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There are two c’s in raccoon. I just thought you should know. I mean, good spelling skills are not necessarily a measure of intelligence. My father is a brilliant and world-renowned (in certain circles) scientist, and last I checked he still spells “cheese” with a “z”. But if you’re giving instruction on writing, and more specifically editing, I think it would be nice if your example did not include a paragraph in which raccoon is spelled incorrectly eight times. Also, you use ”it’s” for “it’s jumping over the fence” and “its” for “its tail is stuck between the planks”. I’m just saying.
A friend of mine posted this on Facebook. Have you seen this?
Crap. I mean, fiddlesticks.
(Sorry about the freeze frame, BTW!)
I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been in such a blogging slump, and then it hit me: I haven’t been doing anything wacky lately. I’m in a slump of normality. That’s my problem. I’m sure it will pass. You can’t keep the crazy down forever.
Dumas’s tomb-sized tome is still too intimidating for me. On Madhousewife’s recommendation, I picked up Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day instead. It’s the story of an old-school English butler in postwar England as he reflects over his life and career. For the first quarter of the book I thought, “This is delightful.” By the end I was duly depressed. But in a delightful way. One of my favorite passages:
I had been rather pleased with my witticism when it had first come into my head, and I must confess I was slightly disappointed it had not been better received than it was. I was particularly disappointed, I suppose, because I have been devoting some time and effort over recent months to improving my skill in this very area. … You will perhaps appreciate then my disappointment concerning my witticism yesterday evening. At first, I had thought it possible its limited success was due to my not having spoken clearly enough. But then the possibility occurred to me, once I had retired, that I might actually have given these people offence. … But this small episode is as good an illustration as any of the hazards of uttering witticisms. By the very nature of a witticism, one is given very little time to assess its various possible repercussions before one is called to give voice to it, and one gravely risks uttering all manner of unsuitable things if one has not first acquired the necessary skill and experience.
See? Delightful. I highly recommend it. Unless, of course, you are feeling at all lonely or the slightest bit suicidal. I will definitely be reading more Ishiguro.
Last night I started Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night. I read The Great Gatsby last month, and while I found myself somewhat disgusted by and completely uninvested in any of the characters, I fell in love with Fitzgerald’s prose. It’s simply enchanting. At the front of the book is an introduction offering a few details of the novel in context with what was going on in Fitzgerald’s own life as he wrote it. Tragic. That seems to be a common theme, almost a requirement, really, among great writers’ biographies, which makes me think I should be grateful to not be a great writer. I’d like to keep my life as non-tragic as possible, thank you.
Speaking of which, I am off to the shower. I am acutely aware of my own stank, and I’m afraid any further delay would only end in tragedy. Happy Monday!
I’ve been taking the week off. Apparently.
I’m tired. I stayed up way too late last night. I realized as I was finally dragging myself up the stairs to go to bed that I had been avoiding going to bed because of what comes next. (No, not that. Or that.) You go to bed and then the next thing you know it’s time to get up. You have to get up and do stuff, like get kids ready for school and make lunches and clean the house for the 7 year old that’s going to be coming over for a play date in the afternoon.
While I was brushing my teeth for bed, I was wondering what the kids would want in their lunches. I’m not exactly sure why this thought popped into my head. Believe me, I don’t spend excessive amounts of time (and by excessive, I mean any) worrying about what my kids are going to eat for lunch. But I wondered if Mr. T was going to want another cup o’ noodles. He’s been taking chicken flavor cup o’ noodles pretty much every day for the past month or so. You’d think he’d be sick of the cup o’noodles by now, but apparently not.
He’s like his father that way, I guess. Chuck gets chicken teriyaki every Tuesday with his coworkers. They even call it Teriyaki Tuesday. He’s always sure to have the correct change in his wallet the night before, so he won’t miss out on Teriyaki Tuesday. (Apparently, the Teriyaki Tuesday Master does not make change.) Not only does he eat chicken teriyaki every Tuesday, he always has leftovers that he sticks in the fridge for Wednesday. So he’s eating chicken teriyaki every Tuesday and every Wednesday. He’s been doing this for years.
Occasionally we get take-out on the weekends. Sometimes he suggests getting chicken teriyaki. I remind him that he’s already had chicken teriyaki twice during the week and question why he would want to have that yet again. He insists that he loves chicken teriyaki and will never get tired of it. This makes no sense to me. For a while I was giving him a hard time about it. He would not be swayed. I finally gave up. Who was I to come between a man and his chicken teriyaki?
Last night, as I was brushing my teeth and thinking about Mr. T and his chicken flavor cup o’noodles and Chuck and his (presumably) chicken flavor chicken teriyaki, it struck me: in Chuck’s life, I am his chicken teriyaki. It seems unwise to try to convince him that any man in his right mind would be sick of the chicken teriyaki by now. I should be grateful that he’s still enamored of his chicken teriyaki and not try to encourage him to go for the prime rib or something. This pasture’s plenty green.
I picked up The Count of Monte Cristo at the library. Did you know this book is 14-hundred-60-frickin-2 pages long?! It’s a little daunting, even for the woman who has probably read a good 25,000 pages so far this year. I haven’t started it. Yet. I will. I think. Because it came so highly recommended by you all. And you all know what you’re talking about. I’m sure. I mean, you obviously have good taste in reading material. *exaggerated wink*
Getting ready for my rubber dam.
Dental Assistant: Do you have any latex allergies or anything like that?
Me: No.
DA: Okey-dokey. We can get started then. Oh, and that is a great foil. My hair was supposed to turn out like that, but it didn’t.
Yeah, it really didn’t.
Here’s a visual of me with my rubber dam:
Did you know they’re now providing protective eyewear and full mustaches?
I’ve got my dam on.
DA: I just got back from a cruise to Alaska. Have you ever been to Alaska?
Me: Grunt-grunt.
DA: It was cold and interesting.
Me: Grunt.
DA: Those are cute tennies.
Me: Grunt grunt.
DA: Where’d you get them?
Me: Grunt grunt-grunt.
Grunt grunt grunt $!#&*%? grunt-grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt, grunt $!#&*%? moron!
Dr. Mode gets to work.
Dr., to DA: What have you got over there? Do you have a cone?
DA: A what?
Dr., gesturing unintelligibly: A cone…the cone.
DA, handing her an instrument: You mean the acorn thingy?
Dr., looking at the instrument: Yeah, that’s it.
Um, don’t these dental instrument “thingies” have actual names?!?
The soundtrack:
America, Neil Diamond
50 Ways to Leave Your Love, Paul Simon
Ebony & Ivory, McCartney & Wonder
something by Whitney
Back in the High Life Again, Steve Winwood
Electricity, Elton John
The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby
Don’t Wanna Lose You, Gloria Estefan
And a couple others I forgot.
The verdict.
Dam.
Goose came home from a birthday party with her pants in a plastic bag. I pulled them out and there was a big, pink stain. She’d spilled her drink. I asked her what she was drinking, and she said Sprite. Um, last time I looked Sprite is not pink. I asked if it was some kind of flavored Sprite, and she said no, just plain Sprite. How does plain Sprite leave a pink stain? It was a mystery.
A disturbing mystery, apparently, because I dreamt about it. And then in the middle of the night, I woke up with a start with the thought, “The napkin!” Obviously, she must have tried to mop up the spill on her pants with a brightly colored napkin, perhaps of the pink or purple or even red variety. Is there a more likely place to find a brightly colored napkin than a child’s birthday party? Well, is there?!
The next morning I tried to confirm my suspicions, asking Goose if she had, indeed, tried to clean up the spill on her pants with a napkin. She said yes. I asked what color napkin. She said Hannah Montana. *Eye roll* *Sigh* Yes, the Hannah Montana napkin was pink. Mystery solved! I know, my powers of deduction are mind-blowing.
(Oh, and just in case you were concerned, she did not return from the party pantsless—she had borrowed a pair from the birthday girl.)
A group of friends is strolling through Target.
Friend #1 is putting some items in the cart.
Friend #2 says innocently, “Oh, I loves me a good Oh.”
Friend #3 says thoughtfully, “I don’t think that I’ve ever had an ‘Oh’.”
A few moments of silence and then Friends #1-3 laugh heartily.
(It’s OK. We, I mean, this group of friends, was in the cereal aisle.)
Yesterday at church, BigHugs reached into the sacrament tray, picked up a piece of bread, and then put it back and started to select another piece. This is typical, and I always either pick up the piece she has set down and take it myself or hand it to her, reminding her that you have to eat the one you touch. (I don’t even want to think about how many parents aren’t paying attention to their children’s sacrament selection habits. Partaking of the sacrament is an act of faith in more than one respect.) This time, I picked up her discarded piece and handed it to her, then I reached into the tray and put my fingers on something. It looked like bread, but it did not feel like bread. It was hard. Like a kitchen sponge that has completely dried up hard. But once you’ve touched a piece, there is no going back.
I thought about just palming the piece and then selecting another perhaps less petrified one, but I felt like the sacrament passer person (I would say deacon because in our church the deacons, who are of the ages of 12-13, are typically the sacrament passer persons, but yesterday there were not enough deacons so they had adults filling in) was keeping a very watchful eye on me. BigHugs’ attempt to discard her first selected piece had likely put him on alert. So I steeled myself and stuck that piece of unbreadly bread into my very own mouth.
I was not prepared for the horror that was unleashed in my person. Not only was it hard, but it tasted… wrong. Very, very wrong. Like dragged out of the dumpster from beneath the rat droppings and dead body wrong. Shudder, shudder, shudder. There are not enough tic tacs in the world to remedy that kind of taste budual assault. SHUDDER.
Later that night, as I was relating the story to Chuck, he said, “At least it was blessed.” Sorry, still shuddering.
How was your weekend?
BigHugs was sicker than a dog this week.
Me: I’m sorry you’re sick, sweetie.
BigHugs: It’s OK. I still love you. I love you more than a rooster.
Me: Um, thanks. Do you love me more than a cow?
BigHugs: Yes.
Me: Do you love me more than a piggy?
BigHugs: Yes. And I love piggies.
Is there any greater compliment than being ranked above barnyard animals?
Out of the blue.
BigHugs: Mom, do you love me?
Me: Yes.
BigHugs: Thank you. For loving me.
You’re welcome.
Over spilled milk.
BigHugs: I’m sorry, Mom. Do you still love me?
Me: Yes, of course I still love you. Just try to be careful with your cup.
BigHugs: OK, Mom. Thanks for not stopping loving me.
What kind of monster does she think I am?
Bedtime.
Me: BigHugs, go back upstairs and get in bed, please.
BigHugs: But I want to stay with you.
Me: It’s bedtime. Get back in bed.
BigHugs, looking up with her big puppy dog eyes: But I love you.
Me: Yeah, yeah. Go back to bed.
I am so onto her.
So for the past several months I’ve been reading, reading, reading. All kinds of reasonably entertaining fluff with a few good things sprinkled in the mix that I might actually talk about sometime in the near future.
I started feeling a little guilty about all the time wasted on the fluffy fiction, so I decided to pick up a few classics that I had always meant to read, but never got around to. (Because, you know, reading real literature totally makes up for neglecting the house and children.) So far I’ve read Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby and Jane Eyre. I’d actually like to discuss those at some point with y’all, but I don’t seem to be in writing mode right now, so I’m going to stay in reading mode. Do you have any recommendations? Any must-read classics no self-respecting human being could pass through this life without experiencing?
If you don’t have any classics to recommend, I’ll welcome other suggestions as well. What have you been reading?
You know, this is my fourth attempt at starting a post. I have an endless supply of the typical blogging material to write about, but absolutely nothing to say. It’s a little…disconcerting?
There’s a lot going on. Not A LOT a lot, but, you know, just stuff. Regular ol’ stuff. And I’m just kind of mucking my way through it, trying to remember that life’s really not so bad.
I hope you’re smiling.
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