book of dogs
September 2, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
the neighbor has kittens, little poufs of fur that hide in the bushes to be captured by my boys. max sniffs them out and barks, a rare sound from him, and the kids love on the kittens (”henry’s exact words were, “mom, dad, it’s A MIRACLE!”) until their dad says no way and back across the grass to their mother they bound. it’s for the best. we’re not known for having a way with cats after they’ve grown out of their kitten stage. i gave away (after a disaster involving lots of cat pee, a perfect vintage velvet sofa, a rather large sofa cleaning bill, and more cat pee) the first kitten we had to a man and woman who answered the ad in the paper. they came for the pick up and greeted the kitten with a pink rhinestone collar. a better life she’s having than we would have ever given to her, and i’m rather sure there were no perfect vintage sofas to be destroyed inside the home of that couple.
somehow we’re dog people now, little dog people, with a little dog. we still have a cat, but he lives outside, stretching in the sun on the front steps. but those kittens are tempting, little faces, little whiskers, a bundle of purr in the hand.
lovely as a poplar
August 26, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
a few strings of garlands for the indie craft parade that’s sneaking up on me quite horribly. there is much, much to be done. like heaps of christmas ornaments and crepe paper flags and the glittering of a thousand little tags.
school makes the days go faster, a blur of work and play and endless chopping and cooking and cleaning. and restless sleep. i cannot sleep well lately and am contemplating large doses of drugs to take me into hours and maybe weeks of dreamless darkness.
henry called me in this morning to see the edges of a tree’s leaves turning yellow. the tomatoes are tired of growing for us, small and buggy. there are radishes and spinach coming up. in the mailbox was a postcard from the orchard telling me that now is the time to come for apples. it’s not too hot outside. there are pajamas being worn. i don’t want to rush in the winter rain and days of gray forevers, so i’m trying not to hurry the fall. but it’s hard to think summerly thoughts, even end of the summer thoughts, the promises of tomorrows speeding me through a real today.
close proximity to the sun
August 20, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
it’s been awhile since i’ve made a list. what a shame.
dog days
last rounds of salsa with tomatoes from the garden. something i’ll dream about in the gray of winter. if you have eight or nine small tomatoes, a lime, a hot pepper, three cloves of garlic, salt, half a bunch of cilantro and a little bit of olive oil you can make some and have a dream ready for winter, too.
a super video by chris of the kid art show from last weekend. i’ve watched it about eighty five times and it’s not getting old. if you like me at all you will spend three-ish of your minutes and watch it.
school begins. i try to be sure the kids are at least wearing pants while they learn at the table. my good husband is overseeing most of the tedious work and i am ever grateful.
wishing i could snap my fingers and bookshelves would appear everywhere. shelves would make the house so much tidier, i just know they would.
swimming in this beautiful blog of happiness
enjoying walks with max since it’s not two hundred degrees out there
working away at pieces for the indie craft parade and for the october show at art and light
cooking lots of things from the alice waters cookbook i got at goodwill for a dollar. i know, a dollar! i nearly fell down and died right there on the grody tile floor.
best stories in the world
August 19, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
my daughter sleeps, a nap she needs but one that energizes her for a long evening into the dark. she is up there in my bed, sleeping, charging batteries that i wish i still had.
the sky in the backyard grows black beyond the tired green of the trees. the sky in the front yard doesn’t know the darkness is blowing up behind, blue and the white silver backs of clouds unsuspecting. i hope that it rains, the summer in water overhead and underfoot. there is coffee in the afternoon, especially when there is rain.
i had almost forgotten the playgrounds and parks after most of the children are dressed in new clothes and carrying their new backpacks to the schools. mostly empty, most of the time, the soccer fields green and ready, the wind on the hill coming around as though he’s glad to be there just for us. i like to be alone, though it’s not always good for me, but the park in late august, abandoned and free, this is a time of alone that is okay, i suppose. the playgrounds were built for us, the fields were mown for us, those trees were planted for us, it’s all for us because we’re done with our books for the day.
big dark door of stars
August 11, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
oh, summer. you and your blazing sun. could you just come along with your fireflies and tomatoes, flowers in battalions at our feet, ice cream and popsicles and the spray of the hose?
we started school this week. my days are full of reading to everyone and my mouth is tired. the house is forever a mess of schoolwork and unfinished games and puzzles and creations. it feels a little wrong to start school in august, to steal the summer away from my dirty footed children. but there were all of these supplies at the store. and the days are too hot to stay out for too long. and we don’t have a pool membership to splash out the mornings, the long afternoons, the gray blue evenings of summer. so something had to be done. there’s still time for sparklers after dinner, for my son to smell like the dog because they’ve been wrestling in the grass, for water guns, homemade salsa, butterflies swept up in nets.
before midnight
July 27, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
it seems like summer should be all about the popsicles.
raining here, gallons of glorious rain in jagged waterfalls from the sky, lightning crash flashing in the gray, thunder rocking her babies to sleep. we lost two trees this week, before the wind and rain, long and piney falling diagonally and crushing the fence. the boys prefer the trees this way, sticks of all kinds and a good place to climb. the grown ups look at the other trees, the other tall pines with their spindles stair stepping to the clouds, and we sort of know that they have to come down, too. euthanasia for the trees. it makes me feel a little sick inside.
step right up
July 15, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
the boys had their birthdays at the beginning of summer, but we were traveling around so much that we all decided to do a party later on, when we had been home enough to plan and execute. part of me only wants to celebrate on the birthday, parties and cakes and gifts and fireworks and flaming torches up the drive on the exact day of birthday. but we don’t always get what we want, do we?
ernie made these invitations for us. i love it that he can do such things. love. it. i only wish i had more reasons for him to make invitations and little printed cards for me.
we’re having a carnival, ernie’s brother doing tricks for a show. there has been talk of a homemade dunk tank, and is it possible to make funnel cake cupcakes? we shall see. if only the dog could wear a pointed hat and walk on his hind feet, and ride in a circle on a pony.
page number
July 14, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
water, summer, grass on my feet, the legs of the kids as they run through it. they don’t have the feet of the sock wearing people, they have the earthy feet, the kind that are always dirty and banged up and bitten. i love to bathe them in summer. maybe because you can see just how dirty they got during the day, popsicles, bugs caught and released, forts and sticks and a thousand ideas popping! over and around them all the day long.
this summer has had the most beautiful of days, the heat bearable with the slightest whispering wind just when you think it’s time to go inside. sunshine and clouds that you can nearly reach for to touch.
so many days, all of them in little piles at my feet, some that stand out like bright pink pieces of paper, most forgotten at the bottom, lined note pages with handwriting in slants and black ink from left to right and over again. i wish my mind worked like a library’s catalog, the cards of all of my days in an understandable system of wooden drawers. maybe i wish for this. the bad days could be locked in a drawer at the bottom, the key strung on a chain and a hook in the closet.
birds are sleeping
July 9, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
when i help lola to sleep i tell her that even the baby birds are sleeping. sometimes she asks me to tell her this. if she is out at night and the sky is dark, crickets fiddling about in all corners of the yard, she listens for birds, the sounds of birds sleeping. the ruffle of feathers, a sigh. do the birds yawn or chirrup in their sleep?
she cut her hair today, her bangs. she cut jude’s hair last week. glued the dog, dumped the popcorn, sprinkled water from her lips, her cup. she changes her clothes all day and tells her brothers what is what. i can’t leave her alone for a minute now. add up the minutes, put them in bottles on shelves to collect dust. she’s the baby and she’s not the baby and i feel it all the time.
i love the weekend so. it rained tonight, a little sticky summer rain, one of the best kinds.
a yellow eye
July 2, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
i didn’t know i needed one, but i’m so glad i’ve got a daughter, and one such as lola is a good daughter indeed.
the last few days i feel life pulling me down, down by the face and into the dirt. i’m glad for the weekend, some perspective, fireworks, sparklers, lemonade, baked beans and perhaps some blueberry cobbler to help things along.