what child is this

so, if there were ever any question about my children's lineage....tonight my mom and dad from winnipeg and aunt and uncle from vancouver were here and nate and i were setting the table. i having had several vino blancos kept trying to count how many at the table, not unlike the moment when you are trying to count how many hours the sitter has been there in the car on the way home at 2 in the morning....i set an additional spot. we sat down and my dad said marla you set one too many and nate bless his heart said - that one is for michael jackson.

dear mike

please come home. it is unfair to go to costco and leave me with 1.36kg of pistachios and 1.13kg of cashews - they do not even need to be shelled! it is unnatural to leave someone like me in a home with unfettered access to such salty goodness.

hot night summer in the city

armed with a very hairy restless dog, three root beer floats a grande glass of white wine on ice, (in the free, temperature changing cup from the library no less - note - am so going back for more of those - FAB), i headed out to the bandshell for tonight's concert. there was an Indonesian band/orchestra playing and it set the stage for a special night. the kids sat next to a rather large topless man dressed in a kilt and a lai, we listened for a bit.....chloe danced at the front, of course, because as she pointed out to me, if she danced only in front of me, no one would see her....then we headed up to the playground. it was getting dusky, the music was in the background, there were languages being spoken, people of all colours and it was perfect. it made me realize why i love Minneapolis and why i love living IN Minneapolis. this is our beautiful world and i am glad that on a magical night my kids are playing in a park with all kinds of people. that may sound cliche, and actually i don't really care. i will take it where i can get it.

squirrel

master - please take me for a walk. if we walk i will not dig up your yard. i hid under the porch because i love you...

if you have seen up you will get this. if you have not seen it get thee to a theatre.

go fug yourself

my morning routine consists of coffee and the fug girls. this is pretty much all i can handle until i hear the pitter patter/banging of my children....then i read the paper and concentrate (HA! is this bass akwards?) on the real world. you can only imagine the ah ha/coming of age/full circle/dejavu moment i had when they brought up jessica wakefield. i always knew i liked them, nodded my head sagely to the reference of phyllis or ray pruitt (y&r and 90210 respectively for those of you playing catch up)...but this cemented things. the spring/summer of grade 9 i contracted some horrible virus and was bed ridden for months, ok, it was likely weeks, but months sounds so much better...a friend brought me a box of these books and i read them all one after another...the books were total crap, so PLEASE do not read them, but do check out the fug girls!

wanted

friend for evening of serious epic binge drinking. must like dancing. must like bawdy humour. must like hilarity. applications taken daily.

a sigh heard round (no pun intended) the world

mu soccer is cancelled, so say yee the website, open a bottle of wine, cook your family a dinner and enjoy this night off from the childhood sport extravaganza.

does this warm the cockles of your heart?

I am in epic epic disaster. It looks like my house could be the set for an asher roth video. not sure mike would enjoy the irony of that. or even get it. keg stand…………yelling at my kids, trying oh so hard to enjoy them…ugh….they are upstairs - "organizing" their rooms, with interspersed sparring. I say organizing in the loosest of terms. I can just imagine - CAN'T wait to see "set ups". poor nick came down and said uh mom, all your undies are in my dresser - egads.

chez clampet

when i was little we had dear family friends who had the party house. you know the one where people always gather, music is always on, there is always wine...i loved this and intentionally and erratically much to mike's dismay and enjoyment have tried to create this in our home. they had a lovely family house with a boarded up garage emblazoned with "not too shabby". i do not know if it was temporarily under construction or if that was there for years but i remember it. i remember the way it set the tone for fun. i remember my parents laughing and i remember not knowing what it meant but that i liked it. last night i watched as my husband and Trevor from St Cloud leveled our brand new shed - there goes the neighborhood. the early years of our lives set the stage for many of our choices and apparently it is not just me that is intentionally positioning our home for a whole lotta joy. thanks mike, i mean jed.

mighty whitey

this is my summer to get savagely tan. i can just feel it.

when the boys you used to hate you date i guess we best investigate

so nick asks me in the car - "mom, i think i would like you to tell me about how babies get in and get out". hmm/holy shit/here we are/time to shine moma. i dig up the mantra from ecfe - only give them what they ask for, no more no less. so i fill him in, he says - oh man you had to do that to get me, i chuckle.....so today we are driving home from soccer, my kids and two buddies. i walk the one boy up to his house and hop back in the car to nick shouting - "mom, nate told jimmy about how the penis touches the vagina! screeeeeeeccccchhhhhh....of course nick told nate, of course nate was saving this nugget to use at an appropriate, i.e. attention getting (he is my child after all) moment. i say, nick this was a private talk, you are not to talk with your friends about this, blah blah blah......followed by me sheepishly slinking up the steps to tell jimmy's mom that my 7 year old just gave him the scoop on the facts. she of course was totally cool and put my guilt's at ease - note to self, love when people are cool and put me at ease, enjoy bottle of wine and chortle about sex talk with this pal in near future....hopped back in the car and turned up the volume on the radio - she moves her body like a cyclone and she makes me wanna do it all night long.......turned radio off.....enough facts of life for one day.

note: names of those not my offspring have been changed....so if jimmy tells your kid - it is not my fault.

who you callin old lady?

so i am sitting on my porch with a glass of wine and a rare moment of quiet - actually feeling quite smug, when this couple walks by our house - she says "that old lady needs some help". hmmmmmm, which old lady would that be? was she referring to the ripped screens? the frazzled, but mowed dammit, grass? or did she mean me?

technologically challenged

this is so apropos. mike bought this super fancy computer that has a touch screen and a fly landed on it and thus two separate posts. i am sure that if i hadn't had a healthy amount of vino i would be able to figure this out but alas that is not to be. so close one eye/squint/whatever you need to do to make it merge. on another note, you will notice the sink full of dishes. this is an experiment. i am going to see if mike will unload and load dishwasher. anyone care to wager on this? hand washing i will keep up on but dw is freestyle.

wine enthusiast

i love wine. it is a serious hobby of mine, and by that i mean the drinking of, not the connoisseuring of. recently mike and i were wine shopping and the clerk asked us what we were looking for in a white wine. we said screw top, cue laughter, except i was serious. there is nothing like the ease and subtle crack when you turn the cap and voila - heaven. i can almost feel the collective shudder but i will take my ease where i can find it. mike took it to the next level by heading to costco and bought me 2 cases. on how many levels do i love this?!

my dog is tethered to a lawn mower

let me tell you bout a story bout a man named jed.

today mike tethered harriet to a lawn mower. so if she tries to bolt after one of the many rabbits she will take and i think he hopes secretly, destroy the lawn mower.

where you are is exactly where you should be

have you ever heard this? it is a bit of a mantra for me. sometimes to excuse behaviour, as in i should not have eaten that whole sleeve of ritz crackers, but this is where i should be, but also big macro what can i learn about myself from where i have landed or rather in my case i feel perched. i am a consistent oxymoron. i wake up and i think today i will eat only organic and exercise and play engaging games and craft with my children. this always ends up in short order cooking dino eggs (scary) and cinnamon toast crunch (yummy) whilst dancing to the soothing rhythms of slightly inappropriate dance music. the day advances and 4'o clock arrives and i wonder - upper or downer - coffee or wine? i lay my head on my pillow in a flurry of guilt and wonder; love and pride; fulfilment and remorse. i live with 5 of the best housemates/partners in crime/wisest of the wise/loveliest people and pet: my husband , 9 year old son , 7 year old son, 4 year old daughter and 1 year old dog. this is my cast of characters, those who lovingly i inflict, immerse and inoculate with my nature. i would love it if you would let me indulge and explore the micro and macro of where we all are perched.