barely learned the tune
May 26, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
lazy mornings, afternoons. there is no scratching from the basement, no barking from the corners of the yard. the cat stretches out on the foot of the bed and joins us in knowing that there will be no interruption to take titus into the yard, to let him back in again.
are we lazy people? i don’t think so, the productive hum of the house swelling with work that is done, that must be done. it feels lazy to be unable to keep a dog, to bargain with each other as to who tends to him next. “i think your dog needs to go out,” i comment, squeezing toothpaste, wincing at ernie’s heavy sigh, the slow walk down the stairs, the jingle of bells at the door. people way more pedestrian than we keep dogs, cuddling dog fur close to them at night, allowing dog tongues to lick at their very mouths. one would think we could do the bit we do without grump and frustration.
titus sat in the yard, scratching at the dust behind his ear. i wished i’d given him a bath first, scratching at his soft fur beneath white bubbles. i gave him treats without tricks, threw sticks for him, looked in the bushes for his ball to throw. he wore his red collar, the new one we got because he had grown to be large, the teenager dog look that is hard to resist. he ran up the stairs from the basement and his ears bounced with his steps.
i was a bit tearful when wes put him in the truck. titus didn’t want to get in. i went inside and read about knights to henry who didn’t know that we were sending the dog away at that moment. when i mentioned it earlier in the day he was quiet and sad, but did not notice the next day when there was no dog to feed, water, send to fetch. jude still tells everyone that we have “a kitty-cat and a dog.”
goodbye, titus. we hope you have a good life with someone who will feed you expensive dog treats, take you on long runs in the morning, and let you kiss them all over without flinching.
sticking, shoe
May 21, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
i hate greeting the new week with a mess in the kitchen, toys staged to play and forgotten all over the house, a cheerio greeting underfoot. sundays are impossible, though, the oxen in my ditch requiring more than a tug and a push. in order to succeed at monday morning two important things must happen: before i sleep on saturday night the house must be clean. there should be no running about, no fun had by anyone, no late night wandering for music through the city. additionally all children must go to bed early, earlier than the sun if possible. when everyone sleeps early it’s not so terrible for mama to zombie through five thirty a.m. breakfasts for animals all.
this week the prickly bushes near the shed have an unkempt (use of this word just for you, dear) tangle of roses growing around and through them. i flip through magazines and screens of the web for some direction as to the care of these things that i did not choose to plant or keep. no one tells you what to do when you have yet to cut away the horrible prickly bushes. i like the way the roses are rumpled and crazy, waking up with bed-head to pay for. the shed and the clothesline, the driveway, the dusty dog, all of it breathes rosier with blooms in pink, red, thorny green.
the boys and i head to illinois this week, the ipod, long hidden books and toys to to accompany the long drive humid. we stay for two weeks and days and expect the twinkling celebration of little boy birthdays, sleep, and labored-over salads to eat. my mother wakes up voluntarily even earlier than my children do. hopefully this means that i will sleep late each morning (the defining feature of a vacation for me these days), boys with their loud ways of sneaking down barefoot through the creaks of the house to the kitchen, toast, coffee, chirp of bird, fronds in pots to plant waiting deckward.
“all i need is a gold mine”
May 15, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
it could be that i’m shaking because of the enormous amount of caffeine and sugar i just slurped and crunched in the kitchen while the boys leapt crazy without the use of drinkable stimulants.
but maybe i’m a little giddy and twitchy because i love the entire process of the espresso granita that martha stewart told me about just yesterday when i opened the door to retrieve the mail and had the doldrums of the monday banished away with the magic of the june issue of summer magazine goodness.
it’s fun to make! and even better to eat or drink or chip away at. hooray for iced espresso beverages.
espresso granita for six (not hardly)
2 cups strong brewed espresso coffee
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup heavy whipping cream
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate shaved into curls
while coffee is still warm, stir in 3 tablespoons of the sugar until it is dissolved. blend with the water. pour the mixture into a 13-by-9 freezer-safe glass dish. place in the freezer. every thirty minutes, rake the surface with a fork to form a granular texture. this part should be ready in two hours. whip the cream with the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar. scoop some granita into a glass or bowl. top with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. serve immediately.
of course, i did it all differently, using the coffee that i brewed for the afternoon that was caramel flavored and not espresso at all. i also put it in a freezer-safe glass bowl, so it took all afternoon scratching at it when i remembered, and froze during the night so it had to defrost a bit and be scratched into graininess later. we don’t keep heavy cream on hand (or chocolate for the purpose of shaving into curls), so i whipped sugar with two percent milk and poured it on top of the granita and that was that.
next time i will use less sugar because i don’t normally sugar up my coffee and, while it is good, i think it would be better a bit more bitter.
“words cannot describe,” i begin to write about this drink delicious, but i stop myself because, surely there are words. i just can’t think of any because my brain, fueled by bean and cane, is zipping through the catalog of my vocabulary unable to stop, stoop, consider.
“all i need is a gold mine”
May 15, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
it could be that i’m shaking because of the enormous amount of caffeine and sugar i just slurped and crunched in the kitchen while the boys leapt crazy without the use of drinkable stimulants.
but maybe i’m a little giddy and twitchy because i love the entire process of the espresso granita that martha stewart told me about just yesterday when i opened the door to retrieve the mail and had the doldrums of the monday banished away with the magic of the june issue of summer magazine goodness.
it’s fun to make! and even better to eat or drink or chip away at. hooray for iced espresso beverages.
espresso granita for six (not hardly)
2 cups strong brewed espresso coffee
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup heavy whipping cream
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate shaved into curls
while coffee is still warm, stir in 3 tablespoons of the sugar until it is dissolved. blend with the water. pour the mixture into a 13-by-9 freezer-safe glass dish. place in the freezer. every thirty minutes, rake the surface with a fork to form a granular texture. this part should be ready in two hours. whip the cream with the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar. scoop some granita into a glass or bowl. top with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. serve immediately.
of course, i did it all differently, using the coffee that i brewed for the afternoon that was caramel flavored and not espresso at all. i also put it in a freezer-safe glass bowl, so it took all afternoon scratching at it when i remembered, and froze during the night so it had to defrost a bit and be scratched into graininess later. we don’t keep heavy cream on hand (or chocolate for the purpose of shaving into curls), so i whipped sugar with two percent milk and poured it on top of the granita and that was that.
next time i will use less sugar because i don’t normally sugar up my coffee and, while it is good, i think it would be better a bit more bitter.
“words cannot describe,” i begin to write about this drink delicious, but i stop myself because, surely there are words. i just can’t think of any because my brain, fueled by bean and cane, is zipping through the catalog of my vocabulary unable to stop, stoop, consider.
here are thousands of meals
May 14, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
each morning in the trees, the yard, are birds. birds that twitter and fluff their feathers in the sand and dirt near the shed, ordering their breakfast from the chubby grayed female taking orders atop a mountain jude made for the worm truck drivers to climb. the birds, worse than any strutting rooster, shriek, squabble, sing early, alerting our children that morning is near, even though the five o’clock hour is still wearing her party dress from the night before, and the sky, hanging over, her eye circled with the smudge of mascara, winces at the first pointing finger of the sun. the all night party settles in for sleep and dreams of music, fireflies, firelight. the birds preach warnings about dancing and the poverty that comes with late sleeping.
jude, who has come into our bed with a stumble in the night, pulls back the curtains and tells me that it’s morning, as though the feathers who have taken possession of the yard have not also been warning me that i will soon be needed to administer cereal and drinks of water. i beg a prayer that he will fall asleep until the lazy hour of seven, but it is not to be so, foreordained from the foundation of the world spinning, this day begins.
i confirm a headache with the grind of the coffee. the cat slinks around my legs with his own morning reiterations. henry, dressed in costume, of course, is in dire need of a snack of some kind. jude appears with a waste of toothpaste smeared on his chest, his face, the toothbrush pristine.
the raucous procession of minutes are a constant reminder of the swollen condition of motherhood. cards and love and coffee and rotisseried sunday dinner regardless.
like i said, by myself
May 10, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
it’s hot this afternoon. jude is white and pink, transluscent in the beams of the sun. it’s too hot to play outside without the administration of water. a problem with water is the mess it makes in red clay, the smear of it everywhere, unapologetic, and completely unwilling to rinse clean. another problem is the teasing way in which the boys play with water, dumping it on heads, spraying it cold down pants, quietly and precisely pointing the nozzle at the screens of the house. so we stay inside, the laundry bleaching in the sunlight, the dog panting in the shade and rolling in the dirt until he is red and dusty and dog himself.
instead, henry learns to tear duct tape properly and they tape themselves all over, elephants, masked men, wounded animals. i fold laundry in stacks that stairstep on the rug and jude does not resist the urge to plow through them with his feet.
yesterday i decided to sew on something every day. i love to sew when everything is tidy, easy to find, the ironing board in a place convenient, the sewing machine on a clean tabletop. my sewing mess is in piles and corners of the pollinated sunporch, blocked by ernie’s record collection, miscellaneous studio stuff, a temporary pile of gracen’s worldly goods. i feel frustrated when scissors and elastic and straight pins are not easily accessible. disorder and all, i started yesterday anyway, finishing pants that i started to make last summer. it is very satisfying to finish a project, to make the pile of things to complete dwindle. today i work at the last few christmas gifts that we are woefully and embarrassingly behind in delivering. the move, the disorder, the miserable state of pennilessness, all of it contributed. it’s may and i am hopeful. i think that some who get gifts this late don’t care and understand, others can’t see past the expectation of a timely christmas gift and are annoyed at best. so it is. we can only hope to do better next time, and possibly actually do so.
i’ve also been playing the piano more often than usual, simple satie that whispers in white undertones while the kids lay track in the next room. i play and henry, sitting in the doorway, says, “you’re so beautiful,” his opinion most likely sweetened, granulated by the refined sugar in cookie form recently given to him by his flattered, beautiful mother.
you were sparkling
May 3, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
maybe i need to make a blogging schedule for myself. i think of things to write at the wrong times: when carrying groceries, while far away and standing in a sandbox somewhere, and during church as i’m on the verge of floating away with a dream. unfortunate.
for the first time in two weeks the dryer is running and filling the air around the deck with the smell of hot clean clothes. i’ve been using the clothesline obsessively faithfully and enjoy everything about it except for the way titus likes to jump up and pull gently breezing things off with the snap of a pin. quite exasperating. i do, however, find it really relaxing to stand in the sunshine and pin things in straight lines for a morning wave and flutter. the sun has begun to burn hot regularly, but it’s not humid, just the heat of the sun coming down from the roots of my hair and onto my freckling shoulders as jude hands me clothespins and chatters about something or other. it’s nice to not be sticky yet. but tonight the sky is cloudy and the late afternoon didn’t dry the clothes on the line, leaving them still and damp and wishing for the dryer, so they’re whirling in the dark and cold.
we spent the morning in the park with camille and boys. we were there for a long time until everyone was grouchy for lunch and naps. it was nice to not waste the morning on musty housework or sitting online (chatting with babes) all day. i need to do this more, to leave the house in the early part of the day and let them run their boyness off. our afternoon was quiet and easy and i actually took a nap while henry and jude played with their city buildings they built and painted and crayola-d. this was especially nice to enjoy because jude has had his fair share of nearly-three-ness and all that comes with it lately, so he and henry have not been the best of friends, and i have been on the verge of losing my freaking mind. so it was nice hearing them working together and coming up with solutions together rather than bickering and bellowing. nice enough that i could drift off into nonsense dreams to the new feeling of the baby kicking and tugging inside me.
