Sunday, May 29, 2005

Potential Blog Break

There are lots of exciting things to talk about -- Shef's first haircut, for one, the status of my wart, for another -- but sadly, I'm rather preoccupied by gettting all of this crap our treasured possessions



from point A:



to point B:



by Wednesday at 1:30.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Wart! The Musical

To the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle”

It popped, it popped
The nasty wart
Dripping ooze and scabs and gore

Brown and nasty
Puss and more
All this mess on Sheila’s floor

It seeps, it seethes
You’ll be amazed
If you click on this webpage.

And to make up for that, here’s a good one of our sweet boy:

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Blinded By Love, I Guess

I’ve been forgoing Oprah lately and capturing GG reruns on Tivo instead. However, I made an exception to check out Tom Cruise's Harpo gig on Monday.

I’m not sure what to think of the whole Katie Holmes thing. I watched her on Dawson’s Creek, of course, and I liked her; but frankly, they seem an odd match. At the end of the show, Tom dragged her out on stage and paraded her around like a statuette, which I thought was pretty distasteful.

In between gushes about his mind-blowing love for Katie, Oprah asked Mr. War of the Worlds what it was like to have adopted a biracial son. And Tom said he’d “never thought about it.”

Huh? How is that possible? Even Oprah seemed surprised. “Oh, come on,” she said, “you must talk about it.” And Tom blah-blahed about all of us being part of “the human race” and that his son’s skin color was never an issue. In fact, the two of them had never talked about it, not even once. "What's there to talk about?" Tom was clearly waving Oprah off the race topic. "He's my son."

That seemed really phony to me, somehow, and I went back to the Gilmores on Tuesday, where everyone is WASPy, but at least they talk about it.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Thank Goodness Our New Yard Is Covered in Creeping Charlie

We were trying to be so eco-friendly when we bought our push mower, but here’s the thing: It cuts like absolute crap.

After you push, the lawn looks like it’s kind of chewed up, but not really short and definitely not groomed. It’s like a million miles from “manicured.”

The only plus of going out to use it was discovering that there is a Mallard nesting next to our house. Shef thinks this is Unbelievably Exciting.

Do you think the ducklings will hatch before we move?

There's No Accounting for Taste

Dan’s feeling persecuted because I’ve objected to two of his outfits in the last few days.

First, on Saturday night, my mom offered to put the baby to bed, so we could escape for a quick dinner. Dan moseyed downstairs, dressed in a faded Dixie Chicks t-shirt that featured the band (three gorgeous women) sitting at a table, laughing and flipping their hair.

“What?” he demanded when I asked him incredulously if that was what he was wearing out. “I’m a fan!”

Then, last night he came home from work at 5:30, exactly on time for a meeting with our architect. (“Please don’t be late,” I had implored that morning.)

“I’ll just go upstairs and change,” he said. A few moments later he appeared in his pajamas – a ratty Williams College t-shirt and green jogging pants.

I felt exasperation rising up within me. "Why are you wearing your pajamas for this meeting?!"

“This is not pajamas!” He insisted. “It’s my after-five wear!”

I suppose I should have been happy that his "after-five" ensemble did not, on this occasion, include his gold t-shirt emblazoned in maroon with the phrase "Olde Farte."

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Warning: Explicitness Wartiness

I'm only doing this because I've gotten complaints.

It seems my photo essay on the wart exorcism was not gruesome enough.

It seems you (by "you," I mean Molly and Jane, specifically) want to see the wart as it is today, in all its nastiness.




You can understand how I can't really walk and why I suspect gangrene.

I'd Rather Be Warty

I’ve had some unfortunate complications related to my wart procedure. My foot is filling with fluid around the massive, hideous blood blister, and I find it hard to walk due to the shooting pains that radiate up my calf.

I think I’ll go in for a consulation tomorrow, as I’ve heard that infections like this can spiral fairly quickly into something horrifying like gangrene and/or foot amputation.

Dan, of course, has found a way to capitalize on my warty situation by asking me several times to go for walks with him. He hates going for walks, sighing loudly and rolling his eyes when I ask him to stroll, and he says that now, even though I can’t put weight on my left foot, he at least gets credit for offering.

As I hobbled into Taco Morelos for dinner last night, he took my hand, gazed into my eyes and said, “Let’s skip dinner and just go for a long, romatic walk. We can hold hands, and talk, and you know, just be together.”

Humph.

Friday, May 20, 2005

The Exorcism

As summer is coming, I’ve been feeling pretty self-conscious about my wart.

Finally, after suffering privately with the shame of it for many months, I sought help at Dr. K.’s office today.

Nurse Glenda ushered Shef and me into our exam room.

“And where’s your wart?” she smiled.

“It’s here!” I blurted, gesturing toward my left toe. “It’s huge and nasty!”

“Um hmmm,” she confirmed, nodding and making notes. Shef clearly agreed with this assessment and made several heartfelt, but unsuccessful, attempts to escape its proximity during the appointment:



Later, Dr. K. arrived, determined my wart to be “gigantic,” and pared down the callous on top of it with a scalpel. Finally, she assembled the necessary tools for cyrotherapy:



After several painful treatments,



she pronounced me suitably frozen.



“Now,” she said, “a wart this size generally requires two or three treatments. When the blister [which, by the way, is FAR too repulsive to picture here] breaks, send me an email and let me know what’s going on.”

Swell. In the meantime, you better believe I'll be wearing socks.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

A Very Bad Precedent

I thought I had a few more months until when I asked Shef not to do something – not to deliberately throw his ravioli, piece after piece, on the floor, for instance – he would look at me as if to say,

“I know exactly what you want me to do, and although it seems reasonable, I will not do it. I will do the opposite of what you want me to do, and while I do that, I will dare you to try to stop me, all the while knowing you can’t stop me because I’m only 14 months-old and therefore pretty much unpunishable.”

Yep.

It’s going to be a long eighteen years.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Shhhhh....

Shef is sleeping on me – I successfully carried him in from his stroller without waking him up, which is a miracle. Now we’re just sitting here. Shef is cuddling sweetly, and I’m watching a great third-season GG re-run. A moment ago, I started smelling something nasty, and I suspected a dirty diaper – the day’s second offering.

Now, a few moments later, I know for sure that he has a dirty diaper because I opened up the back of his pants to take a whiff, and I accidentally stuck my finger in the shit.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Vote for Pedro

Yesterday, between stretches of lying half-awake in bed feeling terrible with the phlegm to prove it, I watched Napoleon Dynamite.

The quirky title character was pretty funny. I loved the scene of him pulling his nerdy, internet-chatting brother on roller blades into town for a lesson at Rex Kwon Do. (“Do you think I feel like a failure going home to STARLA every night?”)

But I kept getting distracted by the directors’ Mormonism, which I discovered by looking up their IMDb profile. Apparently there are quite a few references to Mormon popular culture in the film, and I’m kind of fascinated by Mormonism, although I found Under the Banner of Heaven a little sensational for my taste.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

The Team Jacket

We both knew it wasn’t worth it.

I wore the jacket all that winter (even when it stopped zipping), and then I wore it into the spring when I had fifty pounds of baby weight to lose. Dan still had to let me wear it because my fatness was his – I mean partially his – fault. And also because if he had asked for it back, I would have cried for hours about how tired and ugly I was and how I always smelled like spoiled milk and how I was obviously a bad mother.

Clearly not worth it.

But once my pants were fitting again, he did ask for it back. In fact, he took it off my back and then drove me straight to REI and waited in the car with sleeping Shef while I went in and bought one in my own size. This has turned out to be a good investment because I wear it all the time, inside and outside of the house, and it fits me.

I was wearing it tonight, in fact, when I had an unfortunate sinus snarking incident and coughed phlegm on myself. This is the kind of thing that only happens to me.

“Help! Help!” I screamed, swinging sleepy Shef on my hip and running toward the kitchen.

"What is it?" He looked up from washing the dishes.

“I loogied on myself!”

Dan was completely exasperated, of course, but he helped me anyway because he’s just that kind of guy.

“Ugh,” he said, confiscating the goo from my shoulder with some toilet paper. “This is disgusting.”

I completely agreed. It was absolutely disgusting.

He rubbed the spot with a little water. “And I am so glad I made you get your own jacket.”

Friday, May 13, 2005

Celebrate Good Times

At this very moment, I am printing the final copy of my paper. I can proudly say that it’s… decent. If my calculations are correct, I’ll pass the theory class, tally my credits, and be on my merry way, thank you very much.

I won’t pretend that getting to this happy, finished point was easy. On the homestretch, I’ve been plagued with severe sinus congestion and a mean, yellow-greenish post-nasal drip. Also, I had a case of sore-throat-induced insomnia last night. I tried the usual remedies of saying repeated Hail Marys and blogging in my head for hours with no success. Dan doesn’t remember me telling him I was headed to Lunds at 2:00am for cough drops and baby Tylenol (the latter was for Shef), but sojourn I did, clad in ripped up Macalester sweatpants and black loafers.

Finally, this morning, Shef stopped climbing things and throwing blocks as hard as he could to take a little snooze, during which time I punched in the final edits. When he wakes up, we’ll head over to the U and drop the finished product off in the stuffy, old English department, a place I will never, ever venture again.

Big sigh and brief pause here before I begin helping Dan box up all of our belongings for the big move, which is only two and half weeks away.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Dan Is So Mean: The Sequel

“Ugh,” I say to Dan, flopping down on the bed as he dresses for work and Shef wanders from outlet to outlet, searching for an uncovered one to lick, “I’ve had a headache for three days.”

He snickers a little in response, clearly underestimating the magnitude of my illness.

“Look,” I say pointedly, propping myself on my elbows, “I’ve coughed up two gallons of green phlegm this morning.”

More snickering and perhaps a little eye-rolling, though it was hard to tell from my angle.

“And my glands are totally swollen.” I rub my neck a little, examining the troubling lumpiness.

Here there is definite rolling-of-the-eyes.

"What?!" I demand.

Dan exhales a big sigh of exasperation as he finishes buttoning his shirt. “Aren't you such a brave little soldier,” he croons, oozing false sweetness.

Humph.

It seems sarcasm has contaminated the milk of human kindness.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Something Weird

Sometimes, when I’m just moseying about, minding my own business, with only a clean baby for company or even no baby at all, I start to smell nasty-ass dirty diapers.

This can happen anytime. Like in the car, or in class, or at Panera where I’m forcing myself to hammer out the rest of that paper.

It’s like the smell is permanently stuck in my nose. Is this normal?

Monday, May 9, 2005

Presto

Now you see him:



Now you don't:

All Grown Up

Here's Handsome Devin in his cap and gown:



Dan, Mary, and I watched a simulcast of the ceremony from a theater adjacent to the chapel because there weren't enough tickets for us to attend the real deal. We did a mostly good job of paying attention, except when we were busy examining my repulsive toe wart or taking photos of ourselves with Mary's cell phone.

I'm not very photogenic, nor is my wart.

Friday, May 6, 2005

Bubble Boy

As our house has sold, we've reverted to cloth diapering. Eco-friendly and amusing, this is what our cherub looks like at bedtime:



Notice the enornous butt-section and the relatively stickish legs. Funny, no?

And this is what he looks like trying to swallow his shaker at music class:



We're pretty sure he's gifted.

Thursday, May 5, 2005

If It's Gotta Be Clean

The Tide obsession is getting a little scary. I’m not sure if it’s the red bottle or the blue swoosh or what, but he’s crazy for it.

Exhibit A: Today, he threw a minor fit in the kitchen, grabbing on to my legs and wailing, “Up! Tide! Up! Tide!” I waited until he did his little hissing version of “please” before I took him down to the washing machine to look at it. On the way, he laughed and squealed and kicked his legs in anticipation.

Exhibit B: Yesterday, during an afternoon tour of The Children’s Museum, Shef shopped for plastic fruits, vegetables, and bread in the Our World Market exhibit. Suddenly, he pulled his cart up to the cleaning supplies section and drew a loud, excited breath in – yes, they had empty Tide bottles ready to be shopped. The eggplant, onions, and baguette he’d chosen were promptly removed from the cart and replaced by Tide. And then he abandoned the cart and his shopping completely, and sat on the floor, hugging the Tide to his chest instead.

Exhibit C: Last Friday, Sheila and I stopped into Lunds to get ourselves a little treat from the bakery, and on the way to the checkout, we passed a wall of Tide. At his insistence, I pulled the stroller up parallel to it, and Shef caressed several bottles and impressed Sheila by lifting a few into his lap for closer inspection.

I should probably call P&G and offer Shef’s services in marketing.

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Dan Is So Mean

The season’s penultimate Gilmore Girls was aired this evening, we have it on Tivo, and he won’t let me watch it.

It’s a very important episode: Logan goes to dinner at Richard and Emily’s house, Lorelai continues to think he’s a disingenuous prick, and Luke exchanges crotchety barbs with Taylor, the love-to-hate-him Rachel Lind of Stars Hollow.

Obviously, it’s absolutely vital that I see it immediately, and still he won’t relent.

Damn.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005

Look What We Can Do

Shef is in a study on memory at the U. We went last week, and the bubbly researcher tried to teach him one, two, and three-step tasks with toys that, judging by their 100% grime coverage, had been purchased in the seventies or early eighties.

“Look what I can do, Shef!” Lindsay squealed as she affixed googly eyes to a magnetic bunny. “I can put the eyes on the bunny!”

Shef said “glasses,” and grabbed the eye magnet. I thought that was pretty ingenious of him, connecting eyes and glasses like that.

But, the researcher wasn’t so interested in his linguistic skills or associative powers and pressed on with the task at hand. “Now, show me what you can do,” she cooed and pushed bunny across the table to him.

I wish I could report that he put the eyes on the stupid bunny like he was supposed to. Even more, I wish I could report that after clarifying that I should not practice one, two, and three-step tasks at home before this week's session, I didn't try to get him to build block towers or put plastic animals in their Little People cages.

Monday, May 2, 2005

Confession

In the mammogram post, I said I wiped off my deodorant before the x-rays, but the truth is I didn’t have to. I don’t really wear deodorant.

I mean, most of the time, I don’t wear it.

The reason I don’t wear it is not that I’m all earthy and, as Tanya, this malodorous girl who lived on my first-year floor at Mac put it, “want to smell like my body really smells,” but because I don’t sweat all that much.

In situations where I might be extra nervous or extra warm -- like a job interview or a tough day of teaching -- I choose Secret. Just a little layer for extra assurance.

And that’s my tidbit for tonight.