Debi & Gabriele are my two favoritest bloggers right now (along with my girl Lelo, of course. Go look at pix of her glorious garden).

The new episode they posted on Under the Tuscan Gun includes a great recipe, a tour of Roman ruins and a rousing rendition of “Dante’s Inferno.” Right on.

Wacky Boy: “I could eat the hell outta some cheese pizza.”

My husband’s earliest memory: Watching the Apollo 11 moon landing, July 20th, 1969. Happy 40th anniversary, rocket men.

Just got back from bike ride — Sunday Parkways. It was hot and kicked my butt. Fun flying down Alameda Ridge. We’re out in the yard with the kids now, getting all goofy, telling them about their births. (What brought this up? I have no idea.)

me: “You were ten pounds plus (my girl), you were nine and a half (my boy). You were so huge, you were like preschoolers. You just walked on out and started playing.”

Hockey God: “Yeah, son, you were all, ‘I want sprinkles on my sundae’ and she was all, ‘Where the hell’s the whipped cream?'”

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

(ps there’s one more Sunday Parkways, those of you who are in Portland and want to go.)

Some people loved Roux.

Your girl Wacky Mommy is not one of those people and I am glad to see Roux go. They didn’t play well with others. We had dinner there a few times. It was way too expensive, but it wasn’t just that. They were not the sweetest people if you weren’t One of Them.

We spent a hundred bucks once, for vegetables. (Seriously. All sides, and we spent a hundred bucks. Most of my family is vegetarian, so we had sweet potatoes, hushpuppies, salads and brussels sprouts.) I liked the soft-shell crab sandwich, the crawfish potpie, the hushpuppies. But mostly I didn’t like the parking hassles, the numerous wrecks (mostly fender-benders, as far as I know) that were caused by the cars parked up and down both sides of the street, the way the owner was a prick when I called to ask him if they could work with the neighbors to deal with the parking situation. (They had no lot, I understand. But did he have to be so rude?) The city finally put in a crosswalk, but it was still a bitch, how rude their diners were, with their super-sized Hummers and Mercedes and all. We’re not so much a Mercedes neighborhood.

Also, when the O first did a review of the place, they made a snarky comment about “in a neighborhood where people grow corn in their front yards…” Well, everyone’s growing corn in their front yards now, so who’s a trendsetter, bitch?

I know, I know, everyone gushed about their brunches. Who the hell can afford brunch? If you can afford brunch you need to be donating more money to the Oregon Food Bank, fixing yourself a nice frittatta at home and calling it a day.

I liked the drapery ladies who were there before. They were nicer and said hi when you walked by. They gave us bags of remnants, rick-rick and fringe when they moved to the west side. (Paramount Drapery — they knew my grandpa, who installed draperies for Goodell’s for a long time.)

Mostly, I didn’t like the crowd. I didn’t mind the place so much at first — they were serving coffee for awhile in the mornings, and lunch. (Which I can sometimes afford if I can’t afford dinner.) They did a little corner deli store-type thing for awhile, but never got enthusiastic about it. I liked the girl from New Orleans who was with them, Michelle?, but then she split. If you’re moving into a primarily blue-collar neighborhood, you have to serve lunch, or do something nice for the neighbors, get some buy-in. Don’t try to be a “destination spot” that thumbs its nose at everybody who surrounds it. Cuz you will get taken down. Or the neighborhood will gentrify along with you, and you will leave a lot of bummed out, dislocated people in your wake, and that sucks, too. (Witness: locked-up liquor store on Interstate Avenue, boarded up houses sealed off with chain-link fence. My daughter, asking, “Where did they go, Mom? Did they have other houses to go to?” I hope so.)

I don’t like walking into a restaurant that is half-empty and having them give me the stink-eye and ask me, “Is there something I can help you with?” Yeah, got any tables I can bus? Hahaha. (This happened to me a couple of times at Roux, so I finally got the hint and stopped going.)

I didn’t like the fancy cars and the fancy people, giggling like mad as they rushed across Killingsworth, being “naughty” in the “‘hood.” You know what we do over here? Work. Grow corn in our front yards. Play with our kids. Go for walks. Have block parties. Yeah, we’re all running wit’ da gangs over here, constantly. It’s exhausting, really, with all the gunplay.

In all seriousness, it wrecks us when someone is killed or hurt because of gang violence in my neighborhood. Someone’s baby, never coming home. I was with the kids one time, leaving the library, and here comes trouble, all 100 pounds of him, lifting his shirt to show the girls in front of us his gun. (They were shielding my kids, so the kids didn’t see. But I did.)

“Where is he? You tell him I’m looking for his shit.”

Struts off. Me, to the kids, “Get in the car right now.” (I tell them, in certain situations, you just have to say goodbye fast as you’re walking down the stairs and leaving. In other situations, you just get the hell out of there.)

Later that night, a mess. Patti from the Florida Room is a good neighbor.

It is not funny at all, or “hip,” or “naughty” when bad shit happens. It is heartbreak is what it is and it means my friends and neighbors have one more funeral to go to. As someone posted on Facebook today, there are a whole lotta folks saying goodbye lately.

I do not take it lightly.

Pause is a great neighborhood place. They never get reviewed all big-time, but who cares about crap like that. They don’t. The owners are sweet as hell, funny, the waiters and waitresses are consistent and good. They smoke their own meats over there, and they know I love a Caesar salad and a big bowl of homemade clam chowder and a vodka lemonade in a tall glass with ice.

They know how to run a damn business, the guys at Pause. (The Low Brow Lounge is theirs, too.) I know, the kids sometimes take over the lawn and drive us all nuts, but whatever, it’s fine.

It kinda tickles me that Beaterville is steady as always, and DiPrima Dolci is just fine, thanks, along with George’s Bar, the taco cart, Pause… but Roux is gone.

You know who else is good neighbors? Us, and my neighbors. We’re good in the neighborhood. Bye, Roux.

With Facebook. And my textbook. And the new Harry Potter movie which took up approximately five hours of my life today. (Two and a half hours to view; approximately two and a half hours — or more — to dissect with my daughter, son, husband and other fans.) I’m sorry. I still love you, I’m just not in love with you. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s not you, it’s us. Distractions have got me by the throat. Just sayin’.

And we just found out we have family in town tomorrow, just for the day and night. So more distractions! Sorry. I’ll be back soon, okay?

xo

wm

Pretzels dipped in Nutella. Nom, nom. (PS — Food? Go check out Under the Tuscan Gun. Gabriele and Debi are just too frickin’ sweet for words, and I love their recipes and their style of cooking.)

Lawn is mowed, weeds are (mostly) weeded, Steve tied up all the beans, tomatoes, honeysuckle and whatever else was running wild in the garden yesterday… We are… happy over here. Plants are happy, kids are happy, I am happy because I just started Season 5 of “Weeds” and Season 6 of “Entourage” and yes, I’m going to study later. Don’t worry, I will complete this class, even if I have to spend my entire summer doing it.

Andy on “Weeds” and Drama on “Entourage” just get better every season, I’m telling you.

xo

wm

I love being a mama because I get the hard questions. At 9 a.m.

“Is infinity a number?”

Um, yes. (Oh, wait. It’s an abstract concept, so it’s not a number?)

Didn’t realize I was settling a bet between two 7-year-olds.

Thank you, Wiki Answers.

“No, infinity is not a number, in the mathematical sense. It is a symbol for “unlimited”. As such it has uses in various theories in math and in physics. The simplest proof is adding a real value, such as 1, to infinity. Just as zero times any number is still zero, infinity plus any value will remain “infinity”.

Skewes number is much larger still.”

Wacky Boy, “See?”

Wacky Boy, “He thought you could make any number bigger by saying ‘pizza’ after it.”

I need another cup of coffee. That’s the answer.

Just spent about 3 hours gardening in the rain with Steve. Sheer bliss. Other than the music. It is so much easier to weed when it’s raining. Oh, dear Steve, who has constantly fought (and lost) to have musical domination over me since that first date, May 9th, 1997.

I believe his exact quote was: “Elvis? You really like Elvis? Jesus. You don’t.”

me: “What the hell? You don’t like Elvis? What’s wrong with you, son?”

So imagine his dismay today when he played the worst MP3s file he could possibly pick. Really, someone needs to organize her music around here. None of the songs are bad, per se, it’s just… not a good mix. We had to have drinks to get through it toward the end.

(This was via the office computer over the loudspeakers in the backyard, while we worked. It just starts out bad. It gets a little better toward the end, if you can last that long):

1) Ben Harper: “Mama’s Got a Girlfriend Now”

2) Emmylou Harris: “Ballad of a Runaway Horse” (Wacky Boy: “I was listening to it. It’s about a girl, and her horse dies, or runs off or something, and she’s sad.”)

3) Bruce Springsteen: “Dancing in the Dark” (prompting Steve to yell to our daughter, “Please! Honey, play the next song! Please!!!!!” Wacky Girl, casual: “Sorry, dad, didn’t hear you.” (puts on the next song…)

4) Bette Midler: “Miss Otis Regrets”

5) Adam Hood: “Play Something We Know”

6) The Beatles: “All You Need is Love” (I love this song. And they used it in one of my favorite scenes of one of my favorite movies. Lynden David Hall is the singer, so brilliant. Too short of a life. Ahhhh… Steve bought me ice skates for Christmas one year, we went skating at Lloyd Center, then for Thai food, then to see “Love Actually.” The best date ever. Besides the dates where he got me “in the family way.” Those were memorable, too. Yeah, who’s establishing domination over who, baby? Who knows.)

7) ZZ Top: Beer Drinkers & Hell-Raisers (“If you see me walkin down the line/With my favrite honky tonk in mind/Well, I’ll be here around suppertime/With my can of dinner and a bunch of fine/Beer drinkers and hell raisers, yeah/Uh-huh-huh, baby, don’t you wanna come with me?”)

8) Tom Waits: “Warm Beer & Cold Women” (apropos, after that last song)

9) Bruce Springsteen (again): “Thunder Road” (Steve: “His lyrics are… are… (sputters) vapid! How can you like him?”) (He needs to stop, doesn’t he? Nothing about the Boss is vapid.)

10) Israel Kamakawiwo’ole: “Tengoku Kara Kaminari (Thunder from Heaven)” (did I even remotely spell that correctly?)

11) Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: “I Am A Pilgrim” (he actually likes that one — and it was the disagreement over the Byrds that got us started, cuz that was his first pick and I said, No way. Really. Please don’t make me listen to “Sweethearts of the Rodeo” or anything by Joan Baez ever again cuz I will stab myself in the eyeballs, throw a screwdriver or hairbrush through the window, just make it stop)

12) The Band, with the Staples Singers: “The Load”

13) Thelonius Monk: “Trinkle, Trinkle” (we both love this one)

14) Temple of the Dog: “Hungerstrike”

15) Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (Moment of silence for Marvin & Tammi, please. Two stories that just make me come undone.)

Speaking of Springsteen…

“Because It Is Bitter And Because It Is My Coffee”

“Are You There, God? It’s Me, Wacky Mommy. Why Is There So Much Laundry?”

“Will You Take Me As I Am? Cuz This Is All I Got”

“I Feel Bad About My Weeds”

“The Absolutely True Diary Of One Wacky Mommy”