heavy petting. or not.

Oh, yes, friends. We haz fish.

I don't know why, really.

Maybe because I want a dog, but without the constant trips outside and chewing and sprinkling on the carpet and I'm sorry we have to go home, but Patches has to piddle.

Maybe because I want a cat, but without the claws and the meowing and the hairballs on the stairs and the No, Dr. Krog, it most definitely is your turn to do the litterbox, or so help me, I'll dump it in your sock drawer.

I even thought about getting a bird, but then I thought about all that incessant tweeting. And the little pooflickies on the wall. And the fact that I would have to turn up the thermostat above 58 degrees.

So not worth it.

And that's why we now have Omelet and Dr. Beardface.


That's Dr. Beardface. The brave one. I named him after one of the characters on Scrubs because he has a beard-shaped spot on his face. And it makes me giggle a little every time I say Let's go feed Dr. Beardface.


That's Omelet. Omelet is the shy one that's still hiding behind a plant. The Biscuit named her. It went like this:

Me: What do you want to name your fish?
The Biscuit: Dr. Barleyhead.
Me: You can't name your fish Dr. Beardface, because I named *my* fish Dr. Beardface. Think of a new name.
The Biscuit: Um.... Omla.
Me: That's not a real word. Can you think of a good name?
The Biscuit: Um... Om... Om-ah-la... Ombla... Ombleeeee....
Me: Are you trying to say omelet?
The Biscuit: Uh... yeah. Omblit.
Me: Great! Your fish is named Omelet?
The Biscuit: No, her name is Dr. Bardleface.

And here is the proud new pet owner with her fishy friends.

Anybody want to place a bet on the lifespan of our aquatic amis? Even without considering the nitrogen cycle and the inherent genetic luck of animals that cost 27 cents each, I have my doubts as to their future home in a koi pond.

the year of the terrible lizard

There's the cake, for people who are just here for the cake. My very favorite pumpkin yellow cake with homemade icing. Cake Wrecks would be proud of those poo-spiral wheels, am I right?

Tomorrow is t.rex's birthday, and today our family came together to celebrate our favorite little man. We partied at my parents' house, because I wanted to avoid the stress of a big party and lots of cleaning. My parents rock.

Presents were loads of fun.


Unlike his sister, who spent her first birthday not touching her presents, t.rex is a good investment. He had a great time opening and playing with a variety of awesomely noisy trucks.

And then the cake. I'm a mean lady, and t.rex has never had anything more sugary than bananas and Cheerioes.


He didn't know what to do with the cupcake and almost threw it on the floor, so I stepped in to introduce my boy to my most very favorite food.



But then he started to get the picture.


Wait, there's something missing.

The picture just doesn't quite capture how much the boy likes cake.

Let me see...


Yeah, that's better.

Lastly, once all the great-grands and grand-aunts had retired to Diabetic Comaville, we just sat around and watched the boy play and read what passes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution these days. So that took about 2 minutes. HEY-O!

And what's the moral of today's birthday party?

1. I love cake.

2.

Happy Birthday, Rex! We love you!

dreams 4 sale!

So yesterday, I asked a deep and probing question, and the overwhelming response was...

Nothing.

Which is totally cool. This isn't really a "deep and probing" sort of blog. So today, I'm going to ask for advice instead and hope that you guys will boss me around.

See, my art studio is a mess. Half-finished paintings, old paintings, materials, doodads that would work well in collages that I'll never do. I need to clean out, re-organize, and make it a place where art can be made, books can be written, and dreams can come true. I have this mental image of bare walls, Ikea chairs, and built-in bookshelves. Mmmm.

So here's my question: What do I do with all the old artz?

Should I store it? Sell it? Whitewash it and repaint? Should I have some sort of studio sale or take the time to put them up on Etsy, or what? Shipping would be egregious for the bigger ones, so local is better. But I want it out. I'm just not big on holding on to the past, and I need the space.

Here's one wall:



Here's another wall:


Our college degrees are not for sale. Not for all the bottles of Goldschlauger in the world.


Studies, Etsy-type stuff, playing around, leftovers. All sorts of stuff from about 2000 to now. I went through a very colorful period for a while there.

Ideas? What would you do with all this art?

And please don't mention fire. That would make me a sad panda.

p.s. That first painting, the oil of me screaming, is called "Underneath All This Suburban Tranquility, I Am Fierce".

p.p.s. If you only come here for the gratuitous baby shots, here you go. Mr. Chipmunk Cheeks turns 1 on Monday. This time last year, I was feeling pretty weird and preparing to force down some chicken wings and go to sleep. And then it was all SPLOOSH!, and then we were at the hospital, and then I was all UUUGGGHHH!, and then there was t.rex.

p.p.p.s. If you commented earlier and your comment disappeared, or if you seem to remember something entirely different appearing in this post, you're crazy. CRAZY!*

* Or Dr. Krog may have decided that I was revealing too many personal details about our life and asked me to remove said personal details, which I graciously did. Anyway, here's the baby.

two serious questions (no, really!)

Here's a new one: I'm going to answer two serious questions that I found by following the White Rabbit from Twitter to more Twitter to a Chicken Bandit to here. Of course, my answers to two serious questions involve how I no longer take anything seriously, but you should expect that by now.

If you have a blog, I double dog dare you to answer these questions and link up in the comments, as I'm interested in hearing your responses.

***

1. What do you know to be true, unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of your being, completely, passionately, righteously certain?

That things work out for the best. That fathomless hope is rewarded. That being happy is the best revenge. That even bad art is better than no art. That passion gives life meaning. That living in the moment makes me happier than living in the past or the future. That taking a bath every night before bed is marvelous. That I believe in the infinite goof. That laughter can't help but help.


2. What was the dumbest thing that you used to believe?

That everything mattered or meant something. That art and literature were worthless unless they were constantly plumbing the tragic depths of the human soul. That everything was serious and dramatic. Now I subscribe to Tom Robbins:

I believe in nothing; everything is sacred. I believe in everything; nothing is sacred.

And I'm a lot happier

How about y'all?

woman----> kitchen

I have a very peculiar relationship with my kitchen.

It's a little like that old nursery rhyme: When I'm good, I'm very very good, but when I'm bad, people fall over dead with rock-hard gnocchi lodged in their throats.

Awful.

That picture up there is my current favorite lunch: firm tofu dusted with cornstarch and fried in olive oil, eaten with steamed broccoli. Doesn't make a lot of sense, really. Fried hormone blobs with healthy veggies. But I need the health of the broccoli to make me forget the nutritional fail of the tofu, which is just so deliciously crispy.

And last night, I had a venison roast in the crockpot while making roasted butternut squash gnocchi. One turned out delicious, the other looked like a dog ate a cinnamon bun and barfed it into a vat of butter. Methinks the gnocchi needed a little more flour.

In any case, I need to build a more adult kitchen. It's a shame that my bridal shower occurred 7 years before I had any idea of what I needed in a kitchen to follow the simplest of recipes. If magic kitchen elves came knocking, I would request:

1. an enameled, cast-iron Dutch oven
2. an immersion mixer
3. a plastic, easily cleaned mandoline
4. a blender with a glass thingy that things blend in
5. a food processor with "pulse", which is necessary for half the recipes in the world
6. more spatulas
7. a coffee bean grinder
8. a new Pampered Chef sideways can-opener
9. pretty canisters that sit on the counter and keep coffee fresh
10. a chef

Did I miss anything? What's your can't-do-without kitchen implement?

in which i weep

From time to time, I think about the Acknowledgments page of my book, which is totally going to get published, because an agent is going to email me... now. Or maybe... NOW. Or maybe if I turn around and don't really think about it, and then go check on the roast and make sure the kids are breathing, and...

...NOW!

Nope. Dangit.

Anyways, I think about how much fun it will be to thank all the people who have helped me along the way. My beta readers, my family, you guys. But one of the first batters on my all-star team is The Coffee Park, a marvelous coffee shop where they provide moms like me with delicious coffee and tea while entertaining our children.

Except now, it's "provided", as in past tense, as in today was mysteriously their last day.

And we have no idea why. The owners slyly deflected that question again and again, nodding conspiratorially at the shady foursome taking up the comfy chairs and heatedly discussing a folder full of paper. New owners? New franchise?

We don't know.

What we do know is that with practically no notice, our favorite hangout is closing indefinitely. The sweet girls in the Treehouse who know our children, know their favorite books, and can even determine whose socks are whose... those sweet girls are out of jobs. My favorite chai latte will disappear into the ether. I will have to relocate my monthly babywearing meeting to some other, less wonderful place where both of my children can be contained while I pontificate. And I can never ever get pregnant again, because I won't be able to hand my kids off when I'm 36 weeks along and at the scream-till-you-pee point and just want to read Breaking Dawn and drink some tea in peaceful silence, dadblastit.

I am distraught.

I was looking forward to the line in my Acknowledgments, something along the lines of:

Many thanks to Roy, Kate, Jill, and the wonderful girls of the Treehouse at The Coffee Park in Marietta, Georgia, without whom this book would never have stretched past 40 pages or gone through six (or more) edits. Thank you for providing a magical haven for busy moms to rediscover themselves and each other while our children are happily distracted.

So I'm saying it now. Thanks, guys. You did me a great service, and I will miss you.

fear and loathing

First of all, I owe you a picture of my cute new shoes, but it's a bad picture, because Dr. Krog is not the best photographer in the world. It's one of the only things he's *not* good at, mainly because he doesn't care about photography. But that's not what we're here to talk about.


What hump? you ask.

Well.

Let me tell you a little secret.

I think I might have a hump.

And not the good kind, like Fergie has.

The kind that's not at all Fergilicious.

Like, one day, I'm going to be one of those little old ladies with a hunchback.

I hate and loathe the hump.

Sometimes I think about having surgery. Having myself dehumped. I wonder if a surgeon could suck it out with a liposuction thingy, or if it's made of something tougher, like gristle.

I think everyone has some little secret point of self-consciousness, whether it's physical or mental. Some tiny chink in the armor of our confidence. And people can make fun of my hairy arms or my sausage fingers or my pathetic baby toenails all they want, so long as no one ever publicly acknowledges the remotest possibility of my having something that could possibly be called a hump, because I would go home and cry and write bad poetry about it.

Anyway, now you know why I will never have short hair.

And why I feel compassion for camels.