Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving, dear friends! I hope you had a happy and healthy holiday.

This year, for Thanksgiving, I came up with a brilliant idea. My brilliant idea was this: Most of my neighbors down toward this end of the street were staying home for the holiday and did not have family coming to visit. But all were planning to make a big ol' meal. Big meals lead to leftovers, so my thought was, I'd have all my neighbors over for a big leftover potluck on the Friday right after Thanksgiving. Brilliant. They all said they'd come by. I cleaned, shopped, rearranged furniture, polished glasses, pulled weeds, bought flowers, baked three extra desserts, cooked four extra game hens, bought ice, dropped into the Salvation Army several times over the past weeks to hopefully scrounge up half-way presentable serving dishes...you know the routine when you expect lots of company.

I expected around 20 people. And 2 showed. After they left, I was left with the Nancy from Seventh Grade lunchroom, in assigned seating at a table where none of the other girls liked me. They had every reason not to like me: I came from a different school. And I was weird. It was entertaining to natter and titter and chuckle behind their peanutbutter-and-jelly-on-Wonderbread at my expense. For them. Less entertaining for me...

"It was a fantastic party, Mommy! Everything looked great!"

"But nobody came," I said.

"Well, it was their loss. They missed out. It was the best party."

Who is this little girl? 

"You need to be more confident, Mommy. You're great!"

Who is this little child? She is so young, so little compared to other girls her age. And so...wise..? So very wise.

Every last run to the grocery store, every moment spent dusting and polishing and vacuuming, every embarrassed "oops, sorry I missed it..." text I got the next day, was worth this very moment looking into my girl's big brown eyes. I am so very thankful.

Anna relayed to me recently, that some kid at school asked her why she dressed "that way," why she dressed "weird." 

 She answered (without missing a beat), "Because I am awesome. And because I am awesome, my clothes need to be awesome." (If you could only picture the great amount of sass, what we call "Annatude," that Anna put into this statement...). I don't dress her, haven't for years: She picks out her own outfits every morning and she has plain jeans and t-shirts from which to choose. Inevitably, she's got on crazy colorful knee socks, high tops, a fluffy patchwork skirt, a shirt of ten different colors...well, you know how I sew... As my girl approaches middle school age, I worry greatly that something--such as Seventh Grade lunchroom girls--will come along to kill this spirit, douse this sparkle, tarnish her shine, diminish her giant radiating aura, deflate her natural happiness. I hope she continues to be her own person, follow her own quirky drumbeat. I really do.

This is a new little outfit for her: A pair of Cardiff pants and the shirt is a bit Frankenstein...Quiara and Antonia, I believe... The knits are from Banberry Place. Just luscious stuff.

Imma be a little late

What is this? What this is not is the costume we looked at on Ebay, decided was perfect, was only $50, purchased and arrived on time on Friday. Nope, it's not that. Not at all. Because the costume wasn't quite perfect. Wasn't quite Anna. ("Oh, that's okay, Mommy, I'll wear it...it's fine...really...no big deal..." Dang it, child! Don't look at me with those big brown eyes! I know it's not what we expected. I'm going! I'm going! I still have two days. We'll snip and clip and stitch and glue and improvise something that is totally Anna.)

What this is also not is last year's Halloween costume. This was last year's Halloween costume. Queen Bee with a beehive hairdo with lots of bees buzzing about.

Black fuzzy fur and yellow polyester!

(I'd only heard that Black Eyed Peas song "Imma Be" about three times. At three times, a Black Eyed Peas song is  really catchy, really fun. At five times a Black Eyed Peas song becomes nothing but irritating. "Imma be livin' that good life...Imma be livin' that good, good life..." I'm annoying myself...)

And a honey bear scepter.

Do not look to closely at this thing once it's done. And I better get back to work. How 'bout you?

This one's easy.

Sign the petition.


Easy.


I'm looking a little bit beyond my shores today.


This petition is to intended to motivate CNN to report on an orphanage in Haiti, which is allegedly participating in human trafficking and harvesting of human organs from the children in their care. Trafficking of children. Organ harvesting from children. Hell on earth. The allegations come from mission workers, who have visited the orphanage.


Frankly, I do not use this blog to encourage much organized social action, because most times I cannot vouch for the many causes and charities I come across. There is a lot of bad being done in the name of good out there, so I am very cautious.


But this is simple: Children's Hope Chest isn't asking for your money. The organizers just want your signature to motivate CNN to investigate the situation at an orphanage in Port au Prince, Haiti. CNN should be savvy enough to recognize if this is a cruel hoax of some sort. And then CNN can shine their brutal investigative light on the organizers of this petition. In other words, if I were up to something shady, the last people I'd want to contact would be the folks at CNN. On the other hand, CNN would be the first people I'd think of who have the resources and reputation to shine some light on what appears to be a dangerous situation.


Perhaps the allegations are exaggerated. Perhaps they are entirely fabricated. But if there is even a one-in-a-million chance that even some of the allegations are true, then a little investigative attention from an international media organization might just help some children. And if CNN doesn't decide to grab their cameras and reporters on this one, perhaps maybe, just maybe, 10, 20, 100 or 10,000 more blog posts and Facebook links on the orphanage in question may motivate the operators of this orphanage to stop whatever abuses they may be condoning or in which they actively participate. If any.


I don't know the organizers personally, but someone I do know knows them personally. Andy Blank runs an IT company in San Diego and is an organizer of a local charitable soccer tournament. A stand-up citizen with a reputation at stake. Here is the email I received:

Good morning – This is Andy and I am writing this email to you as my friend - and I think you can help make a difference. This is not some gimmick or spam email.
 
I am writing you this quick and slightly impersonal email because there is an urgency to a dire situation that I am involved in.  Over the last 15 months I have been involved in an investigation into corruption at an orphanage in Haiti. The investigation has reached a boiling point and we are at a crossroads where the children lives are in danger. As a coalition of several organizations , we are reaching out to CNN to turn a spotlight on this horrible situation in an attempt to rescue about 75 children from becoming a victim of human/organ trafficking. 
 
These are kids that I KNOW and have spent time with – this is VERY personal to me.
 
Besides CNN we are reaching out to US politicians, major media outlets and people who could have influence in helping to free these children. Please let me know about any extremely influential contacts you have – we have prepared a packet of information that can be sent.
 
Children’s Hope Chest started this petition to get CNN involved with the story at Son of God orphanage to help us out. Please have EVERYONE you know sign this petition. It only takes a minute and I have posted the direct link to it below.


Here is more information and a link to the petition. 


So that's an easy one.


This one's not so easy, but worth a look: What is your slavery footprint? When you buy shoes or toys or clothes or a new cell phone, how are you to know if your purchase is the product of forced or debt-burdened labor?  Here is a Web site to roughly gauge how much slave labor has contributed to your lifestyle. Apparently, 30 slaves have worked for me, mostly in the mining of raw materials and manufacture of all these electronic gadgets. 3.2 slaves per smart phone? Ugh. I've benefitted from the labor of 7 more slaves than average. That can't be good. 


As we ramp up for the holiday season and we do the most amount of shopping we will all year, perhaps we can ask the question: "Say, GAP or Canon or Anthropologie or Pottery Barn, can you please tell me how much forced labor was involved in making this? It's important for me to know." It would be interesting to see if they can answer. Supposedly, there is a slavery footprint cell phone app that will allow the user to photograph an item and send a message to the manufacturer with an inquiry. I wonder if it's that easy.

Thank you, Mr. Jobs.

Your vision for technology has improved my life and made many things possible for me.



You will be missed.

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

"Stressed" is just "desserts" with the letters rearranged

Okay, so I've had some stress this week, some disappointment. Nothing that streusel and blueberries can't solve! At least for 15 minutes.

Another ENCINITAS in some Kokka double gauze.

LINK for the tutorials here.

Flying is not always so easy

Right now, I have two letters open in MS-Word. One is a complaint to AT&T Wireless for suspending our service--even though we are not late in paying and have never been late paying a bill in ten years (I'm afraid of grown-ups and teachers and Santa Claus and God and I try to do everything right and I pay my bills!). The Professor is in China for an extended project and his cell phone is his lifeline. And AT&T suspends service? Without cause? Or notification? And here's another complaint letter to the yahoos, who installed our replacement windows. Looking out the window into our pretty backyard no longer is a small pleasure, because I have to look at these stupid windows and be reminded of the idiot I am. Also this week, I've fallen victim to the good ol' bait 'n switch with an online photo equipment merchant. I am having to jump through all the hoops: calls, emails, faxes, disputes with the credit card company, threats of complaints to the New York City Attorney General and so on and so on. And don't get me started on the wrong billings I am still receiving for Anna's visit to the hospital some two years ago. Just don't. (Just know, dear friends, that the Wall Street Journal reported that about 80% of medical bills are wrong. So double and triple check those suckers.) Anyway, this is the stuff of life that makes me my snarky, cynical, occasionally shrill self, where I question, occasionally aloud and to no one in particular, "Really? Seriously?"

And then on Saturday, a simply textbook bucolic Southern California spring day--sun shining, light breeze rustling the leaves, wildflowers blooming--I attended the memorial service for a ten-year old child. Not a child I knew at all, really. He was the younger brother of one of Jack's buddies. You know, just a kid, one of those a ten-year old kids who are around.

If I try and list my favorite things in the world, I'd probably have to put kids that age right at the top of my list. Is there anything better than a kid? Way above Yosemite and Paris and blue oceans and warm apple pie, my favorite things in this world are sandy, silly, nose-picking, shoe-scattering, fart-noise-making, snuggling, uninhibited, un-self-conscious. unpretentious, running-with-scissors, skinned-kneed, finding-poodles-and-frogs-in-clouds, Halloween-candy-hoarding, soccer-cleat-losing, stray-cat-petting, too-much-maple-syrup-pouring...kids.  Kids you love with all your heart. "And I love you, too, Mommy. With all my heart, Mommy. And all my spleen!" Have you ever had anyone love you will all her spleen? Only a kid can make such a spleen-felt statement.

So, when one of their number, even just one I barely know, but whom I have seen about on the soccer field, leaves this earth, I get a feeling in my throat, like a swallowed cockle bur. I kind of don't feel the chair I am sitting in or my clothes against my skin. It's like I shrink just a little bit within myself and am a fraction of a millimeter apart from the world. I can rub the creases between my eyebrows and that stems the moisture I feel forming at the rims of my eyelids. But then, a feeling comes over me immediately after or perhaps simultaneously with sadness that I can only call joy. Sort of a simultaneous bipolarity. I think colors are brighter, I hear more birds chirping, and every song on the radio is one I want to sing to. I find myself smiling when I see the dude in the car next to me singing to his radio, and the chubby teenagers  making out at the bus stop, and the little ones running amok at Old Navy. This is life and this is joy.

What do spleens do? Whatever medical research has since discovered about spleens, from the time of the ancient Greeks to well into the 18th Century, the learned were of the opinion that the spleen produced "black bile," which caused melancholia. And on that note, I do think I love my children with all my heart and children of the world with all my spleen.

 

God be with you, young Chase.

5-7-5

Porcelain trembles

Dinner plates tectonic

Shattered heart Japan

Seismic blast surges

Waters rush rise kill recede

Cherry blossom tears

Fukushima burning

Reactor fires one two

Three the four horsemen

My prayers are for you, Japan. I hope you will smile again, soon.

Watching the watch.

No tsunami waves landed on our shore. So far.

And, yes, that little black dot is a guy on a stand-up paddle board...during the tsunami watch...because you can totally beat back a tsunami with an aluminum paddle, right? 

My thoughts go out to the people of Japan.

Little by little...

Well, my Web hosting service moved my site to another server...

...and something got lost along the way.

I'll be clicking and typing and performing other mysterious feats of Internet magic and hopefully, I'll be able to make the online wholesale shop *voilá!* reappear.

I'll keep you posted, hopefully with a big TA-DA! Please contact me via email if you need anything. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

Happy, happy Saturday!

-Nancy

Um...I don't know...online shop "gone"...

Dear Retail Partners!

My "studiotantrum.com/shop/" site "disappeared". And I'm not able to log on the back end...

I don't know what happened. I hope to be up and running again soon. In the meantime, please email me with any questions or concerns.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours scratching her head,
Nancy

Carnation tarnation

Ah, the smell of See's candy in the air! Must be Valentine's Day soon.

Jack is in middle school ~ the new kid in school ~ and at the age, when he could really use the excuse of Valentine's Day to hand out Valentines to, you know, everybody. But, hey, now Valentine's Day is for real, right? And you know what comes on Monday: Some really cool kids will walk into homeroom clutching dozens of fundraising carnations, each with a card attached. Those kids are so smug. They already know who will get carnations and who will not. They'll call out the recipients' names and, one by one, march the blooms plucked not 48 hours earlier from their South American DDT and methly-bromide laden greenhouses to their blushing recipients. DDT? No matter: Bring on the carcinogens. Just one. Please just one little one for me. As the dozens of carnations become just a hand full, then three, then two, you try to absorb yourself in twisting back the wire poking out of your spiral notebook or pulling the thread on your sleeve or doodling with ballpoint on your jeans leg...anything, anything but those horrid carnations as they are marched down between the desks.  As if middle school weren't tough enough. I know I hated sitting there in homeroom while the flowers were handed out. Oh, yes, my friends (girls), though we each reviled the practice, we partook in an act of solidarity, an unspoken pact, each buying each other a pink "friendship" carnation. The act of purchasing of which, it can be mentioned, was in itself a test of true friendship: (deep breath) "Hi Student Counil Member/Cheerleader/Volleyball Captain who lives just five houses away and who used go go trick-or-treating with me and played Barbies with me and who has at least three classes with me and who copies off my tests all the time, but who still doesn't seem to recognize me (fine with me), please just take this dollar to fundraise for the extremely beneficial cause of cheerleading camp and give me that card to fill out. Okay? Give me the card and that really weird little game you played with your Barbies will remain our little secret, okay? And that thing where you'd walk around with tennis balls in your training bra? My lips are sealed. Take the dollar, give me the card and you can file back into that flock of letterman jackets and feathered hair and Lip Smackers and Reebok aerobics shoes and leg warmers and upturned polo shirt collars I'll go back to my library carroll and world order will be restored. And don't read the card. It's for my friend you don't like, because she beat you up in fifth grade and she, too, knows about the tennis balls."   

But nary a red "love" carnation in all the years of middle and high school would find me. And then, the bell would ring and you would walk out into the hall and it seemed like every other girl in the school was a walking Rose Bowl parade float. 

Anyway, for Anna, Valentine's is still awesome. It's about love for everybody in your class.

And fifteen? That's not too many. Let's make 15 little carnation-y fabric hair clips for the all girls in your class.

"Roses are red

Violets are blue

We made this pretty hair posie

Just for you!"

Corny? Sure, but we'll go with it.

If you are so inclined, the tutorial can be found here.

The boys will get Hoppy Valentine's origami frogs. Because they're boys. And after so much assembly line work, I couldn't think of anything original.

Speaking of See's Candy and speaking of loyal friends and speaking of assembly lines...the See's candy kitchen is where Lucy and Vivian practiced this famous, no, historic bit of television. You know the one. C'mon, watch it again!

Check...?

Camera? Check!

Memory card? Check!

Battery charged? Check!

Remember battery for trip up into the mountains?

...battery?

...battery?

Hmmm...Sorry: No "Me-Me" without camera battery!

I'll catch up...catch up...

Whodda thunk? And how to debunk the funk, punk

Yes, okay: I love irony as much as the next guy. Probably more. (See?) But, despite the bon mots and pithy banter that is the running dialog of my head and my above ironic seasonal arrangement, there is more to this story. This story includes a phantom, screaming, nudity and lots of baking soda.

'Twas an ordinary night before Christmas and all through the house, I was stirring: turning off lights, picking up scattered things, closing curtains and, dang nabit, if the lawn guys didn't close that side gate... So, as to deter any would-be prowlers, I ventured into the dark and shadowy yard to close the side gate...

...When what did emerge from those shadows but a phantom! A phantom of two white stripes undulating on a pool of furry shadow darker than evil itself! Such phantom dashed from the dark between when there gate stood against the boundary wall to brush against my unsuspecting ankle! My very flesh! A true fright as I have never had.

I screamed a scream to rival any eleven-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. And turn and run I did, stomping my clogs across the bricks so loudly as to surely register with the USGS. Run I did, into the safety of my hallowed home, secure that I had outrun the shadow demon.

Did it get me? No.

Of course not. I am safe.

Wait.

"Did it get me?" I ask the perplexed children, awoken from their peaceful slumber.

Wait.

Wait.

A slight taste of curry. A tinge of rubber cement.

Wait.

Wait.

A scent of burning tires...

No, a scent of...

Wait...

SKUNK!

Punked. Skunked. Whodda thunk? It got me.

It sure as heck got me.

Upon which realization I dash out from the hallowed home in a frenzy to disrobe down to my birthday suit. I streak back into the house straight into the shower yelling to the gagging, coughing young ones, "Go on the Internet! Type in 'get rid of skunk smell'!"

A ghost story as ne'er was told.

But this post is also educational:

To get rid of skunk smell from yourself or a pet or a child, the magic recipe is this: Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda.

It works, it really does. Now, the way I recommend to punk your skunk-funk is to first give yourself a sticky layer of shower gel. If you have no shower gel, use shampoo or dishwashing liquid (it's an emergency, sister). Onto this, pour the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda mixture and lather up. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse, repeat in your best anxiety disorder fashion.

For your hair, however, unless you can suddenly sport that Billy Idol/Gwen Stefani look for reals, keep the hydrogen peroxide a good distance from your raven/auburn/ginger/mousey locks. Just pour lots and lots of baking soda into your damp hair, work in and let sit for a while before shampooing and rinsing. It worked. The smell was basically gone. For me, at least.

As far as how to debunk the skunk funk in the house? Well, Lysol spray, bowls of baking soda laying about and--this is the real debunker, I think--bowls of chlorine bleach scattered about. You know how undiluted chlorine bleach has that chemical, swimming-pool smell? Well, the bleach vapors seem to cancel out the sulfurous methyl and butyl thiols. Within a rather short time, we didn't really smell either the skunk funk or the bleach.

By this morning, a tiny bit of the musky-skunkiness lingers, but about as much as a skunky road kill one street over would. By this time, I can air out the house by opening doors and windows (couldn't do that last night, as the skunk funk was right outside the house). And then, to get into the spirit of the season, I went ahead and decked the hall with boughs of car fresheners.

I'm that lady.

Oh. Em. Gee. At Jack's soccer game yesterday, there was this woman who was "WOO-WOO-WOO-ing" at the top of her lungs (actually, at the top of her throat, a very annoying, howling, wavering ululation heard among some Arab cultures at funerals), just because her son got a goal. Yes, a spectacular goal, a header from 15 yards right over two taller leaping opponents. But come on.

Lady, would you just stop that? I mean, really. I'm so embarrassed for that woman's kid.

And then I'm thinking, oh no, that woman is me. "WOO-WOO-*sound of needle scratching across record errrrrt*" Sort of hit me like a soccer ball straight in the face (had to find some segway to those photos, right?)

I think it's official. I've turned into a cliché: Soccer mom. I think about the only thing I am missing is one of those white decals on the darkened rear window. If I were a window-decal kind of person, I'm pretty sure I would have one. I am this close--thiiiiis close--to writing a complaining email about that Assistant Ref (You gotta keep up with the second-to-last defender! You missed so many offsides, I'm ready to tell my kid to stay off sides when we switch field sides. And you can't be chewing the fat with the spectators! That's right, I'm talking to you, chubby, no-neck Assistant Ref in Norwalk: You!). And don't get me started on the icky politics of this club. Just don't. (Okay, okay, so there's two teams in my son's division and the other team, I mean, really,...okay, don't...)And I find that I am only wearing black. Because I am a ninja. No, because I am squishy and black is the least offensive color on squishy. But there's no denying the look is pretty soccer-ish. (And I also keep the local peasantry safe from the corrupt samurai with my skill and magic...)

I think waaaay too much about my kids' soccer. How did I get here? This started out years and years ago, to get the kids involved in a team sport that did not have a lot of equipment (Football? The undergarments alone are a hundred bucks. Hockey? I don't think so. Basketball? Okay, except for the fact that I have about the shortest kids in the class.). Because team sports is a good thing for kids. A good thing that I didn't have. I was in one sports team in my life, in college, a biking team for the Little 500. And so, here I am. Is this a good thing? In other people: Um, no. Not a good look. And me?

I want my kids to do well. I wish the best for all kids. But I do want my kids to shine bright (brighter? ... -est?). I want that for them. Which is a good thing, right? And I want it for me, too. Which is...?

Which is creating "WOO-WOO-WOO" sounds from my throat. That much is certain. Must at least come up with better responses. Must practice restrained excitement: "Well done, lad?" "Good stuff, son?" "Deserved of approval, young man?" "YOU ROCK, JACK!!! WOO-WOO-WOO!!!"

At least the black helps me to disappear into the background more easily, once I've completely embarrassed myself and my children. Ninja...

Due to technical difficulties...

Hello friends, Retail Partners and others!

Long time no post...I'll get something together.

But I need to let you know, that I cannot access my voicemail! I will not be able to access my voicemail for about two weeks. This is incredibly inconvenient for my retail partners, I know. I am very sorry. I gave my phone to my husband to take on a trip, because he wanted to use the some of the apps. So the calls are forwarded to another phone. However, the voicemails are not forwarded.

Again, I apologize. Please drop me an email. That is the easiest way to reach me.

No voicemail service for about two weeks.

We interrupt your summer for this commercial message.

Just a quickie. Just getting the word out. Won't take long.

I have not been sewing. Wait, I take that back: I did stitch six seams last week during Crafty Mama Lisa's Wednesday sew-along. Woo hoo! Six whole seams (topstitched,

too!). Anyway, I've watched a lot of Glee reruns. And I have been translating. Translating, translating, translating. Translating lends itself well to simultaneously watching Glee reruns. Sort of a Zen activity. Unless the garment is a complete mystery to me, I can basically look at it and get my head immediately into its construction..."Stitch bodice left and right pieces to the bodice back fabric right sides together at the shoulder seams. Press the seam allowances toward the front and topstitch from the garment right side...Repeat for the corresponding lining pieces..." This goes there and that goes there before that goes there so that can happen here... And so on and so on and so forth... Yes, Zen, but dry as toast!

Time to get back to sewing. So that you can get back to sewing, I do now have some new favorite Farbenmix sewing patterns translated into Englis

h.

So, my lovely retail partners, I have Fancy Frock WILLEMIENTJE and the Mini Mod Dress AMELIE ready to go! In English!

ZUCKA (skirt), ULJANA (skirt) and IZZY (about the cutest jacket I have seen in a loooong time) are coming up very shortly (mid September).

In other news, I've been asked to guest post on Whip

Up (love Whip Up, don't you?). Whip Up generously wrote a lovely review on our book and I never said thank you. Well, thank you, Whip Up gals! I appreciate every kind word out there. I think I'll prepare a freebook for that guest post. But is there anything you'd like to hear from me for this guest post? Any questions you'd have?

*crickets*

Yeah, I think a good freebook is a better idea, too.

I return you now to your regularly scheduled summer.

Big surprise: Milo likes food.

Let's get this straight, once and for all: Milo, you are not our cat. No. You belong to these fine people, who pay the phone bill belonging to this number on your tag. Go back to them. This is my house. My yard. My kids. My rules: No cats. So, go along home, now. Go, go, go away! Shoo. Yes, you. Go...

As anyone who has ever tried to have a heart-to-heart--a tête à tête, a tête à chat, a chat with a chat, a chat chat, cat chat--with a cat (or with a rock, for that matter) knows, a cat really doesn't care about your worldview. It's always only all about "me, me, me". Which a cat will state, in English, very clearly: "MEEeeee". A dog, on the other hand, may not understand you exactly, but a dog will work really hard to figure out what makes its human happy. A cat, on the other hand, works really hard to have a human, any human, figure out what makes it happy.

"Do you think cats like shrimp?"

Kids, really: Do we really need to test this hypothesis? Really? Shrimp are nature's potato chips for carnivores. Think about it: What meat-eater doesn't enjoy a curly little stomotopod treat? Even the giant blue whales like shrimp, better than anything else. I'd bet, if you put a shrimp in front of a Saharan sand cat, a creature, which in the course of its evolution likely hasn't seen any sea creature since the Saharan oceans receded, that creature would have no problem eating a shrimp. Even God can't seem to keep us away from shrimp: When He was still speaking directly to us, He called the very useful shrimp and its shellfish cousin an abomination. And "abomination" was probably about right: Back before the days of water treatment plants, water treatment consisted primarily of these very filter feeders. Ergo, whatever ill the water bore, would thus become food borne illness. And yet, we have Red Lobster $11.99 Shrimp Festivals. Go figure.

Too late: Shrimp/cat hypothesis is tested. And yes, by the way, cats do like shrimp. And this Milo Cat likes shrimp, very much, thank you very much.

And I think this test actually sealed the deal for Milo Cat. While he may not be our cat, we appear to be Milo Cat's shrimp-providing people. That's all that matters.

But we are not cat people!

Look, I have nothing against the smirky, silky, snarky felines, exactly. I just like to keep a healthy distance between me and anything that makes my eyes swell up and my sinuses run like leaky taps and my lungs constrict in asthma: Just a personal quirk. My house. My kids. My rules: No cats.

"MEEEeee".

I'm just not getting through to the petite puma. Not making any negotiating headway at all. Not as long as there is a possibility of more shrimp and a sunny/shady spot with comfy cushions to boot.

"Do cats like prosciutto?"

Do cats like $18-a-pound prosciutto? Uh-huh.

And since this cat is named Milo and since this whole post is about food and because this particular song seems to reflect Milo Cat's entire thought process, a little bit of another particular Milo and his similar thoughts on food. Just because.

And speaking of hive minds

I wish we could keep them. Bees are just cool. But they also might decide to hive in the chimney one day and maybe someone would be allergic to their stings.

But I've been reading this Internet doo-hickey and bee keeping a single hive is not especially labor intensive. And imagine the honey and wax we'd have!

I don't think these are the Africanized ("killer") bees. They are rather docile, even when I tried to get them to leave on their own with some smoke. Did you know that Africanized bees may have aggressiveness as a gene? Makes you wonder about nature and nurture.

Hello friends!

I've been slow to post to this blog recently. And I apologize. This week, I actually have a good excuse: Both my computer and back-up computer are in for repairs. Anna got a shiny new MacBook for her birthday and I'm sneaking in a blog post using her machine ... shhhhh ... our secret, okay?

I'm finishing up fixing up Jack's room. It started out as just as a dust-allergy induced bout of utter frustration about the state of the boy cave and morphed into a full-fledged decorating spree to create a functional, fun Jack-habitat. I'm a bit addicted to Apartment Therapy and their mantra of "one room at a time"... one room at a time ... one room at a time... ommmmm ... I'm also trying to hold to "the challenge of the utmost kind" and I'm doing pretty good. Except for this wall mural thing. Sort of blew the challenge there. Another secret just between you and me, okay-dokey?

One of those weekends...

Seriously? Seriously?

Saturday evening, we are all just about to settle down and watch Avatar (2-D), when...

...my boy is curled up screaming--SCREAMING--and there are drops of blood here and there!

What--?

My girl poked a glow-stick--a glow-stick!--into the boy's ear. Seriously, child? Seriously? What in the world prompted you? Wha-? What? Why?

This could mean a perforated ear drum! No, no, no, no, no, please, please, please, please: No. It's almost summer break! Junior Lifeguards, the pool, the beach, surfing... All that could be off the list. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, please, please, please: No.

Very, very, very, very fortunately, a preliminary look by the ER doctor tells us that most likely no: No perforated eardrum. *exhale* The ear drum looks to be just scratched. An ear-nose-throat specialist will have to see the kid on Monday, but--thank you, thank you, thank you--from the look of things, he'll only need to stay clear of water for a couple of weeks. (When told he'd have to even be careful in the shower, he said, "Okay, I just won't shower." Think again, buster).

Anyway, the kid was back to his mentos, Diet Coke and his usual self today.