Morning at the beach

Just fyi. To the drivers I encountered this morning...

If you have a "first or second generation" Mazda RX-7 with a bad paint job, you do not need the secure your car with THE CLUB.

Also, if you drive a 1985ish Toyota Camry with 3 hubcaps and rusty fenders, you can drive faster than ONE MILE PER HOUR over the baby speed bumps (that are more paint than bumps) on the way into your parking garage.

And finally, if you drive a mini-van, trust me I am more concerned about my car than you are about yours. Don't worry about how close I parked to you.

Things I've been meaning to write about lately...

Wolf lost his first tooth. He's so grown up.

Scout got a big haircut.
And donated her hair to locks of love.

I thought she'd be a little freaked out once the hair was gone, but no, she loved it. Plus, she wanted to take the hair to the "little kid who needed some hair" right away, but she wanted to know how far away she lived in case we needed to pack snacks for the drive.

She looks so grown up now too. It's scary.

Six Weird Things

Crystal tagged me with this about 100 years ago. It's taken a while because, well, I think I'm so stinking normal. In fact, I could easily come up with six bland, normal, generic things about me (e.g., brown eyes and hair, I come from a family of four, as an adult I am a member of a family of four, and so on). Even so, I'm going to give it a shot. So, here goes, six weird things about me:
1. I hug myself when I'm anxious, excited or particularly satisfied with something I've done. I know that sounds weird, but the title of this post is six weird things . . .
2. With my husband's help, I gave my children weird names (does that count?)
3. I have a hard time sleeping without wearing socks. I have no trouble sleeping naked - except for the socks of course.
4. I have, on more than one occasion, purchased a small (half pint?) of whipping cream, brought it home, whipped it up in a chilled bowl, and ATE it. Yes, just by itself, with a spoon. No, I don't add sugar or anything else. Yes, I know it's a little gross, but here's what I want to know, does the one teaspoon measurement on the food label apply before or after it's whipped? Because, you know, whipped up and spread out, it's probably only about 5 calories a teaspoon, right?
5. There is a full size, 6 person, 70s swinging style hot tub inside my bathroom. Of course, I didn't put it there, but I'm running out of ideas here.
6. I have a small mouth. I know because two years ago, the new hygienist at my dentist's office told me so while she was taking x-rays. She mentioned this more than once in fact and wouldn't stop talking about it. And here's the best part, she added (and she said this more than once), "really, you have a small mouth - you know, you should tell your husband that." What?! I think Troy still has the voice mail message I left for him after that appointment. The first few seconds are me trying to talk but laughing too hard to get anything out - probably also because, I have such a small mouth!

I wouldn't eat it either

Troy left town for a few days today, but before he went to the airport, he graciously threw some sauerkraut, a few green apples and some pork chops in the crockpot and turned it on for us. We came home to the smell of dinner all warm and ready to be served. I do love the crockpot. And honestly, any dinner that's already cooked and ready to eat when I arrive home is automatically tasty.

When the kids asked what we were having for dinner and I told them, Scout's response was, "but, I don't like sauercrap."

Despite the new name, Wolf and I enjoyed our sauercrap and pork very much.

Look what else I found

This site, while surfing around the internet again instead of doing the seven trillion other things on my to-do list. You enter your favorite books and it spits out recommendations for future reading. Hence, the name - what should I read next?

This American Life - on tv!

I love love love This American Life. I recently signed up for the podcast and I'm slowly making my way through old episodes on my ipod. And now, Look -- They are making a television show -- I can't wait!!! I wonder if I can add it to my dvr list now?

From the website:

Why did you decide to do a show for a cable network, and not for public television?Showtime approached us; public television didn't. That's how we ended up on Showtime. And one advantage of working with a commercial network is that when they decide to do your series, they can just write a check and you begin production. Public TV greenlights their series, and then begins the fundraising process, which takes years. And though we had no idea what it would be like to work with a commercial network, and had some fears about it, it's been very easy to work with Showtime. As Ira says, "We kept waiting for the moment when they'd say, 'This stuff is fine but when do the girls take off their tops?'" That never happened. Instead we found that we and they were of like minds when it came to what should be in the show. When they gave us critiques of our stories, the notes were the same kinds of questions we were asking ourselves: "is this part of the story dramatic enough?" "Can I hear more about this character?" We feel they absolutely supported our vision of the show at every step. There wasn't a single time they overrode one of our creative decisions. It was a very happy working relationship. We're hoping that the series will become available at some point on DVD or online for fans of the radio show who don't get Showtime, but there's no word about that yet.

Kindness, take 2

For the 3 people who read this blog other than me, remember when I did this post about Wolf being kind? Well, during the belated Christmas (chaos) celebration last week (about which I will post when the house and I have fully recovered from the weeklong visit of four generations and 17 people), Scout one-upped him.

Two years ago, on Christmas Eve during the same family Christmas celebration, Wolf tripped over a suitcase on his way to look out the window for Santa and we ended up in the ER for about four hours. We did get a good kid quote out of the evening when, after about three hours, the 4 year old Wolf looked up and said, "the doctor must live really far away." So, in keeping with that tradition of at least one ER visit per holiday, our 5 year old nephew split his head open (relax, he’s fine – just a few staples) right after dessert and before we could start opening presents.

Anyway, while blood was squirting out of the back of her cousin’s head, Scout went and retrieved the Bob the Builder ice pack from the freezer and tried to give it to one of the dozen or so adults examining the poor kids’ head. When I dismissed her, explaining that he probably needed something more than just Bob the Builder, she gave me a look of what I can only describe as grave concern and ran out of the room. I thought she was running to her room to cry. But, she came back seconds later and solemnly presented me with the unopened first aid kit that has been stored under the kids' bathroom sink for months. I didn't even know that she knew we owned a first aid kit.

As with Wolf, I cannot fully articulate why I find this so heartwarming, but I do.

Black Diamonds

P1270055, originally uploaded by cbaineslap.

I promised I would post about our awesome girls weekend ski trip to Breckenridge. And here it is...

Happy 40th Catheryne! Hi Alicia!

We ripped the towel rack out of the wall during our wild lesbian threesome. Not really, but the towel rack did break. The desk clerk didn't seem to mind though - at least not after I gave him the wild lesbian threesome story.

We loved our hotel and the complimentary cucumber water in the lobby was nice - gotta keep hydrated in that high altitude -- but please please please, Mr. Marriott, coffee in the lobby is really a must have for our next trip. We found Catheryne's next husband on match.com, we solved the riddle of the lawyer mommy balancing act, and once we finished all that, we talked and talked and talked about old flames. Plus we ate some great food and in our spare time, met some people on the lifts, chatted with folks in the hotel (or more accurately, one lady chatted our ears off with her recommendations for a great time at "Breck"). We ripped up the slopes with our skiing prowess -- even that one time we took the lift up without knowing where we were going and ended up on the black diamond (okay, it was blue/black diamond but bad enough after spending the day on the greens). We shopped and shopped and bought some cool girly shirts. And we hit the SPA. Yeah, it deserves capital letters.

There is nothing like hanging out with girlfriends talking, drinking wine (and beer and bloody mary's and yummy coffee drinks) and making plans to change the world.

This year, I'm signing up for tap dancing lessons. And I can't wait for my 40th.

"Nanny J.D."

My dad was here for a week helping out with the kids. Even though the fish were biting down south (and he was getting calls from all his fishing buddies wondering when he was coming out into the river), he was here cutting out paper dolls and playing Hungry Hungry Hippo.

Lucky kids.