series of coils
April 28, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
the great golden beast spent the night (doors off, of course) on the patio. wednesday morning i came into the kitchen and opened her door to be greeted with an extremely rude and horribly fragrant smoke. she made a grinding and a whirr and ernie unplugged her.
last night the available men in the family (available time-wise, though two are still single) brought a replacement, a white replacement, with a light inside. they disassembled the old and reassembled the new(ish).
the rest of the kitchen eye the newcomer suspiciously. no one is talking and her purring seems loud and nervous. one can only wonder how long this will go on. the golden oven seems most imposed upon. newly widowed, he is forced into a marriage with a mismatched and slightly disheveled wife who is fatter in stomach than her predecessor and has part of herself held together with bungee cords. the shining red (empire) kitchenaid sneers at the new girl’s pallid expression. the microwave is jealous of the spritzing and scrubbing and general hot water and soap attention going on across the room.
“it’s the best refrigerator we’ve ever had,” i tell ernie as he puts the doors back on, the handles. the light of it, the white of it. we’re glad. henry comes in and thinks it’s the same girl dressed in something new.
this morning jude wakes early so he and i dash to the store to buy things to eat. two days of granola bar breakfasts, bummed lunches, fast suppers and we’re ready for something real. we come home and try to figure out how the inside of the refrigerator works best. she has a smug expression as we line yogurt on her top shelf. i continue to bump into her with my shoulder, to glance at her from different angles in the kitchen, the hallway.
“a gloomy silence ensued.”
April 25, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | 12 Comments
i must admit to feeling a wee bit stalked. a south carolinian (207.232.169.157) is spending all working hours reading all posts in all months of the fresh milk archives. do forgive if you’re a friendly curiosity. it’s just that i cannot help myself the snark.
what burning eyeballs you must have.
come, now. cupcakes for one so agog. no doubt you’ll need something at the end of your long reading day.
i love my stat-counter, yes i do.
“a gloomy silence ensued.”
April 25, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
i must admit to feeling a wee bit stalked. a south carolinian (207.232.169.157) is spending all working hours reading all posts in all months of the fresh milk archives. do forgive if you’re a friendly curiosity. it’s just that i cannot help myself the snark.
what burning eyeballs you must have.
come, now. cupcakes for one so agog. no doubt you’ll need something at the end of your long reading day.
i love my stat-counter, yes i do.
(and still be on my feet)
April 21, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
i remember being eye-level tall with my mother’s tall glass of iced tea. she would leave it on the table and it would sweat a pool and then sit in it. my brothers and i would “have a drink” of her iced tea and she’d be annoyed that it was empty when she came back to drink it herself.
we drink it unsweetened, we northern girls, the bitter taste of it leaving a scratch in the back of our throats.
ernie is a sweet-tea drinker. his mimi keeps gallon jugs of it in her obscenely clean refrigerator. she also keeps a small container of sliced limes to squeeze and swirl to your liking beneath the deep and around the ice of it. when i drink iced tea at her house i am generous with the limes to give it something acidic to think about.
the first hot days have come and gone and have left us with a sunny springtime that still calls for blankets and light sweaters come evening, early morning. more notable than the purchase of flip-flops and the opening of windows, perhaps, is the atrocious and indulgent amount of iced tea we’ve been brewing. i drink it sweet in our house because ernie really cannot abide the idea alone of unsweetened iced tea. i actually have grown accustomed to drinking it, although i cannot think of it as iced tea. it’s simply a pleasant sweetened beverage to me. unless we’re drinking it at the india palace, where it’s made by soaking cinnamon sticks and cardamom pods and cloves as well as black tea and sugar. in this case it’s the greatest drink in the world. seriously, now.
sweetened tea
boil water (four or five cups), two cups (!) of white as-refined-and-as-bad-as-it-gets sugar along with ten black tea bags
watch carefully to avoid a dreadful sticky boil-over.
allow to steep overnight or as long as you like.
transfer to a gallon jug and fill to top with cold water.
store in refrigerator for the duration of the day, taking it out as necessary to pour over ice.
repeat immediately to avoid withdrawal.
india palace tea (or, as close as the real thing can get)
boil water (four or five cups), two cups of white sugar, two cinnamon sticks, ten cloves, two to three green cardamom pods and ten black tea bags.
steep, strain, transfer to gallon jug, fill with water, refrigerate, serve over ice.
eat curry and naan.
your mama’s good looking
April 20, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
hooray for flip flops of summer. henry was the first to get a pair, stripey, navy. he’s more coordinated than i am, taking after his father, possessing the ability to eat ribs without spotting a white shirt, to eat ice cream cones without dripping or smearing across his face. how they do it, i do not know.
jude was obsessed with the wearing of henry’s “flips” so we found him his own pair, little, stripey, with an elasticized strap ’round the heel.
in addition, ernie and i picked out brand flipping new pairs. i realized yesterday that it had been some time since i’d even opened my sock drawer.
The boy extatic—with his bare feet the waves. . .
your mama’s good looking
April 20, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
hooray for flip flops of summer. henry was the first to get a pair, stripey, navy. he’s more coordinated than i am, taking after his father, possessing the ability to eat ribs without spotting a white shirt, to eat ice cream cones without dripping or smearing across his face. how they do it, i do not know.
jude was obsessed with the wearing of henry’s “flips” so we found him his own pair, little, stripey, with an elasticized strap ’round the heel.
in addition, ernie and i picked out brand flipping new pairs. i realized yesterday that it had been some time since i’d even opened my sock drawer.
The boy extatic—with his bare feet the waves. . .
Risen, indeed
April 18, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
eager for morning, jude wakes early, perhaps too early. we whisper together down to the kitchen and make coffee. we sit together in the early easter sunshine that is drizzling through the front door. the birds are feasting to the Resurrection early in the day, their chirrups of sunrise exaltation fill the trees, the skies, the grass. a pigeon watches us with a clever black eye. we wait.
henry bounces down the stairs and, after breakfast, we wake ernie and begin running through the house in search of clues for hidden baskets. late the night before we the parents sketch pictures and tape clues around the house on orange paper. “this is going to be GREAT!” henry exclaims, handing the clues to jude for transport, racing off to the basement, the bathroom, the kitchen cabinet, the bed. we follow them around thinking of how easy our “tricky” clues are to him and how long it will take to compose clues for eight year olds, fifteen year olds.
and it is great. stashing the chocolate away, ernie uploads sun-shining new cds to his ipod for long car rides and i begin to iron. the favorite basket find is the bag of cowboys, indians, wagon, fire, tee pee, horses, to stand in long lines, to shoot, gallop, cook, sleep. had we known they’d been such a hit we’d have gotten something quite a bit more substantial which would definitely be more suited to our wooden toy upgrade that we’re working towards a bit at a time. birthdays are coming, though . . .
dressed (jude in white linen (!) all in stripes) and photographed we zip to church. after, the clouds grow black and spew puddles on the car the entire ride to grandmama’s house. the sun glitters on the puddles and greenings when we arrive for turkey and too many mashed potatoes. i love mashed potatoes. embarrassingly, this has been noted by my father-in-law. in my mashed potato loving opinion, ones love of mashed potatoes should go unnoticed, no?
chocolate eggs are eaten, chocolate bunnies. “i’m so glad that the bunnies are hollow!” ernie says during the carnage.
at the end of the day we spend the last hours at lakeland park. it’s colder there, regardless of the sun. the sand is wet and jude kicks it from the swing. henry climbs with much alacrity and we are glad that bedtime comes swiftly.
ours the cross, the grave, the skies
April 16, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!
Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!
Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where’s thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!
Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!
Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!
King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, thy power to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!
i do not like them, sam i am.
April 15, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
will we eat boiled eggs if we make them tomorrow afternoon?
a friday night of jude’s sickness dashed plans to boil and plunk our own gilded eggs into bowls of dye, to gingerly place them in a bowl to share tomorrow, easter morning fingers blue and pink, orange, green from working at color.
nothing quite like the sensation of having someone helpless and miserable puke hotly down your shirt in the middle of the night. perhaps most sensational is the not caring about how truly disgusting it is, the not being bothered by the smell, because helping the sick baby is all that you can think about.
feeling better today, we stack miscellaneous easter seersucker for the iron and sing softly until the boys find sleep. perhaps we’ll be inspired come tomorrow afternoon.
such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
April 15, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
the day, long, stretches into night, a long golden strand pulled tightly down the drive over newly greening trees. the neighbor keeps her son’s dog for the week, two weeks. she stands in the drive and sends a ball through the sunlight and the dog chases it, catches it, drops it at her feet. jude whimpers from the window, this freckled dog representative of all licking and barking dogs, scares him and, deliciously scared, he watches and waits. henry bounds from the door and, patting the dog, whose name is jed, he says, “hello, phyllis.” the neighbor is named phyllis but henry thinks it’s the dog i greet each time we meet in the drive.
we visit the pet store and chirp at the parakeets. the lazy hamsters are lolling and ignoring us from their cages. we find one snake who slinks away as henry’s face smashes against the glass. the fat and altogether hideous dog-in-training howls at us and jude cries. another dog, an enormous golden puppy sniffs and henry cirlces around in the other direction.
“he can slide, too!” she beams at us. “i’d like to see that,” i oblige. i call out the news to henry, who is being escorted by ernie away from dirty sand-digging mulletted children and he ambles over. “come on!” the faux blonde woman in the flowering shirt shouts. jude digs his heels into my hipbones. the dog pants up the steps, across the wobbling bridge, around a corner and flings himself down the tunnel slide, his leash following after.
we ooh and ah and she is pleased as she takes to the track, as we head towards the creek to toss sticks, one stop before the uphill (in more ways than one) walk home.
we realize that we enjoy these days best, the four of us in the sunshine, cirrus clouding all obligatory tasks of the day.