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marks of the beast

11/30/2010

Roo adorns the door to his room with this Ojibway-esque cave drawing he has titled 'running porkypine'

I'm not sure where I've gone wrong as a parent. I've provided my youngest with paper and crayons, pencils and coloring books. Paints, markers. An easel. Chalk, sidewalk chalk, chalkboards. I've engaged in cheery artsy crafty juvenile activities of all sorts, and provided the best public schooling with the most awesome pre-K teachers around.

Now all of the sudden, whenever my back is turned for a nonosecond, my Renoir Roo is marking his territory and scribbling up the walls like a neanderthal/Jackson Pollock lovechild on an NEA grant. It's just not fair.

an obvious act of retribution for me introducing him to pre-K trigonometry, Roo tags Mommy's door with pi

You know that quote from the Bible, "in the twinking of an eye..."? Yah, that's how fast it happened. If you think you are a more observant parent and this could never happened to you, remember no man or woman will know the time of the coming of the...beast.

an impressionist rendering of 'Lightning Queen' directly beneath the Andrew Wyeth in my bedroom is a clear assault to my feng shui

And in case you were wondering if we have enough to do around here, please note that now painting is on the to do list. Beware "water washable" markers which, when they say, "water," really mean "magical holy water of restoration and undo."

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bibliofluvia

11/29/2010

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You went shopping without me, didn't you? On Spooky Saturday and Black Friday and Sinful Sunday or whatever, despite my warnings, you went.

Ah, it's just as well. I don't really "shop" anymore. I'm more of what you would call a vicarious consumer than an actual consumer. It's just so much funner and cheaper to sit back and make remarks about what others buy. I'm here for you, though. In this as in all things I keep track of the trends, people. I am prepared to advise.

One thing Hub and I still do shop for is books. Real books, too, not those encoded pieces of data you plug an earbud into or upload onto a little robotic LCD ersatz book doppelganger. Nuh uhn.

One thing we've noticed lately in a lot of bookstores is an increase in what we call bibliofluvia. You know, all that non-book crap crammed around the checkouts in about (now) the front 1/3 of any bookstore (probably sold to try and raise the store income since no one but us buys real books anymore). I'm talking your decorative bookends shaped like a stack of brass books, your coffee mug shaped like a stack of books, a phony stack of books that's really a hollow ceramic cache holder where you can hide your...what, pot? Keys to your safe? Look, I'm no criminal, but I know enough about this bibliofluvia crap to tell you that if I'm coming to your house to steal your pot or the keys to your safe, that fake ceramic stack of books is the first place I'm gonna look. Just don't buy it.

Years ago when Hub worked in a Christian bookstore as a student, the staff snickered over the holy roller version of bibliofluvia there which they called holy hardware. This would be your basic "Jesus Loves" superballs, rolls of tasty "Testa-Mints," Holy Ghostbusters joke books for Grandpa, Footprints in the Sand pedicure sets. That sort of thing.

Let's just sum up to say, there is less and less of the book in bookstore. And should you be concerned? I'm going to advise, yes. Cuz even if you just love having your Kindle in your labcoat pocket for a quick read while your patient is coming out of anesthesia or whatever, or you just adore your ceramic fake book stack for hiding your Testa-Mints from the kids, there will come a day, my friend. We will walk into the hollow vacant "book spa" of the future and be implanted with the one and only "chip of the canon," and like all canons of literature, the dead rich old white dudes who chose it might not like what you like.

It could be Pynchon, Joyce and Clancy until the end of time. And if you think you need pot now, just wait until then.

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this little light of mine

11/29/2010

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Ah, the first Sunday of advent. That magical time to begin contemplating this powerful season of our LORD's birth and to, well, put up your tree.

I like to think I will earn a special crown in heaven (which I envision something like this) since I manage a family of 4 plus 2 hounds in a home that is relatively the same size as the animal birthing cave Jesus was born in. I like to think I will be rewarded because I keep it marginally better smelling here, too (well, most days). These truths, however, are divine mysteries and cannot be proven. We'll just have to wait and see. Maybe holy mother Mary (who's sort of been there, done that) will put in a good word for me.

This is the first year both Toe and Roo have been old enough to become really engaged and annoying in the Christmas season. I think Toe's letters to Santa started somewhere back in June, and I didn't interfere with this since 1. we were practicing our writing skills for kindergarten and 2. on rainy days of summer vacation it gave him someone else around the house to pester besides me. They both also started asking to call Santa back then, on a special red plastic phone that's actually a therapy tool to help kids imporve their diction. Again, we've have Santa on the horn quite a bit, and apparently in the off-season he lives in San Diego near the bay with Uncle Jimbo, surfs, and owns a rocket ship. I am not sure how he feels about Governor Schwarzenegger--Toe took the Santa phone away from me before I could ask.

Besides prank calling Santa, here are some of our favorite BCD family advent traditions:
1. Reading Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, allowing ourselves to become emotionally drained by the power of the story, then making really delicious alcoholic fruitcake which we eat when the children go to bed.
2. The advent calendar. This is a little Swiss alpine wooden house whose wee doors reveal a dainty daily treat/bribe left by Santa's elves who know that we need all the help we can get.
3. Hanging the "ormaments." Stealing the "ormamaments." Using the "ormaments" as props in elaborate creative play. "Breaking the "ormaments" and blaming it on Birdie.
4. The Holidazzle Parade. Freezing our breeches off in the crowded dark wind tunnel of downtown Mpls. to watch crazies dressed in elaborate lightbulbs waddle by and promote our nemesis, Xcel energy. It's not very green, but it's free and the boys love the sparkle.

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holy (baby) balls!

11/28/2010

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All my adorable young lady friends have been sooooo good this year, Santa has knocked them all up for Christmas (er, so to speak). Congratulations to Megan, whose amazing Chinese fertility balls miracle pregnancy is too good to miss--read her blog! Congratulations to Rosemary, childhater, doghater, and confirmed bachelorette whom the LORD has--in just the last three years-- led to a beautiful marriage, a lovefest with the cutest dog on earth, and now an eagerly awaited pregnancy! Finally, congratulations to Tante Sarah, our ray of sunshine across the street, as she and new hub Francisco pass the 25 week mark and await the birth of their baby boy!

Good job procreating, people!

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classical education

11/28/2010

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Found inside a set of magnetic letters and numbers. A misplaced epsilon? I guess pre-K trig lessons begin today.

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gobble gobble gobble, mostly (A BCD Thanksgiving in pictures)

11/26/2010

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maple-candied bacon--I tried to arrange it to look like a Maple leaf for presentation's sake, but it ended up just slabs of pig on a plate

the only thing that couldl ever get me to spend 3 hours candying pig

the star

the other star (gone supernova)

the Great Wall of St. Paul: Toe and Roo come up measuring taller than many of their predecessors at their age, but in general we are a family of Viking children

when the menfolk talk, we listen (NOT)

ladies plotting for the revolution

Roo, blurry but sat-is-fied

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greatly full

11/24/2010

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what do you get when you cross a turkey with a moose and a peacock??

Giving thanks for...

preschool art, snow days, big eyes, little hands, silly songs, suppertime, made up words, Modern Family, chin dimples, friends who blog, miracle cures, wiry dogs, dictionaries, saying things with your eyes, new babies, lending and borrowing with neighbors, incandescent lightbulbs, sincere apologies, fat books,
warm naan, hearty soups, giggles from another room, when Hub says, "coffee, you?", Santa mugs, electric blankets, frozen fruit, when Toe says, "I tooted--it's an evil cloud of stink!", beagle bays, round tummies, thinking games, foreign words, when Roo says, "Tanks for helping, Mommy!", music in the dark, longing for God...

...and the whole big messy adventure.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Roo, child of wonder

Toe 'turkey walking'

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gingerhood

11/24/2010

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New Listing; Seller Motivated

First of all, this house wouldn't even make money at a Sherriff's sale in the 'hood. The siding's sliding off, there's a gaping hole in the roof. The colors are all rickety-rack, the trees appear diseased and there's no lawn. It's got worms.

Did I mention the statuette of Santa somehow also came out looking like a chimpanzee? That's not good. Nobody wants that, especially at the festive holiday time.

Normally I don't approve of taking otherwise delicious food (gingerbread, frosting, candy) and making it completely inedible just for decorative purposes (cinderblock, cement, gravel). But damn you, children's literature (especially you, Max and Ruby), you made making a gingerbread house look so fun to Roo in all those books, he wore me down with the constant nagging. Gingerbread house gingerbread house gingerbread house please please please puhleeeeeeeeeeez!

And can you blame me for caving when the weather outside is frightful and the end result was two solid hours of silliness and laughter, and faces like this:

No. You absolutely cannot blame me.

Of course the gingerbread house is all but forgotten less than one helio cycle later, but what do you expect? We used a kit, from Target and it tastes like pictures of Afghanistan look (I'm sorry, but who do you think I am? Ina Garten? I don't have time to bake fresh gingerbread and make butter frostings for a decorative Christmas fantasy--they wouldn't have the bunkerlike sturdiness to withstand such nonsense anyway!). Once Toe and Roo made it and gave it a few licks, they realized it wasn't going to be the disneyesque experienced they belived, and moved on to playing Xbox. Sigh, I can't blame them.

When I was a kid we made delicious edible gingerbread houses with my farmy, rural German-English grandma (her name was Agnes, but I always just called her "Gramma-in-the-country," true story). The walls were Lebkuchen (real German gingerbread is actually translated as "The Bread of Life" just to give you an idea how good it tastes...) and the icing was stiff but fluffy and the candies were maybe peppermint sticks and shortbread flowers and little roof tiles cut out of a thin sheet of buttery homemade caramel. Yummy!

Yes, I know, I'm a 100 years old and people don't do that no more, get over it, blah blah blah. Now I have to go get ready for Thanksgiving, and no, there will be no cranberries out of a can!

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why the dinos died: another theory

11/22/2010

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budz (yah, I know, not a 'real' word)

Why did the dinosaurs really die out? Because kids finally discovered that dogs were way more awesomer than dead old giant lizards, that's what I think.

Okay, it's kind of a flimsy theory, but what about that Darwin guy and his so-called "evidence." Huh? Anyway, it's my blog. If you want to speculate on the validity of the basics of all human knowledge, get your own blog (really, get one--it's fun!). We can go monkey trial for monkey trial, my friend. Bring it. Until then, more cute snaps of Roo lovin' on dogz.

yo yo, Red Rover, bring me a cookie right over!

embarrassed by the fact he ever thought Triceratops was 'all that'

Right now at our house, it's all canine all the time. Finally, something that indicates these children may perhaps be genetically mine (well, this and the fact they both seem to innately know what I'm saying when I read them the riot act in German: Mach schnell, du schlauischer Bub!): Harry the Dirty Dog, Clifford the BRD, Spot, Kipper, Officer Buckle and Gloria, Snoopy, Underdog, Hong Kong Phooey, Biscuit, Ginger, Beethoven, Red Rover, Pluto, Nana, Gromit, Wishbone, Bolt.

I gotta tell you. I am really starting to get worried for Toe's 8 imaginary cats.

you know when Roo invites it into the box, it's a special guest indeed

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Tales of the Dark Ages

11/19/2010

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My life is so dull, I figure I have to find a way of making poverty sound "spicy." What? Frank McCourt did it. Why not me? I have begun gathering stories for a collection called The Great Recession: Tales of Living Through the Biggest Double-Dip Politically Whitewashed Economic Crisis America Has Ever Had (alternative title: Angela's Ashes, the East Side Edition).

I'm sure most of you have Great Recession stories of you own, right? Like how you made a festive holiday dress out of coffee filters and beet juice (oh, your MIL didn't send you that email?) or how, like one of my sisters, you save freebie disposable hotel shower caps to use as cellophane food bowl covers (but, really, I'm thinking if you're staying in a hotel that much, how broke can you be?). Anyway, share those. But beware, they may appear in my book.

In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at some titles from my own collection:

1. Amy's Garden, or How I Survived the Great Organic Vegetable Famine of Summer 2010

2. "Bean" There, Done That: Making the Magical Fruit Taste Like Kobe Beef.

3. Cutoff From Culture: The Time I Had to Drive Uphill in the Snow All the Way to the Library Just to Blog

4. The Year Santa Got Terminal Carpal Tunnel

5. Farewell, Colombia: A Tribut to Coffees and Chocolates I Once Knew

6. The Thanksgiving Beagle: Killing Two Birds With One Stone When You Can't Afford Turkey or Dog Food*

So, that's my latest book project. Should be a sexy summer read.

*No animals were physically harmed in the making of this blog, although Birdie (and Hub) just gave me a doleful look for even thinking that joke!

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Dear brothers
and sisters,
never get tired
of doing good.

~2 Thessalonians 3:13

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