, putting his hoodie on and yanking the strings until only his nose can be seen. I tease him that he should move back to Georgia and he threatens to sleep on the couch.
He wins.
I don’t sleep well without him now.
The Mister was up all night finishing a term paper of epic proportions and he didn’t write it from bed.
I woke up constantly, aware of the vacancy. I reached for him repeatedly, subconsciously, how we do in the night, but he was never there.
I had a nightmare that made no sense, wandered out to The Quiet Room, said things. I left my earplugs in, so I probably yelled things. Maybe nonsense. I don’t recall. He said things too, but I have no idea what, because earplugs. I went back to bed.
Time and time again I woke up and went back to sleep, until eventually the sky was light and the birds were singin. Dawn. Oh the dreaded dawn of 6:20. What a cold bed.
When the dog finally woke up, she met us in the kitchen, no more enthusiastic about morning than we were.
Me, up before the dog. There is nothing right about that sentence.
I picked up a coffee, took the girls to school, voted, ate breakfast, walked the dog, and became an expert on identifying invasive honeysuckle bushes…
*sobs* but it’s so pretty!
Somehow it’s lunchtime, and yet I feel I only just awakened. I have one more errand to run, and my stomach thinks I should add food.
Who was your best friend in elementary school? We’ll call her Kiwi. We met in the second grade. I moved so much as a child, she was one of my few constants. We go long periods of time without contact, but we did get together for dinner a few months ago. We always tell one another we’re “exactly the same” which is impossible and also, true.
What things could people do for you on a really bad day that would really help you?
Listen to me, make me laugh.
If you could make a 15 second speech to the entire world, what would you say? If I could say all that I need to say in 15 seconds, I wouldn’t be a writer.
Would you rather be an amazing dancer or an amazing singer? Neither. I do both well enough, can I choose to be an amazing musician instead?
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
Last week had me grasping at gratitude and trying to hold on to all the good stuff with both hands. The refuge that I take in my husband’s arms at night. Cool, rainy days. Turning the pages of a great book. Good music. Bunnies in the yard. The last of the tulips. Joy in the enthusiasm of my children and the accomplishments of my friends. Overcoming anxiety moment to moment.
I’m happy to say that this week looks remarkably blank on the calendar. With that comes a little prayer of Please Let It Be So and then in expectation of disaster, a bit of “It is Well with My Soul” — but only the first verse, cause you know, heathen pagan Unitarian.
I was in bed by nine last night. The Mister dozed off before me. I roused him and said, “If you wake up at seven or some shit, don’t try to get at me. Go away and drink coffee and come back later.”
“Okay.”
I fell asleep before eleven. I was smiling when I put my earplugs in. So excited for sleeping in!
At dawn, what’s that now, six-somethin? He was wibble wobblin and I may have shouted, “This is exactly what I didn’t want!”
We both went back to sleep until after ten.
It was divine.
My head’s not foggy, nor does it seem to weigh thirty pounds.
I love when sleep makes me feel like a new person, don’t you?
Thanks to all of you who joined me from A-Z in April, I hope you enjoyed the ride!
I enjoy the A-Z Challenge most days.
What I’ve noticed, regardless of letters, is that I yearn to write freely.
I actually yearn to write random posts about the stuff of life. I miss it. I feel sorta repressed. I need a rant.
I want to tell you how on Wednesday, Moo was supposed to have a track meet at the high school. Moo came to me with papers that morning, because that’s how kids are. I hadda sign a waiver and agree to drop her off at 5. My first thought was no.
Seriously, I am not one of those mothers who goes on about the taxiing of children, because most of my readers are parents who have been there, done that, and got the tee-shirt…but…
I’m sick of it! I am! And this time of year is the absolute worst, because I get the spring fever, too! I don’t wanna go sit in the bleachers anywhere, ever. We had just had a music thingy where THE TEACHER LET PEOPLE ASK QUESTIONS BEFORE THE END! Fuckin amateurs, Man!
But anyway, track thingy, more bleachers for me! And in the sun!
But wait, it was raining! I said, “It’ll prolly be canceled. Sposta rain all day and night.”
I’ve reached the stage in parenting where I feel I should be given a free pass on all the meetings at school. I’m not nervous or excited about any of it. I don’t have any questions. Shouldn’t my student be the one to go to meetings? Couldn’t this all be done in a bloody email?!?
I ranted a bit.
Do schools even realize most parents work? Or that they have smaller children to care for? I don’t, but I have, and this always ticks me off. Don’t worry, I’m mad enough for all the other parents, too.
Moo said parents weren’t invited.
“Oh.”
I am like, the only mother ever who is happy not to be invited. Forgive me.
I signed the forms and decided I’d pick Sassy up at 4 and go to Aldi quick and drop Moo at 5.
“How will I know when to pick you up? Is Mrs M goin?” Well Moo didn’t know.
I told Sassy to make sure to look for my messages in the afternoon, since I didn’t know what would happen.
At 10:30 Moo called to tell me Mrs M would be at the track meet and I could pick her up at 7.
At 1:11 Moo rang to tell me the track meet had been canceled because of rain.
At 2:00 the school’s automated call told me the track meet was canceled due to inclement weather.
By then, I had given up trying to nap and sorta wandered around my house bein pissy at things that didn’t matter. Like: why people keep taggin me in everything on fb? why we have no cheeseburger machine? why this dog hasta pee again? why these plums not ripe?
At 3:00 I let Sassy know that I would pick her up at school around 4.
At 3:45 I picked Moo up from running, but forgot I needed to drive her little friend home on Wednesdays, too. I forgot in a way that my brain said oh aren’t betsy’s glasses cute? *wave* why betsy is with moo?oh fuck, joey, you gotta take betsy home. Betsy only knows the way to her house per the bus route, so it’s quite a windy-dindy sorta drive through her neighborhood.
At 3:50 the township called to tell me the track meet was canceled due to inclement weather.
At 4:08 I picked Sassy up. Sassy had been worried.
I hated that non-existent track meet so much.
In the car, Moo told me she needed foam tubing and her friend got some at Menards for $1. I ALREADY DONATED THE FUCKING DUCT TAPE AND CREATED THE CHILD WHO DESIGNED THE PROJECT! I HAVE DONE ENOUGH!
“Not tonight!” I said with some restraint.
I went to the Aldi and got our food-foods for the week. After that, we still needed about ten non-food items and we were gettin low on coffee, so on Wednesday night, I told myself I’d need to go out Thursday as well, to a big store and to Fresh Thyme (because I am in love with their Decaf French Roast) and then to the Menards for foam tubing. Yay. Three errands.
…
Thursday morning came and I felt so tired, how one does on Thursdays, that I couldn’t think of any reason why I should have to go out to the big stores. I thought it was a perfect day to gawk at doors, scrub the master bath up, weed, read a book, and generally jack around.
I mean, y’all, I feel like this iris looks. Bleh. Also, shut up and pollinate me.
Tired me questioned my compulsion. i don’t know why you think you hafta go today. you have all the food. still have toilet paper…
I didn’t go to the big stores.
I tried to understand Moo’s newest science dooji. As far as I can understand, it’s like a roller coaster for marbles, like the old Mouse Trap game. Foam tubing, though, is pretty vague.
“Do you need foam tubing like in plumbing, where it’s black or gray, or what?”
“No, like colored tubing.”
… colored foam tubing…
“Like pool noodles?” Moo isn’t great with words.
“Yes! Do you know where a Dollar General is?”
“Yes. It’s next to the Family Dollar. Why?”
“One of my friends found tubing there.” even better! closer! non-food items! yes! we shall go to dollar general! woo-hoo!
I have never been excited about going to Dollar General. I was just so tired.
I loaded up their arms with toothpaste and shampoo and tp and shaving cream BUT THERE WERE NO POOL NOODLES!
We had to go to Menards anyway.
How sad.
The pool noodles were not $1, either.
But they have Tootsie Rolls at Menards, big 2-packs of Tootsie Rolls for $1. I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that helped.
I ended up going out again, because my desire to eat a cheeseburger outweighed my desire to stand in the kitchen tending risotto. The mere thought of washing asparagus was enough to stifle my will to live.
Before bed, I made coffee for the morning. fuck. that’s why you were supposed to go to fresh thyme today!
I told The Mister last night, about how I forgot about the coffee. I said he could still take my car today, but that Moo’s foamy things were in it. I said I’d take the van, maybe go to Dunkin Donuts before I took Sassy to school. I could get myself a lil double double and get her a donut and pick up a pound of coffee.
…
This morning, I told Sassy to get ready and not to dawdle, because sometimes I think she dawdles in an effort to miss her bus so I have to drive her. That’s when I remembered I was supposed to drive her SO I COULD GET COFFEE!
Do you know how many people are in line at Dunkin Donuts on a Friday?!?
I will go to Fresh Thyme on Monday. I will. I will get the good coffee and fish and kefir and produce.
You can’t make me go out this weekend. Not unless it’s a DoorScursion or there’s ice cream involved. Nope. Not gonna.
Dammit. I’ve just realized I have to see Moo perform tomorrow! I’ll go to that. But that’s all.
How’s your spring fever manifesting? How’s your anxiety level? How’s A-Z goin for ya? How many stale, unnecessary meetings have you been to this week? How tired are you?
Before I committed to the A-Z Challenge, I charted what letters #ThursdayDoors would fall on. Believe it or not, I knew X would be one of the easiest.
I see this door every day, multiple times a day.
This is the side of my humble shed.
Oh, I wish I could tell you she has fetching walls covered in murals, a work bench, and a window to warm seedlings — but she doesn’t.
She does, however, boast the unattractive juvenile graffiti of her former owners, spiders out the yin-yang, and burnt-out overhead lights, because some jerkface beloved family member left them on for God knows how long.
She has a concrete foundation, sturdy shelves, and more than enough space.
She wishes you’d caught on her a sunny day, maybe a day in June when her roses are in bloom and her colorful pots are brimming with summer’s flowers.
She’s purely utilitarian, but she knows her potential.
She wants new light bulbs, a shop vac, paint, a window, and well, a few weeks of my constant attention. What she gets are scowling people rushing in and out to retrieve pots and tools and things.
Bless her, my poor humble shed.
#ThursdayDoors is part of an inspired post series run by Norm Frampton. To view other interesting doors, click the link and see what others are posting today.
In the fall of fourth grade, I got a new dress for picture day. The dress was brown velvet with princess sleeves, a satin sash, and a cream lace trim. It was a pretty dress, all silky and shiny lookin.
I only wore it once.
I don’t like velvet.
I love the soft, plush, luxurious look of velvet.
I gawk at velvet sofas, velvet jackets, velvet throws, but I won’t touch them. I don’t care how expensive or how well made it is, it’s all vile.
Touching velvet is repulsive.
Touching velvet feels wrong.
Touching velvet is like petting a cat in the wrong direction, tugging a cotton ball from a medicine bottle, pulling styrofoam-packs from a box.
Do you know what I mean?
Just thinking about touching velvet paints my skin with goosebumps.
When I think about touching velvet, I am ten and I smooth my skirt on the bus. A shiver runs through my body and I wonder how anything so beautiful can torment me to the point that my teeth ache. If I run my hand one way, it feels slightly less disturbing. This inconsistency bothers me and so I stop touching it at all. The sound of it rings in my ears.
When I get to school and take my coat off, all the girls want to touch my dress. I wince and fake smiles for their compliments.
I can’t focus on my morning work, because I can hear the sound of the velvet crunching like snow beneath me. I try to be still, but the sound lingers. I stand up, flounce and fan the skirt of my dress across the back of my seat. I’m satisfied with only my slip between me and the cold, hard chair, but I can still hear the velvet rustling with every mark my pencil makes.
I am so happy in music and at recess because the piano and the wind are louder than my dress.
By the afternoon, it’s time for math, and I pray I don’t get called to the board. Walking in silence, this dress is too loud. I try to keep my arms still at my side, but I can hear the dress crushing and crunching as I make my way to the board. No one else seems to hear it.
When I get home, I use a steak knife to tear the lace from the hem of my dress and rip the seam along the side. It has a lining, so I’m careful to ruin that as well. My father and I can both sew only adequately, so I need to mess up the dress in a way that will be too hard for either of us to fix. I hang the dress and change into my play clothes.
My father never asked me to wear the dress again, but at some point, he removed it because I’d outgrown it. If he noticed the hem, he never mentioned it.
So when Moo tells me her clothes are too scratchy, when she insists I cut her tags out and she wears tights under almost everything because the seams itch and sting her, no, I don’t fuss at her. Does she have sensory issues? Most likely. But that’s okay, I understand.
Here’s an Unrelated photo of my Ukulele, so you can all agree, I know at least two words that start with U.
Of course I can play it. Anyone can play the ukulele. Oh, like make music on it? Not so much, no. Chord strum, same chord strum, strum, strum, strum.
You know, most people think of the ukulele as a Hawaiian instrument, but it originated in Portugal. Mine’s a Portuguese baritone. Saucy.
When writing by hand do you prefer to use a pencil or pen?
Pen. Fat pens, good for my stupid, arthritic hands. I’ll show you my favorite pens, but don’t you dare try to use them. I’m pen-stingy.
The kitty pen is handmade by True and represents my beloved Felicity, RIP.
The blue pen is from my mother, and it’s my travel pen. It’s also a replacement pen because The Mister broke and fixed the first one right into ruin. I forgive him, but I just don’t like other people using my special pens. If we’re out somewhere, you need to have your own damn pen.
Like Cee, I also like Zebra SARASA pens.
I think the best pens are the ones drug reps give to doctors’ offices. For years, my travel pen was a VIOXX ad. I realize that’s funny ironic, but I’m just sayin, it was a nice thick pen, and while I don’t troll the hospital looking for fat pens, I’m not above asking the receptionist, “MayIkeepthispen?Thanks.”
What’s your choice: jigsaw, word, maze or numeric puzzles?
Crosswords! And yes, I do crosswords with a pen.
I like jigsaw and 3-D puzzles, but not near as much as crosswords. One of my favorite things to do is to sit at the table and work a crossword puzzle. Lil classical music, lil rain pattering from the open window, big ol cuppa coffee — That’s good stuff!
Do you prefer long hair or short hair for yourself?
I prefer long hair. After the traumatically bad haircut of 2009, I have vowed never to have my hair cut above my shoulders ever again. Never ever.
List some of your favorite blogs.
I’m squirming, because I hate exclusion. I read tons of blogs in the course of a day.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? This last week I am most grateful for my husband. I’m also grateful for cooler days, a three-day weekend, the return of goat cheese & spinach pizza at Aldi, and new, better health insurance.
This week coming up doesn’t seem too busy. Moo has a performance on Saturday, but other than that, it should just be same ol same ol. Of course, I said that last week, and last week was filled with pleasant surprises, so you never can tell!
True is a friend I made when we were both in Ft. Stewart, Georgia. Our husbands were in the same unit.
I met her at my first FRG meeting. (That’s Family Readiness Group, which is supposed to provide support to families of deployed soldiers, but is actually slightly annoying, rather invasive, often boring, and totally depressing.)
Anyway, when True stepped out, I held her baby, and listened to other mothers complain about her nursing. We became fast friends that day BECAUSE I WILL DEFEND A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO NURSE HER BABY PUBLICLY, OPENLY, UNTIL THE DAY I DIE. (I may blog about it one day, and I won’t even write a trigger warning to let you know the offensive breasts are comin.)
Anyway again, True and I bonded quickly in 2007, and remain close friends to this day.
So, True had lived at Ft.Stewart, Georgia, in Vilseck, Germany, Williston, Florida and Bancroft, Michigan. Her concept of towns and cities was slightly askew from my own.
I’d lived in a few smaller cities, but for most of my life, I’ve lived in Indianapolis.
The entire time I lived at Ft. Stewart, I complained about the lack of city. Our nearest ‘city’ was Hinesville. Hinesville had a nice dentist, great pediatricians, a yummy Mexican restaurant, and good sushi. That’s it. That’s all I got. The nice dentist retired right before we left, prolly due to my visits, and Sushi House went out of business after we left, prolly cause we weren’t there to eat it.
Hinesville is a hole. I’m sorry, but it’s a hole. If you want to find the rudest, most indignant, least competent people in America, then find the civilians who work on and around military bases. They are an atrocious segment of the population. Without the military, they’d have no livelihood, but they hate the military and it shows. Godforsaken Hinesville has a population of Who The Fuck Would Choose To Live Here Voluntarily?!? 34,000. That’s probably 33,700 Army and their dependents and like, 300 really angry, sunburnt, dehydrated, displaced people.
No apologies.
I shouldn’t need to explain further. This graph is enough to make me hate anywhere.
Do you not sweat just lookin at that?!? Ew. Icky icky ew.
Our closest real city was Savannah, Georgia. Yes, it’s beautiful. Hot as blazes, but beautiful. It was also an hour away and it’s not particularly… urban. There are fewer than 150,000 people in Savannah.
In order to get to Savannah, we had to endure what I called The Pine Tree Way which was the longest 17 miles of road anyone ever drove. Residents in the southeast corner of the country might love their pine tree landscapes as much as I love my cornfields and forests, I dunno, but I find them sad. My MIL, big tree lover, said that those trees were the saddest she’d ever seen. Well she was right; the poor things are forested, burned and culled regularly. Fuckin tree skeletons and whatnot.
i took this photo. i call it “where trees go to die.”
The Pine Tree Way was bleak. It was so bleak, you wanted to do 90mph the whole time, but you couldn’t, because speed traps, and because the Army put signs up all along the way. Panic-inducing signs featuring coffins and shit. Safety First, y’all.
One goes from this to I-95. People who know I-95 understand this.
I understand some people enjoy living far from the crowds and the noise. I am not one of them. I understand some people enjoy living out in the country. I am not one of them. But I don’t know who would want to live in a small suburban environment in the middle of bloody nowhere, where you have no peace and quiet, nor do you have convenience and variety. *boo*
We usually did Savannah as a day trip. We’d drive an hour plus to shop at the big mall with the Target and Game Stop, eat somewhere with air-conditioning and cloth napkins, and then make the journey back home.
I had written before about military housing allowances, but while The Mister and I, with our brood, took up residence in a nice, new, two-story, multi-unit, True and her crew were shoved into a two bedroom ghetto-ass apartment, (for the same price!) so it wasn’t long before they moved off-post and into the hole that is Hinesville and its sister town, Midway. After all, True had dreams of being able to sleep in a queen size bed and cook in a kitchen with more than four floor tiles.
Now after being stationed at Ft. Stewart for 10 years, True’s husband is out of the Army and they’ve relocated to Columbia, South Carolina. I find this comforting, because I don’t even have to drive through Georgia to get to South Carolina. I hope to never step in Georgia again.
Indianapolis is twice the size of Atlanta, in both land and population. I have seen its aquarium, its zoo, and the Coca-Cola bottling company. There is nothin else good to see in Georgia. *hiss*
Since True moved, she tells me of the wonder that is the big city. Sometimes with horror, sometimes with joy, but mostly with awe.
True’s oldest goes to school with 900 other kids!
There’s a zoo! And museums!
So many educational resources and programs for her kids!
Her good sushi is 20 minutes away now.
She complains she has to take the interstate to get places.
She says, “I’m going to Michael’s! Guess what? It’s only five minutes away!”
She tells me her city is SO BIG.
*giggle*
I blow her mind.
“True, there are about 140,000 people in Columbia and there are over 800,000 in Indianapolis.”
For reference, The Mister and I both graduated in a classes of 300+; Sassy and Moo will graduate with 500+.
I loved DoDEA schools, but I didn’t like the off-post schools that Bubba and Sissy attended in Georgia. They were HOLES.
The Indianapolis Zoo is 64 acres big.
Indianapolis boasts the world’s largest children’s museum, and the 9th largest collection of Art in the U.S. is at The Indianapolis Museum of Art.
My good sushi is also 20 minutes away and shares a parking lot with Michael’s.
Now True understands my prior suffering. It’s all about choices. More city, more choices. For a girl like True, who grew up with population 500, Columbia may as well be NYC.
Have you ever made a drastic move? Are you a country or city mouse? What does your city or town have the best of?
Last night our household spent the evening getting a serious Prince fix. You know it’s a big deal when MTV plays music videos again.
My kids know Prince’s music, but the artist himself remained less of a icon for them, because, well, we had MTV and we had album covers, and they don’t. They don’t see musicians the way we do. Even when they do encounter videos, they don’t watch them every chance they get the way so many of my generation did. They pull the videos up, plug their headphones in, and listen while they do other things.
This causes a gap that’s more than age-related, more than generational.
Music was a huge chunk of my education at home. When I was little, music and dancing seemed a part of every day life. One of my earliest memories is my portable turntable and “I got a brand new pair of roller skates, you got a brand new key…”
Growing up, my house had a lot more music than television.
There were trips to music stores. Remember music stores? With albums and 45s? Sometimes my dad would DJ and we would guess the tunes, sometimes we took a spin around the loop, just listening to new cds. We went to a lot of concerts. My parents had a vast record collection that imparted their generation’s music to me, but they listened to a variety of new music as well.
Like our cat, I enjoyed sprawling out in front of large speakers, feeling the bass. Unlike our cat, I sang along to the songs, and pored over the albums.
I take this seriously. This is a really big job, putting decades, centuries even, of music into children.
It requires some force feeding.
Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes, thanks to Guitar Hero, your son asks you to buy the ‘new’ BonJovi song, “Wanted Dead or Alive” or suddenly all your kids have a fascination with Billy Squire.
I miss Guitar Hero days from the boy one. His taste in music has evolved into territory I can’t dig. Did you know some people relax in the bath to Avenged Seven Fold?!? I thought that was a good time to walk the dog.
I can assure you visuals are important to children.
Have you ever seen the look on a kid’s face when you first present them with curry, lentil soup, or hummus?
When we lived in Georgia, the little boys across the street were obsessed with Kiss. My littlest girls would go over there to play, and they’d return singing, telling me all about Paul and Stanley. (They liked Paul and Stanley best.) They knew what they wore, how they did their faces, how tall the boots were. They knew a lot about Kiss for bein 4 and 5. This was because of a discography — music, videos, interviews — that they suddenly had access to.
After the Kiss phase, Moo entered a near-obsessive Beatles phase, because we got the Love thingy with videos. Moo listened to The Beatles and watched the videos like it was her job, but she never saw the artists in a personal way. So then things like this happened:
Me: Do you know who Paul McCartney is? Sassy: Famous guy. Me: Do you know why he’s famous? Sassy: He’s a singer. Me: Do you know who John Lennon is? Sassy: One of The Beatles? Me: Yes. Do you know any of the other Beatles? Sassy: No.
*calls Moo in*
Me: Moomalade, do you know who Paul McCartney is? Moo: No. Me: Do you know who John Lennon is? Moo: No. Me: What’s your favorite band? Moo: The Beatles. Me: Carry on.
But they know ALL the songs. This is an example of the kind of disconnect we get in a digital age. The bodies might move, the ears definitely take it in, but the hands are off and there’s not much to look at.
We went through a similar thing when Bowie passed. The weekend before Bowie passed, there had been a birthday tribute, and since Sassy had no idea what we were on about, The Mister and I spent time enhancing her Bowie education. Oh, she knew plenty of Bowie music, but not that it’s Bowie’s music.
And kids, well, they never like anything the first time around. My life is full of constant amazement over how their tastes grow and change. Sassy proclaimed Billy Joel to be the worst singer ever. She hated Elton John, thought “Bohemian Rhapsody” was stupid, could not understand why Led Zeppelin was a big deal. But just like asparagus, you keep puttin it in their faces, and eventually they swallow some.
One day in March, Moo asked me to turn Bob Seger off, but I refused. One day last week, she asked me to turn him up.
My latest download into Sassy?
A few mornings of this disc, now she sings and hums it.
I love the horns.
Sassy didn’t know who the hell Missy Elliot was until I said Iggy Azalea sounded just like her. Then when I played Missy, Sassy kinda hmmed and said that wasn’t too bad, and now guess what? Sassy loves Missy Elliot.
She’s still holding out on the asparagus…
As a mother, I like to give I Told You Sos and comment, “But you don’t like Fleetwood Mac, remember?”
“But bruschetta is gross because olives, remember?”
I will tell you, around 11 o’clock last night, I asked Sassy if she was in love with Prince yet, and she said, “Mama, I was in love with him about three songs in.” I declare that’s the power of visual stimuli. I mean, really, it’s PRINCE, FFS. If the guitar didn’t make you groove, there’s a beautiful man in gorgeous clothes and um, sometimes he takes them off.
Which leads me to my next bit, where for a long time, Sassy wouldn’t eat spaghetti unless it involved marinara. When she was 8, I told her I was making spaghetti carbonara, and somehow she didn’t hear the carbonara part, so when it was time for dinner she claimed, “You ruined my spaghetti!” and refused to try it. This week, I told her I was making spaghetti carbonara and she got all excited. Still cautious, I asked her to Google it. She said it looked good and she was still excited. She ate seconds. I’m making it again today.
If only I could get her to love spaghetti alla puttenesca. It’s those damned anchovies, you know. Sassy and Moo hate seafood. Except tuna and sushi, which they were exposed to at a young age. At home. Where chicken fingers were not an option. They won’t even eat chicken that’s been fried in the same oil as fish. I’ll keep tryin.
joeyfullystated 
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