I don't know if I can find ten more dirty pennies in my ashtray

Starbucks just raised their prices again this morning. UGH. Another reason for me to really make the effort to go local and get my coffee at the Global Gallery coffee shop because I day dream about their large iced coffee- It is heaven in a cup.

fat babies and tiny strawberries

make for great breakfast

Blaise can sit in his highchair

sorta

Finn is pissed

He was enjoying the toddler function of the chair

He is back into old blue as we call

the thrift store painted stool he perches on for grub...

Thanks dad for being a packrat

Merci father for not throwing away

my Mother Goose lacing card set- circa 1977

it has become the right before bed

calm down this week...

yahoo

summer treasures

Joe was doing some demo at a clients home last week and unearthed this little rabbit nest. Thankfully the mother is still with the bunnies and the nest was not harmed. Joe and Finn returned tonight to just make sure all was well with the urban wildlife

and here they are-

so sweet

just a little nest of bunnies

in a yard in Columbus, Ohio

dinner was great too

date night with some cute boys

good table manners for 3 years

and somewhat decent for 6 months!

We love Northstar

we are addicted

artsy curtains for Finn

I am making curtains for Finn's room. I ain't no seamstress but Rob Jones knows I can create cool stuff with canvas! (circa '99)

Anyhoo. I am committed to creating some cool shades for the room.

Some function/Some art/It is gonna take a long time

Random thing:

So my kid loves Bob Dylan

yeah

I know

he's ace

anyways

I have schooled him in Neil Young as of late and tonight was one of those magical moments where he asked me to take the CD player into his room so he could fall asleep to "Harvest"...

so we all sat in his room

and listened for a while

and the sun was going down

and it was not hot

only warm

against the evening

and we sang and hummed

and everything

was just fine

here

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.

I'll have a large pepperoni- half moral-half guilt pie

The sharp family loves Miami
Florida is cool
But here is a town we won't be going to
like ever
strange
no fun for those kids I bet
Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan
has built himself a town
a very strict town
a very righteous town


And also today- Finn had his first swimming lesson
he rocked it out
three years old
and can take the big slide
can blow bubbles
can jump off the side

5 polyps and the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Shit!
Cheney monster was the president today for a few hours
I don't know who frightens me more

Lampyridae Lessons

Finn loves lightening bugs
Fireflies have become another excuse of staying up past bedtime
I think Finn is a better version of me
He only wants to ooh and awe at them
not rip their bodies apart and paint his face
like aboriginal art
with the undersides of their abdomens
like I did
He wants to see how pretty they are
I remember in 1999
Joe looked out the window of our
little house in the thick of Athens, Ohio
countryside and shouted-

"What is that?"

We had a massive field outside our kitchen window and
it was lit up with fireflies
twinkling sparkling amazing
Joe said he had never seen them before
I guess in the part of England he is from they do not exist
even here in the states
there are parts where kids don't
get to enjoy this summer magic
he was wild and freaked out and delirious with joy
he was 26 and blown away
I loved that I had been there with him
we used mason jars that summer night and caught some
we were just married and time was all we had
I told him how the lights were mating calls and
we agreed that summer was definitely a sexy time
even for beetles
Finn stands near me
tiny droplets of sweat across his nose
he looks at the yard
pointing

"another one mom!"

second generation wonder

secret message to OU girls

Laughing so hard as I passed this sign

I am feeling like a tourist in my new town. I mean, I think it is the combination of not working and a new town. I am walking around and I actually feel like I am on some sort of altered vacation. I look with wide eyes at things. It is kinda like the game I used to play while riding in a car- I would turn my head and focus on something, a blade or grass...a rock...a piece of guard rail... and think to myself how I had never seen that before this split second. I would also make up combinations of words and utter them as if they were magic speak- I was certain that I had never said this string of words before...
I am sure it is some sign of creative genius

Anyhoo, this is kinda what I am feeling now. I am focused so hard of bricks and signage and streets. I am staring and staring at faces and houses that are so new to me I smile.
I am sensing a real community.
I am smelling a great childhood for the boys.
I am hearing home.

To achieve maximum pleasure through minimum effort

My sister in law in UK sent me this link:
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=5730086

Yahoo- I truly love this woman. She is a great cook and I like her recipes when I can understand what she is talking about- gas mark and coriander for cilantro ---those damn Brits-
anyhoo- I love her and she is a goddess to me.
My friend Erec and I used to wax poetic on her for days- her heavy mothering busom and her sexy ways in the kitchen
cashmere twinsets and chocolate- alright.

I think I like her story too- I think I like the fact that she went Oxford and although she was from a prominent family- she really came up on her own smarts and luck. I think about how she lost her husband - a really cool journalist named John Diamond far too young
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1198541.stm
to cancer and how she remained tough and strong for her family.

I like her ever so much
her middle name is my favorite name
Lucy
and she named her son
Bruno
kick ass
Can't wait to buy this book when it hits

Tired of saying goodbye

So, we have given over the keys to the new owner of our home and yet- I find myself over there again and emailing info to him and never able to be done with it.

It has been an emotional drain to keep revisiting this place that I am sad to leave. So, I have to go get some more stuff I forgot and somethings I had tried to forget-

OK. So, I understand he does not want two ancient dirty humidifiers from 1972- but neither do I...

I want to say good bye

I want to start the process of finding love for this new house

One thing I love is this:

It is cool to hear the post man come and swoosh yr mail lands lightly like paper airplanes on the wooden floor. So much more interesting than a mailbox on my front porch.

baby steps

to loving this house

baby steps

what the duff?

Dude
when did Hil Duff turn all sexy?

I don't like change
My students loved her
and she was so wholesome
now...dunno

Humans of the Week

Thank you Lisa and Manny for food, conversation, muscles, and last minute moving help. I appreciate yr willingness to deal with me. It was a hard day and when Joe dropped my cell phone in yr organic lemonade I thought I might stroke out in yr living room and you held the baby and were so cool. Merci. You are both just great and blessed we have been to know ya. I don't have pics of you guys, so I will insert another fabulous New York City couple I like ( not as much as you)

We heart NY.

Moving

So tired even my teeth hurt
house is moved
mostly
wine cooler for a refrigerator
charcoal grill out back for a stove
must get to Lowe's
buy appliances
there is a large saw in my kitchen
and today I wore Joe's boxers
can't even find girl pants
so many boxes
so much dust
summer will sort this out
so tired even my teeth hurt

Now and Then

I remember signing the papers to buy our house- the strange aubergine house on Clinton St. I was scared to death that we were buying the ugliest house in the world-scared that were idiots and it would never be transformed. I am packing the last boxes to move tomorrow to our new house and I am sad right now. I am sad because this was not only our first house, but where we brought home both our new babies. There are memories here that can never be recreated. The house holds our past and all the laughter and tears of over three years. It holds the specific memories of the beginnings of a family. It holds sacred stuff. Good bye little house. I love you.

unearthing treasure

While packing (complete hell) I ran across this little memory of the beginning of me and Joe. I was completely smitten the first second I met my husband. He barely had hello out of his mouth before I kissed him. Did I mention I am quite aggressive? No, seriously...I knew he was my soul mate immediately and I remember buying him this little secret message bullet at Mountain Leather on Court St. I recall wanting to write "I love you" as the message, but I was still too cool to do so..so I wrote this

and slipped it to him that evening as we drank tall beers in Tony's tavern. He liked it and carried it in his old soft leather wallet for about 5 years until the wallet fell apart. (It had a little bump out where the leather had hugged it.) I was sad when he moved up to a money clip and left the bullet in our British pound coin jar. Still, it is here now. A reminder of long ago...and I still like that man a whole bunch.

hot full wet eyes

It has been a hard day. I worked my last day today. As I stopped by Starbucks this morning I got choked up at the sight of my local barista. I won't really be seeing him anymore. The drive to work included this particular stop.

I also got a bit sad when I deleted years of folders and files and email. I had a deep relationship with that computer.

The worst was lunch time and my students looked at me and I could see the little bits of sadness and confusion as I stumbled to say goodbye.

It is hard to expect little kids to understand that you learned from them and that leaving feels like little pins in yr skin. It is difficult to arm them with all the protection and luck and love for the future in one goodbye hug after another.

Hot full wet eyes and I drove away.
I drove straight to my boys
and they were smiling.

So Cool

When I would get moody and pensive at Ohio University- I would dream of going to this school: http://www.naropa.edu/index.cfm.

The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics! YES!

I would have fit in there- I would have been a round little peg in a round little hole...dooblehvay. I dunno about that- It was in Boulder and I had no money. I also lacked the gumption to look into scholarships. I basically just wished I would teleport there. Anyhoo, there was this story today and it caught my eye-http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070701/ap_on_en_ot/odd_kerouac_reading

I would have loved to have been a part of this. I am so going to go find my old tattered copy and revisit that little piece of heaven from my youth.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...