the white apron of the baker

July 31, 2009 | Filed Under lists, ordinary | Leave a Comment

ordinary day

colossal lego mess for days and days and days and days

lola’s new favorite book that i’ve read at least ten times today, yesterday, tomorrow?

coffee exploding onto the wall due to misplaced pressure on the top of the press

drinking at least one cup of the stuff before cleaning off the wall

vintage yellow + brown + green pillowcases

chocolate champion

haircut glory

long nap and christmas movie

mobile assemblage

thinking + talking in paint colors

sage + butter

beginnings in the new house – tomorrow!

billy collins, even yet

pennies successfully retrieved from the wii due to handy husband + fancy pants tool one must order for such a fix

handy husband fetches brother from long european trip + brings americano home to me

adjectives on the typewriter

July 30, 2009 | Filed Under extraordinary, lover | 3 Comments

hooray for newness! don’t you think?

not to boast, but ernie is extraordinary! my husband is amazing and generous and extremely good to me. he has been working very hard on his own website and portfolio and yet he gave me, at the same time, this awesome new design for my own site. i don’t think i’m an easy client for him, especially as i hand him weirdly proportioned collages and try to describe what i want the site to look like at two in the morning when the ice cream is gone and the hours for sleep nearly so, also.

voila! this masterpiece! regardless of my poor verbal communication skills and nitpicking, he understands me as well as anyone can or should. this is (one of many, of course) a reason i married him. others have been ever perplexed and lost at sea when it came to understanding. not ernie.

as mentioned above, ernie has just launched his incredible new site + portfolio + blog. it’s a beautiful place on the interwebs. and if you didn’t know it before, his photography is inspiring and really, outstanding. when you go, tell him you care.

so, welcome to the new abode. click and snoop about as you please. and if something is wonky or weird or just unreadable, pray, do tell. you can contact me on the nifty little contact page.

waiting out the sun

July 27, 2009 | Filed Under familial, ordinary | 2 Comments

a day of headaches. i hate feeling like that. ernie lends perspective. i try to remember that the world is broken and there can’t be peace everywhere all the time. i imagine myself baking bread, planting flowers, being quiet, maybe under a tree, the sun glittering beyond the leaves, the blue of a sky clear and keen.

i take the boys to the post office where lowell and his thin long hair sends the packages over the prairie, across the sea, and down the interstate. we go to the park where no one plays. i have discovered that in the summer the park is best mid afternoon, late afternoon, a few children on the swings, everyone else somewhere else. there was a breeze and black clouds. the rain came and we played in it as before. the thunder was loud. a girl and a boy playing volleyball ran under the shelter, laughing, sand on their feet, and i knew i was older, which i sometimes forget.

dinner, henry’s wit, lola crying for teeth, jude running, running, running. the fan makes waves and they swim deep and low to the marbled ocean floor of sleep. i remember to breathe, turn on the kitchen lamp, and hope for a better start tomorrow.

flowing blowing glass

July 25, 2009 | Filed Under lists | Leave a Comment

a good day is saturday

slow coffee

thoughts of housework

following indian sweet tea instructions given by indian grocer and finding it very, very peppery. peppery!

the sartorialist + fifty pounds – $500 a shoe = not so perfectly pretty street photography

although she doesn’t know it: lola singing in arpeggios

henry asking, “what is an arpeggio?”

unbelievable horse puppetry. the horses, the article. let’s go!

sidewalk sale + stripes

owls in flight mobile over the bed

astonishing demolition next door

bathed children

ice cream in the freezer, though not for long

king me

July 23, 2009 | Filed Under familial, ordinary | 2 Comments

every day henry asks us to play checkers. “how about a little game of checkers?” he asks. we can’t always play and lola is annoying about the pieces, throwing them in the air, running off with them. maybe tomorrow she can sit in her high chair with a cracker and watch us at the other end of the table. there should always be time for checkers.

thirty four

July 22, 2009 | Filed Under extraordinary | 5 Comments

today: love letters, illustrated rainbows, date, babysitter that can be trusted with all three offspring. no housework, no cooking, no working of any kind. polarized sunglasses, lunch, peanut butter pie, bookstore, magazines, coffee. a few minutes of quiet. jeopardy. children who love, husband who loves, people who call and write who love. the beautiful life from God, for God.

before today: the years in a jar, a bottle, an aerosol can. shaking them, pouring them, spraying them high into a sky to explode! where did you go, 1987? and 1991, do i even remember a day of you? how many hours were carelessly wished away from the years of 1996-1998? the minutes are crystal and clear and rain drops. the hours and the days are blurring together like chalk on the pavement. splatter, pool, evaporate. drink, swim, keep them in my very hands for as long as i can.

for the moon

July 20, 2009 | Filed Under extraordinary | 2 Comments

the moon, dust and gray, the moonshine fading away the closer you get to it. when you’re there, standing on it, walking thick-legged over the surface of it, what do you think about, moonwalkers? i suppose you are there collecting lunar samples, stabbing the pole of a flag into it, so you’re a little busy thinking about how many of those things you can do in your few hours of time. fairy tales, the man in the moon, the cheese underfoot, the moon a balloon coming out of a keen city in the sky, maybe these flash before and ahead of you and wink moon-like at you as you stamp your boot in the dust and head for home.

numbered

July 19, 2009 | Filed Under extraordinary, for the mouth | 3 Comments

this morning, yesterday morning, cool outside, a surprise. “do i need a sweater?” i ask. i always wish i needed a sweater.

last night: a feast of asian food. the market smells like fish and a weird sweetness. there were terrible gelatinous bloody things for sale, dark as cherries, but certainly not cherries. instead i bought mung bean sprouts, which we forgot! and tofu that doesn’t scramble when you try to cook it. annie made chicken, the general, who was amazing. we ate too much but wished we could eat more. peanut sauce, we love you. and another, a vegetable sauce of amazement. maybe the reason we love asian food is because of the many sauces. maybe because it takes all day to make so much of it. “eat slowly!” i remind, as jude stabs a potsticker with his chopstick.

the day goes dismal

July 16, 2009 | Filed Under for the mouth, ordinary | 2 Comments

the first half of the day was spent in bed, feeling dizzy and generally terrible, lola sprinkling granola all over the house. the last half was spent sweeping granola, making real mac + cheese (oh my, so good; a comfort food kind of day, after all), finding lids to the markers that were used for all of three minutes, dying my hair at last, bathing three kids, flipping channels through the nothing on television, finishing garlands, ignoring the kitchen, the hall, the laundry in the dryer from yesterday.

tomorrow: there is hope. and leftovers. and the weekend-to-be.

under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart

July 15, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 6 Comments

i just noticed that my birthday is in a week. how did that happen? july, you’re a sneaky thing. summer, you’re running away from us so fast we are out of breath and doubled over trying to catch up with you. already i’m thinking about wearing that furry collar thing gracen made for me a few christmases ago.