Finding Blanche
Nothing stays the same.Archive for October, 2008
My favorite night of the year.
Let me start by saying that there is one thing I absolutely love about the ad above is the shoes. Aren’t they awesome? Though I think I’d like them better without the blood. But that’s just me.
Halloween merchandising is over. That is another great thing about today. Yay. See, all you people out there who asked me today why I haven’t posted yet about how much I HATE Halloween? I’ve been busy thinking of things I like about this particular night of the year. Here is my list:
1) Candy. I do love candy. I hate kids coming to the door begging for it. I hate that my kids wander the streets for it and how much they get. But in and of itself? I love candy.
2) Like I wrote above – I love that the frenzy ends tonight. No more screeching crap in stores and overpriced displays. Yay.
3) The neighborhood teenagers are friendly for a night. Go figure.
4) Dinner is usually really easy and casual. The reason is so there’s plenty of room for candy and so the kids can leave the house, but I love a soup and salad kind of dinner.
5) Candy. Oh wait, I said that.
6) And I confess that I do love the little princess costumes. But don’t tell anyone, please.
Try as I might, I can’t think of anything else. Except maybe that it’s nice to see my boys so happy when they spread the candy out on the living room floor and assess the loot. And I do enjoy seeing them sort the candy by type and size. I love organized shit.
In fact, The Container Store has nothing on us. Sort by color. By size, shape, texture. Chocolate vs. not. It’s just not natural.
Some therapists are going to have a field day some day.
Happy F*&!ing Halloween.
I love to laugh.
I really love a good hearty, uncontrollable laugh. It doesn’t happen to me all that often but when it does, watch out! It happened last night as Andrew and I were recounting an experience we had in Omaha before the kids were born. More about that in a second.
When I was a kid, I remember laughing out of control at the dinner table. So hard, in fact, that no one could understand me. I would try and try to explain what was so honkin’ funny but I couldn’t get it out of me. It hurts my side just thinking about it.
The same thing happens to Reed sometimes. The other boys every once in a while, but mostly to Reed. I feel for him – and at the same time, I realize how frustrating it must have been for my parents to have no idea why I was falling to pieces!
Okay, back to Omaha.
We moved there a few weeks after we got married. We didn’t know a soul. Andrew had a brand new job and I had a smelly, worn-down, furnished apartment at the lovely Twin Towers and a brand new husband who was out of town 75% of the time. In fact, he left to fly to D.C. the week after we arrived in Nebraska and almost didn’t make it back to the lovely Twin Towers in time for Thanksgiving.
The good news was that I found an amazing job right away. But it didn’t start until January 3rd and it was still November! Well, that left me plenty of time to drive around looking for a house and to learn my way around. It also gave me plenty of time to run errands – which I must say took a lot longer in Omaha than in Baltimore because all the merchants were so darn chatty. I remember taking shoes in to be fixed and not being able to politely leave for 15 minutes!
But I digress.
We had no friends out there at first. We’d go out to dinner or to the movies on the weekends. You couldn’t really do both because the restaurants closed early and you couldn’t go to a movie and then to dinner. (It’s changed a lot since then. I’ve been back a bunch of times since we moved away in 1999.)
One night, after dinner (it was maybe 8pm!) we had nothing to do. Somehow, and don’t ask me how or why, we just started following the car in front of us. We were ‘exploring’ the new town. The car turned right. We turned right. Straight. Left. Whatever. Well, we ended up in some apartment complex and the guy got out of the car and started walking to the building.
Obviously, we were just going to leave. But he came back and got back in his car. By now we were laughing our heads off. Should we follow him? Maybe he was some sort of spy. Or drug dealer. This was an adventure!
Sure, we got bored shortly after and realized that this might not be the safest hobby around. But we still laugh out loud when we think of that night.
Any odd adventures you’d like to share?
Who me?
Halloween is right around the corner. In about 97 hours, the little goblins will be coming by and ringing my doorbell for candy.
So obviously, we have to be prepared. Andrew brought the bags and bags of candy home yesterday. (Last year, we had over 300 kids.)
The boys came home from school today and noticed that one of the bags of candy was opened.
“Mom? What happened? The candy bag is open.”
I said, “Your father has no self-control.”
They are still on the floor laughing.
(And I’m rearranging the trash in the can under my desk so you don’t see the wrappers.)
Geocaching
We love to geocache and it’s a great excuse to be together outside, getting some exercise and away from technology.
If you’ve never been, you no longer need to invest in an expensive handheld GPS device – you can download a free application for your iPhone, if you have one. Now I can justify the phone. Okay, not really. But I do love it just the same.
We end up finding backroads that we’d have never found otherwise. Isn’t this pretty?
See Max and Andrew down there? It was a challenging cache and a tough climb! Max spotted the prize. He’s quite the pointer!
We found so much quartz – seriously tons of it – near the Liberty Dam. Really cool.
Detour.
On the way home from the candy tour I saw a sign for ‘Estuary Center’ and, being a little geeky, I asked Andrew to turn down the side road and head toward it. Since it was rainy and we were already a little sick from the candy and other sundry eating of the day (We had followed part of the Washington Post Candy Tour Road Trip) to say that the boys were reluctant to have an educational experience would be an understatement.
But we stopped anyway. We told them they could wait in the car, but they followed us in. Seems we were the only visitors of the day and boy did we get some attention! There were some great exhibits and it was interesting, but the outdoor views were the best.
Is it just me that thinks it’s odd that there is an estuary center in the first place? Evidently, it’s a big research place – pretty interesting stuff studied there. Plus some trails and canoe/kayak launches and more. Note to self: stop back on a nice day!
It wasn’t that long ago.
I was talking to a friend of mine (Megan, you know who you are!) about potty training. It ain’t easy, as we all know. But it got me to thinking. It seems like yesterday.
OMG. I sound ancient, don’t I?
But seriously, the time goes so fast. I remember when Davis told me, “Mom, from now on I want to wear underwear.” And he did. From then on. And I remember how I thought that was how it would be for all future children.
Ha!
But seriously, it is so strange how time flies.
And maybe I shouldn’t have posted this adorable picture. But I just couldn’t help it.
So shoot me.
Following Jerry.
Yesterday, I got a Twitter follow that surprised me. Jerry__Garcia. I am not kidding. See, down there? That’s his photo.
Now, I know (as well as anyone can know anything) he died on August 9, 1995. So I did find it surprising that he was on Twitter. My first thought was how awesome that I can tweet long after I’m gone, but since that is not particularly rational thought, I decided to go check out his profile.
* Name Jerry__Garcia
* Location lovely view of heaven
* Web http://www.dead.net
* Bio each day will be song quotes from a show on that day in dead history…lots of updates
-
Jerry__Garcia: As we rode out to Fennario, as we rode on to Fennario, Our captain fell in love with a lady like a dove….7 minutes ago · Reply · View Tweet
-
Jerry__Garcia: Yes and the doctor called me crazy, some says I am, some says I ain’t…35 minutes ago · Reply · View Tweet -
Jerry__Garcia: If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.about 2 hours ago · Reply · View Tweet
-
Jerry__Garcia: Tears I cried for that woman are gonna flood you big river, and I’m a gonna sit right here until I die.about 3 hours ago · Reply · View Tweet
-
mikkael: @Jerry__Garcia Me And My Uncleabout 4 hours ago · Reply · View Tweet -
Jerry__Garcia: Taught me good Lord, taught me all I know, taught me so well I grabbed that gold, and I left his dead ass there by the side of the road…about 4 hours ago · Reply · View Tweet
-
Jerry__Garcia: Since you poured the wine for me, and tightened up my shoes, I hate to leave you sitting there, composin’ lonesome blues…
Is this a total waste of time? To get song lyrics in my Twitter-stream? Probably so. But it makes me happy.
Now, there’s nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” OR “Sure, whatever, let’s just get out of here.”
What to call this post? It’s a toss up, really. I’m struggling between “I’m sorry, Mom.” OR “Sure, whatever, let’s just get out of here.”
I’ll start from where the thought started.
When I was a teenager, my saintly mother took me shopping. When I tell you I had to try on 25 pairs of jeans to find 1 pair or 50 shirts to maybe find 1, I would not be kidding. Hard as it might be for you to believe, I was not easy that way. I was particular.
And I hated looking like everyone else but I didn’t want to look so different. Not an easy task. But that wasn’t the worst part of shopping with me, I have reccently figured out.
The worst part was the obnoxious loud music at the stores I frequented. I remember my mother silently suffering. Well, it couldn’t have been that silent or I wouldn’t have known, right?
But anyway.
Tonight, I took my teenage son (OMG, I have a teenage son) and my tween son shopping for clothes. Last week, they grew. Seriously, neither had a pair of pants that was long enough and Reed couldn’t even button his. And don’t even get me started on the length of the ‘long’ sleeve shirts.
So shopping we went.
To Aéropostale and American Eagle. By the way, I was told by my guys that Gap is not so much anymore. Did you know that? I didn’t. And this was the first time I let them choose where we’d go. I was always the Kohl’s or Old Navy shopper but they’re getting to that age where they really care. I explained that the budget was the same: they could choose to have fewer items if they wanted. And they did.
I remember feeling that way too.
So we’re in these stores. And you know what? I did like the clothes, but the music was un-fricking-bearable. I actually like that kind of music – with a hard beat and rap and rock and pop – but it was so loud I could feel my heart beating out of my new Ipex.
And I figured out today what my mother must have learned back in the day. The music is a strategy.
A brilliant strategy.
Because what mother wouldn’t want to make the kid pick out clothes, pay, and get the heck outta there?
(Sorry, Mom.)
