bits of beauty everywhere
January 30, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 4 Comments
i’m not sure where the week goes, swirling around and away from us before we think of it. this last week was one of those, everyone needing something, hours of the kind of work that repeats itself, work in shades of gray, glitter here, there, a slap of blue electric, but mostly pearly gray in waves that follow the moon to the end of the sand and beyond.
nearly every day we have tea together, the boys and i, lola watching us all, learning, her brain magnificent zapping and zinging about more than it ever will again. henry and jude love snacks, all things named snack. call it a meal and the crowd goes wild in protest, an indignant stampede. call it a snack and gold is found. so we’ve started having the biggest snack of the day, something i bake, just for the snack, with miniature amounts of tea in the miniature tea service from ikea (you know, the one that is astonishingly cheap! the one that annie got for us when she went down to buy infant accoutrements, like high chairs, a crib). they are careful, a bit sloppy, way liberal with the sugar, which gets soggy in the bowl, no matter how many reminders they have to not stir their tea with the sugar spoon, chatty and so happy to be having the mother of all snacks on white plates with white cups full of white tea. “cambric tea” my mom used to call it, mostly milkyness.
it takes a lot more of that repetitive work to have the snack of their dreams: thinking of it, giving jude a go at cracking the eggs of it (aaah! so tedious to watch! and, yet, i’m getting better at it, as is he . . .), baking it, boiling it, serving it, clearing it up, wiping it up, sweeping it up, putting it all away for the next day so that dinner can be made. this must be where my weeks go, cracked like the eggs in the hands of a three year old, pinched, slipping down in a mess through a shell with a plunk in a bowl, the pink one, the pink one with the chip on the rim.
walking alone
January 22, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 7 Comments
dismal, these winter days when the snow is gone, the nameless brown remaining. the landlord of the house across the way nailed an obnoxious FOR RENT sign to the dogwood tree in front, his multiple phone numbers barking at us in italics.
the kitchen is almost done, the painting of white in thousands of corners and cracks cause for a loss of exuberance. the walls are done, though, blue and ice, clean with shine. it’s all i can do to leave the room, the rest of the house not nearly as sparkling, as yet. ernie and i sat up late last night and talked projects. a nice way to go to sleep, but it does make for a sorry morning.
lola! she is not forgotten, her smile and chatter making the days as bright and brighter as the kitchen white. she’s just hard to photograph. one would think she would be easier to photograph since she is not leaping and bounding through the day. it is not so, at least for me. it is hard for me to believe that she is nearly four months old and, yet, she seems to have been here always. we are in love with her talk, her smile, the fat of her cheeks, the silly way she tries to scooch out of her seat, the thousand kicks of her feet, her interest in all around her, particularly in the movement and blur of brothers.
jude paints this morning, colors in smears long on the page. “this is God, this is Jesus,” he says. Jesus looks like a jellyfish. God has big eyes and something purple and beard-like reaching for his feet.
grand opening: Royal Buffet
January 17, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
so a while back, inspired by annie’s collage christmas ornaments, we two decided to start our own shop, partly to make some dollars to pay for supplies and other crafting needs (like extra coffee in the grocery budget so that we can stay awake late and wake up early without too much grumpiness), but also to keep our hands and minds busy at night and away from the temptation of the television (at least for me: annie only gets one channel, after all). so we started cranking out ideas and clipping and using Yes! paste (another thing to mourn: years of not knowing about Yes! paste!) and opened our own shop on etsy, just last night, while it was snowing, while the man across the street looked at the clock and said, “it’s 12:30, i think i’ll build a snowman,” and followed through (which was endearing and fun to watch from behind the dining room curtains).
and so, we give you Royal Buffet. And valentines, more valentines, and scratch books for now, other things cooking, or clipping, what have you. if you have a few dollars to spend, it would be nice to send our creations to those we know and love (in reality and virtually), and you’ll feel good when you buy handmade and support the work of people who like to make stuff and sometimes actually make stuff that’s really neato-o.
you can (or will) also find us on our own site (not the chinese restaurant, mind you, although if it were in greenville we’d probably be there, too) where we hope to share some of our ideas, works-in-progress, and other creating goodness.
and, special thanks to our husbands, who did all of the things we couldn’t figure out how to do in computer and camera land and have smiled kindly at us while we rhapsodized like girls, high pitches to the voice and all.
eyelashes
January 16, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
the street is already white from it, haphazard headlights spraying through it. it’s wet, more like rain, not the fluffy stuff of stories, but it’s snow nonetheless. my giddily snipped hair still has some melting on it and henry came home from kids 4 truth exclaiming about it. jude and lola are sleeping through it. i avoid finishing the dishes of tonight, the unending stream of them waiting huffily on the counter, the table, the bottom of the sink. the night is young and i imagine a blizzard of it billowing in glitter around us, drifting in through the screenless laundry room door. i think that it would be nice to trudge through it (in those furry warm boots we bought at farm king) to fill the bird feeders from which the handsome gray squirrel has been filling tummy and stores.
we went to the zoo today and wore sweaters (should have worn more: melanie had the right idea, hats and gloves and fur lined jackets). we were the only people there. jude fell (again, this falling! oh!) on his hands and scraped the cold skin raw, the only consolation for him being the feeding of crackers to that dingy golden goat with the very quick tongue. thanks, melanie, for buying the crackers and sharing them with us.
it’s cold in the house which could mean (although, it usually doesn’t) that we will need shovels and sleds in the morning. wouldn’t that be nice? three, four, five days ago they were eating popsicles on the deck, the sun glinting and spinning the gold of their hair, the open windows in the bedrooms sent the curtains over beds on the exhale, against the screen with a springy inhalation. tonight ernie stacks the bed with sleeping bags, extra blankets, and burrows. maybe he won’t have to go in to work in the morning.
“have you seen the way they kiss in the movies (isn’t it delectable?)”
January 12, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
long hair, the good and bad
easily is thrown back into a messy knot when it feels like it’s in the way
lola (cutely) holds it in her fists, something neither boy ever did because i had short hair when they were babes
pretty girls in jcrew and anthropologie catalogs have long hair
works as something to hide behind when feeling dismal or ugly
never looks like a mushroom
father-in-law complimented long hair over christmas
possibly looks like i’m trying to look young
is always pulled back into a messy knot
does not work well with signature purple hair color that dates me in the mid 1990s
short hair, the good and bad
ability to use cute hair clips and headbands is heightened
amelie has short hair
less product usage
cute embroidery on nehru collar of favorite jacket can be seen
does not look like i’m trying to look young
father-in-law complimented long hair over christmas
looks best purple
sometimes feels poufy
seems to be good hair for a person with mad freckling skills
makes me feel thoroughly modern (bands are getting jazzier)
ernie is not home to cut it right this instant
temptation to cut bangs occurs
being good, strong, and two thousand places at once
January 11, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
jude was drifting off after being awake, crabby, coughing, when it started raining, a thousand little slaps against the room, the deck, the windows, the air conditioning unit. a clap of thunder that clapped up close, inside the chests of we who woke often with another winter cold that just waltzes on into the house and brews herself a fat cup of tea with every intention of staying as long as she possibly can. i woke up grumpy and sarcastic after ticking off minutes during each hour of the night. i need to go to bed earlier, i suppose, after alex and those sad women who barely knew anything on the show tonight, tucking my toes under covers, tucking my eyes under eyelids, nothing done but tucking and sleeping. maybe dreaming about knowing all of the answers on jeopardy while watching it with my inlaws.
annie and i are working hard on something that sparkles and falls in love. i’m really excited about it and can’t go to sleep without working on it, no matter how much mess is left behind or how many times i go from lola to working and back to lola again, the night growing longer with each interruption. more on this later, i just can’t hold it in completely. i would be a bad poker player, peeking at my cards and twinkling or smirking or furrowing depending on the hand.
i’m glad for the weekend tonight, the hope of ernie’s cold and headache (it’s lasted all week for him, not a good thing to be full of headache with all of the noise around here) abating so that he can work in the kitchen makes me happy. the boys and i, and lola, asleep in a variety of infant transportation devices, we’re hoping for another day at the park, a day without scrapes (”having a cut on your face makes you cool!” my seven year old nephew told jude this week. how does he know this?) and with a good amount of tree gazing. removal of noisemakers from the scene of the party should make the painting happen without headache, no? here’s to hope and to pale blue paint, a shining white, a steady hand, peace.
fire’s on the moon
January 9, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
the kids playing volleyball in the sand, the friendly kids who are barefoot, the boys with that flop of hair falling over their eyes (the hair we all have crushes on at one time or another), the girls with long ponytails, the kids sending the ball over and back again for the length of the sunny afternoon, these are the kids who said it was cool to borrow their orange soccer ball, the one jude chased in an attempt to catch it before it rolled down the steep onto the soccer field, the one he fell over and slid, cheek to asphalt, his forehead, the corner of his lip. it didn’t look too bad when we were there and he didn’t cry too much, a bit here and there, using lola’s blanket for a soft something to hold over his face. and then today the thing grew dark, swollen, more tender. it’s a good thing for the comfort of many feet of bubble tape with a face like this. bubble tape and another day of sunshine, trucks in hands, a rope for pulling them around the yard, for tying things to the clothesline.
i wonder if jude thinks that this is his face now, that the angry red smear will stay there changing his face for good. i’m glad i know better and hope none of his freckles were left on the pavement.
swords, boys
January 6, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 4 Comments
ernie’s cousin ezra is young, 12, perhaps? i’m not sure. he carves wood, weapons mostly, i believe. so we hired him to make something dandy for christmas and he did terrific work. they’re cedar, sturdy, delicious to sniff, and have pointed ends, a bit too pointy for mama, but look deadly while being not too dangerous altogether. notice how well they are wielded by tattooed arms. harumph to armor, these boys don’t even bother wearing clothes.
soirees and legislative halls
January 4, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
i enjoy doing laundry, really, i do. it’s my favorite household chore, with the exception of putting the stuff away where it should go. the pipes are frozen, or so we gather, uneducated in pipe-age and frozen-ness as we are. the laundry stands in a heap in the laundry room, cold and sorry, nearly as tall as i stand. we are fast running out of towels and cloths for lola to spit on, and are thankful for a stack of disposable diapers that are left over from our christmas travels, as horrible and wasteful as they are.
when i lived at home i did the laundry, my brothers hauling it from floor to floor, to the basement and back again, while i scavenged for money forgotten in pockets. it’s nice when someone leaves five dollar bills in their pockets. this doesn’t happen anymore. sometimes i think i’m finding money in pockets but it’s always a grocery list, a receipt, some kind of toss-away scrap of paper.
in an effort to avoid the laundromat and all of those quarters, i will stand, wearing gloves and furry coat, of course, with a hair dryer to the pipes, hopeful, shivering. the idea of all of us at the laundromat is a grim one. if ernie goes he will likely walk away with some fantastic laundromat photography. perhaps this will make the prospect more appealing. when henry was a baby we laundered at the laundromat, the cheapest one in the least creepy part of town. henry sat in a stoller for the most part, for the filling of the machines, the folding. when he started walking ernie would come and follow him around the room, push him in a laundry cart, take him to the park across the way while i read and sweated, pregnant with jude, pregnant along with the spanish-speaking-only mothers that were washing, too, while their men followed their toddlers around the room, pushed them in laundry carts.
we spent twenty dollars every two weeks at the laundromat, two rolls of quarters in the pockets of the pants that we didn’t care about wearing again until the next wash day. sometimes we’d talk to people who wanted to talk, people with loud and boisterous stories, the scratch of a cigarette on their voices. most of the time we didn’t talk to anyone, the fluorescents illuminating people folding their towels the wrong way, muttering swear words at the machines that ate their money, people with stories that were secret, sad, quiet.
intend
January 1, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
last year i did not run (enter lola, pink and transluscent as morning sickness inducing embryo), i read, but not from the list, i cooked, but not very many new things, sometimes i meant what i said and said what i meant, i did not compost, i barely gardened (enter lola, again, stage right, in the form of a canteloupe strapped to her mother’s tired, humid body), i, somehow, emerged from my blogging slump, played the piano a little, thought of it a lot, sewed some (but no aprons), played some (should always play more, though), went outside more, turned the tv off more, taught henry in a loosely organized kindergarten way, got rid of lots of junk and organized most of the junk that remains, and worked hard to live, to bring life into the world, and to sustain the lives of little, exuberant people. hooray for 2007!
so, a list, for 2008 (possibly less daunting, more doable)
repair cello (send me money!) and practice it
sew more, and not be cheap or lazy about it
knit things
paint and/or facilitate the painting of all that needs painting in the house
play games (all sorts)
read reasonably often and well
teach these boys at the piano
take pictures nearly every day
go to and take everyone to the dentist (admittedly sad that this is making the list!)
keep the yard from looking trashy (harder than you think)
build terrariums
eat more salad
send birthday gifts in a timely manner
learn how to felt wool so that i can make fun things like this
run?
curb my tongue and try to be a little more first corinthians thirteen