sweet nothings

i like to know the stories of how couples met and fell in love, but i think the stories behind pet names are even more interesting.

tim, my wonderful husband who has had a happyccino waiting for me when i woke up each of the past two mornings, mostly calls me sweetie. (i secretly believe that's a left-over from his wild and woolly teen years, when it may have been somewhat difficult to remember each girl's exact name.) but he also calls me his little flintstone feet girl. (i have very tiny feet, but they're wide and my toes are short.) lovely, no?

he also calls me his jolly green giant because i always think i'm much taller than i am, especially in comparison to him. (i'm almost 5'5" and he's 6'2". but it feels like we're almost the same height.)

when i was still a working woman, i wore my hair short. andrea, my stylist at the time, did whatever the heck she wanted with my hair - i had no say, but neither had i the time to worry about it. once, she cut it SO short and put SO much goop on it that when tim saw it, he began calling me his little chemo girl. mildly offensive, but what could i do?

tim has also been known to tilt the lampshades in the living room and close the miniblinds behind the sheers a little bit (i keep them closed at night and all the way up in the daytime) so that i will fix them when i walk through. again and again. and he thinks it's funny to call me his little ocd girl. nice.

rod and vicki call each other "babe." that's it. no imagination, i say. but at least it's nicer than "old lady," which is what lonnie calls sandra.

tori told me yesterday that her boyfriend todd calls her his little black-footed pachyderm. what the?! alas, there is a reasonable explanation. todd can never remember where he parked his car at the mall or a restaurant, but tori never forgets (it is said elephants never forget). tori has had a life-long aversion to wearing shoes. her friends from school called her "hobbit" because of it. and, as she explained, her feet often are filthy by the end of the day (thus, she is black-footed). he also calls her his baby elephant. now that i know the story, i think both are sweet.

tim and i used to, when we were young and carefree and had time to shop together, make up life stories for strangers in the store. part of the fun was imagining what their pet names for each other were. it's just this moment i realized we don't do that anymore. when i see him tomorrow, i'm going to convince him to take me to lunch (at fiesta, of course) and then i'm going to inquire as to whether he'd like to imagine our neighbor's pet names. i will report back.

where to begin?

last night was the first time i'd been upright in days. cleaning the stupid bedroom closets and doing the dumb laundry pulled a stinkin' muscle in my back. i've never injured my back before, but let me tell you - i will never again make a nasty (albeit under my breath) comment about someone whose back "went out."

by friday afternoon, though, i was up and showering and dressing for my youngest brother's wedding. the one i missed going to chicago for. (which was the right decision, dang it.) i hardly know the bride, but i like what i do know. and of course i love josh. and all my brothers were groomsmen. a chance to see my brothers (particularly lonnie) in tuxes comes along only once a decade or so. oh! funny story that should live in our family's history forever: when ethan saw karissa (the bride) in her flowing white gown, he whispered in awe to taryn, "mommy . . . is that . . . God?" love that kid.

please note i included for your viewing pleasure not only the wedding party, but also the seats in front of where i was precariously perched, as well as the shoulder, hand and lovely blue hair of a grandmother. i'm here to serve.

i could barely walk and sitting upright was SO hard. even though i'd doped up on my two pills and some extra tylenol in preparation for the event. also, i was shaky. very shaky. causing all my snapshots to be blurry, among other problems. i've never, ever used illegal drugs. or legal drugs illegally. or even legal drugs ill-advisedly. i use drugs of any kind very sparingly and cautiously because you just never know. you know? but i imagine that head-covered-with-wet-towel-and-eyes-straining-to-see-through-vaseline-curtains-while-room-is-spinning feeling must be what it feels like to be high. and why would anyone ever do that to themselves on purpose?? aaaaaaaanyway, back to the point: i was stiff, sore and shaky. and today when i looked at my sd card, i was way disappointed in the low-quality and often strange shots i took.

but not all the strangeness was my own. my brothers were directly responsible for much of it. for example, the ol' "captain morgan" shot was choreographed by lonnie. and who was i to deny him?

and how about this one, entitled "stoics." tom suggested it, and i think it works (even overexposed and somewhat blurry).

a wild hair

by the end, the hair on my head will most certainly be a little wild (it is humid, as well as 104 degrees today, which results in corkscrews and general frizziness), but what i really mean is that i've got a crazy obsessive idea in my head that i cannot stop myself from acting upon. you know - a wild hair.

you see, my bedroom is a pit. and i can. not. tolerate. it! not one moment longer. i dreamed last night that i got a new bedroom. beautiful hardwoods with a gorgeous wool berber rug and nothing visible save my sparsely-yet-comfortably-clad bed. and then i woke up and tripped over tim's book on the way to the bathroom. i need (need!) a calm, serene, orderly, clean bedroom. my husband? not so much.

my husband . . . oh, it raises my blood pressure just to think about it . . . is a pack-rat. he loves stuff. he loves multiples of his stuff. he loves his stuff and their multiples to remain accessible to him in any area of the house. when he and i met, we were like long-lost soulmates. it took a few years for our few differences to become obvious. and this thing with stuff? it's a big one.

used to be, it was just tim's closet and dresser drawers that were chaotic and scary. i'd bravely venture in twice a year or so to clean and organize them. not because he asked me to, no. huh-uh. he would prefer i stay out of his things. no, the pressure would just build within me until i felt i could no longer survive unless i cleaned, sorted and organized his areas. then, ever so slowly, the madness began taking over our home. our lives. i may be exaggerating. but if i am, it is to such an infinitesimal degree that it may as well be the whole unvarnished truth.

anyway, i gradually got more and more discouraged and finally gave up. and now, my room is horrible.

i should note that tim fully intends to hang up every shirt, to put every tie in the tie holder, to put every pair of boots and shoes away on his shoe shelves in his closet, to put every ball cap away in his ball cap holders, to throw away the (insane amount of) pocket stuff he arrives home with each day. but he never gets around to it. then, he begins to think of the piles as storage devices in their own right. he really, truly cannot understand why i get so upset about it.

but today? today i can conquer anything! i have a wild hair on my side! i've already got two bags of clothes to send to goodwill. i had to stop to feed the kids lunch and put them down for a nap . . . and take a manic-typing break because i was close to passing out from heat exhaustion (have i ever mentioned our house is old and so is our heating and air conditioning unit? and that our really big bedroom has ONE really small vent? yeah. we freeze in our room in winter and boil in summer.) but now i'm cool and still possess my wild hair.

i'm off! please pray for me. and if i do not emerge before nightfall, please send help.

what is this "blog" of which you speak?

as i go about my day and do the things i do, i frequently think, "oo! i should blog about that!" then, when i finally get a chance to get online (not often, since it's 100+ degrees every day and i do NOT want my hot laptop on my already hot lap outside), i read all the blogs in my ever-growing list. and those posts remind me of some story and i think, "oo! i should blog about that!"

but when i finally navigate over to my page, all those ideas seem so dumb. and boring. boring is a horrible thing to be; boring to oneself is even worse! but i don't want to be fake, either. what if i develop alzheimer's and my journals and blog are the only memories i have? i don't want to "remember" something untrue. (although . . . if i weren't going to know any better, maybe i should start planting exciting tales to entertain my elderly self . . . something to think about, at least.)

so, boring wins. timmy and i and taryn, ethan and new baby michael went to lunch today. timmy ate FIVE broiled flounder filets and most of my rice pilaf (which was much more delicious than his rice pilaf, as it turns out), as well as all the tomatoes and cucumbers from my salad. ethan ate a bunch of clam strips and not a veggie in site. what those two eat is very important to us, because they're both skinny. boring, but true.

also: michael (whom i call "mr yakimoto" now and whom i fully intend, against his mother's wishes, to call "mikey" later on) is so stinkin' cute! he's a crabby little old man in a tiny baby body. he has taryn's eyebrows. on her, they're just regular ol' eyebrows, but on him? SO adorable! especially when he's mad - his eyes squish closed, his forehead wrinkles up and his eyebrows stick straight out. a nephew is not like one's own child - not at all! - but his grouchy little eyebrows still make my heart jump a little in my chest.

here are a couple pics of him at two days old.

one with daddy:

and one with mommy



see those eyebrows?

mah bay-bee is growing up!

we visited preschool today. (sob)

timmy poopied in his potty seat of his own free will yesterday evening, with no prompting from us. even though we have a "meet the teacher" group scheduled august 21st, we called to ask if we could drop in today as a reward for such wonderful big boy behavior.

we arrived and were escorted to miss brooke's classroom. timmy was inexplicably shy and whispered his greeting. then he noticed the sink. a kitchen-style sink at his height. with a magic faucet (just waive your hand beneath and the water comes on). he asked, "may i please wash my hands?" he found no bar soap, so miss brooke talked him through the pump and the magic faucet and the paper towel dispenser and the waste bin.

miss brooke also introduced him to the class caterpillar. whom timmy poked and almost squished. out of love, though. love; not malice.

then timmy noticed the bin of dinosaurs.

and the bin of tinker toys.

and the bin of cars.

and the reading area, where i read a book about emergency vehicles to him (but skipped four of every five pages, b/c that was one long book!) and miss brooke promised to read "chicka chicka boom boom" (a very fun book) at the "meet the teacher" event.

timmy was well-behaved even though he wanted to see it all and do it all. i was proud of him.

but my baby! (sob) he's growing up! (sob) i'm not ready! (sob)

i suppose it's a good thing he'll have these two mornings a week for two years before kindergarted, eh?

i listen. i learn. i do.

oh, my. busy, busy, busy.

my basic digital photography class is going well. my brother thomas and my gf sharon are taking it with me and if nothing else, we're having a good time together. we meet for dinner at one of the old town restaurants before class. we email each other links to good articles about exposure, etc.

exposure. man. i like the instructor, brian. he's nice and he knows what he's doing. he doesn't seem to think we're all a bunch of idiots. (although we very well may be. :D) the first night we learned where all our buttons and knobs are and what they do. no kidding. but what's worse than the sound of that is . . . we had some trouble. all of us. even those of us who scoured our manuals intent on remembering every little thing. (i guess i really do need to know what "shutter speed," "iso" and "aperture" mean and how they interact before i can begin to remember how to change one of them.)

our first week's assignment was to take pictures of things in and around our homes, making changes to the above three mystery concepts as we go. however, none of the three of us understood, in practice, how to go about this task until the day before the second class. i came across a bunch of articles online that helped it click for me and promptly emailed t and s. the piece that we all needed was how to find from what settings we should start (and from which we should begin making those incremental changes). i did feel comfortable with each of the three concepts individually. on paper. but i needed to know how they interact. apparently, so did my cohorts.

we are now a couple days post-second class meeting and i am back to discouraged. we took night pictures. my (free with purchase of my camera. should have known.) tripod has a screw loose. literally, because the plastic into which it - well, screws - is cracked. thus, my camera shakes. and slowly droops. resulting in crappy, blurry photographs. and frustrated photographer.

although! there was one bright point in the evening. i was approached by an extremely handsome man on crutches early on. i did not run away because of the crutches, which just now (!) made me think of ted bundy's broken-arm-need-assistance ploy. (pausing to thank God for protecting me, even though i am so obviously a dolt.) he asked if i were taking a photography class (the six of us standing around with our tripods must have clued him in). he said (oh, did i mention his delicious accent? maybe italian?), "look around at all your friends. they are all taking the very same picture. you do something different. lie on the ground or stand atop this fence. (it was a wall.) you see? all the same subject, but yours will be beautiful." ah, good times. good times.

oh, my LORD, this is a boring post! but, as this is my journal, my diary (and as i am my only regular reader), i owe no one a good read, right? i want to document my rise from pathetic less-than-beginner to competent and (dare i hope?) good photographer. from this day foreward (please picture scarlett o'hara with her turnip) i will enjoy my own pictures.

just like the time tim tried to teach me how to golf, i am frustrated. then, i could see in my mind's eye exactly where the ball should go. it consistently refused to cooperate and flew off behind me. (no kidding - some of our friends did not believe i could do that until i showed them.) now, i see in my mind's eye what my photographs should look like. they also consistently refuse to cooperate. i need a rosetta stone to translate what my eye sees into what my camera sees. (maybe this will come with class number three? please?)

the wilds of my back yard

as usual, we're spending the morning in our back yard. we wake up, we eat breakfast, we get dressed. or not. today he preferred to play with no undies - just an undershirt. since it's my own back yard and my neighbors (both sides and the back yard neighbor) are all non-weirdo women, i say "nakie? ok. why not?" so, we go out. we swing, timmy chases louie, ike chases timmy and louie, rosie lounges on the shelf beneath the barbeque grill. we have a wonderful, peaceful time in our back yard until it's time for lunch and nap. then we do it all again in the afternoon. (see? it's not my fault the dishes from last night are unwashed and the family room is unvacuumed.)

something i most enjoy about being out here? the bird songs, the rustling of the leaves overhead, the squirrel chatter. something i don't enjoy? about a week ago, louie realized his life's dream and caught a squirrel. they sit on the tree branches or roof top scolding the doggies and laughing their furry little butts off as the doggies are jumping and screaming and unable to come near them.  i guess the fat little terrorist wasn't paying attention, b/c louie crept up on him and snatched the hairs right off his tail. (squirrels are not nearly as cute with no tail hair - they look like huge mice. i'll never look at another squirrel the same again.) tim came out and made louie let him go, but he may have been injured b/c the next morning as i'm reading in my lounge chair, i saw louie proudly prancing to and fro with a tail-hairless squirrel in his mouth. i'm sure i woke up every day-sleeper in the city as i screamed for tim to come out and take care of it.

aaaaaaaanyway, in the early morning or late afternoon we sometimes see our neighbor's (wild) rabbits crossing from her back yard to our back yard neighbor's back yard. they are not disturbed in the least by louie's and rosie's scream-barking fits. they know there is a fence between them.

one little guy this morning, however? not so lucky. no fence. timmy first noticed louie's strange bark - i was gazing up through the leaves of a maple tree to the teeny bits of blue sky above, so the bark didn't quite enter my consciousness. after running to the patio to investigate, he called me over to see the surprise louie and rosie found.

a toad! a scared and peeing toad. i am sad to say louie and rosie flitted to and fro on the patio, dodging and dancing around the toad like mohammed ali, striking with lightening speed to him (her?) up the toad in their mouths and toss him into the air.

now, i have no desire at any time to pick up a toad. but i couldn't just let louie and rosie play with him until he expired, could i? so, i grabbed timmy's john deere hat to scoop him up without the doggies knowing what i'd done and carried him to the sand box. where he'd be safe. but not unbothered.

see how he's just covered in sand? yeah. timmy poured sand onto him. many times. and it stuck - maybe because of all that pee or dog slobber? he hopped away from the sand box several times (see the blue aquarium-like glow in the second picture? that's the morning sun shining through our kiddie pool.) but i dutifully carried him back. (shudder. i deserve a medal.)

timmy eventually got bored with the toad, but you know, the whole time he was being bothered first by the doggies and then by timmy, he seemed remarkably calm. except for the peeing thing. but i tend to have to go when i'm nervous, too, so who am i to judge.