“The butterfly counts not years but moments and has time enough.”
— Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
The smut mail is hitting the fan, so to speak. We’re trying to figure something out… Thanks for your patience.
Happy Friday.
WM
How about a party for my Thursday Thirteen?
THIRTEEN THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT OUR NEIGHBORHOOD PROGRESSIVE PARTY
1. It’s going to be fun…
2. It starts at 3 p.m. on New Year’s Day. Having forgotten that we all have to work and go back to school the next day. Whoops.
3. Six households on our block are participating. We didn’t invite everyone because we don’t like everyone. Especially people who suck. They are not invited. We will thumb our noses at them as we make merry past their houses. See how it works?
4. One of our neighbors is friendlier than most of us, and she may invite two other households to join in. Which is fine. I think.
5. First Course: Wacky Nekkid Neighbors are serving Butternut Squash Soup and An Assortment of Breads. (I don’t know if there will actually be an assortment, or just one kind, but Assortment of Breads has such a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) They have the new baby and all, so they’re not inviting people in. Wacky Nekkid Mini-Neighbor and Wacky Boy are best friends, so they can run wild and knock soup off the table. And we can all goo-goo over Nekkid Bebe. The soup will be served where we’re having…
6. Second Course: Appetizers at V and S’s house. V is a chef by trade, so we’re all pretty psyched she’s cooking for us. Because she really gets thoroughly sick of cooking. Plus, S’s daughter (and possibly V’s daughter) will join us, so the more the merrier! S’s daughter is Wacky Girl’s age, so they can run and be goofy and sing songs for us if there are any lulls in the conversation.
7. Third Course: Salad at T and J’s house. They also have a new baby. A new old baby — he was born in August, so he’s not that new. Not as new as Nekkid Bebe. He is still extremely cute, though, so we will gaga goo-goo for him, too. Maybe they won’t feel like having the crew trample through their home? But maybe they will. Anyway, on to…
8. Fourth Course: Lasagna by A. She’s getting fresh sheets of pasta from Pastaworks (I love Pastaworks. Cookbooks, sauces, fresh pasta, cookbooks, more pasta, yummy.) She’s making one vegetarian and one not. I believe she wants us all to come by her place. We’ve all been doing a lot of work on our houses, so it will be fun to show everything off. Plus, hello, gossip? Hell to the yes for neighborhood gossip and noshes. We have one more neighbor who’s taking part — not sure if he’s doing food or not, but I think he’s going to hang out with us. They have done a ton of work on their house, and he’s done all of it himself, or with friends, so I’m hoping he invites us over for drinks or just a tour. (Most of the houses on our block are about one hundred years old now, so it’s fun to see them get spoiled.)
9. Fifth Course: Our place for dessert and a toast. Chocolate Volcano Cake with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, Lemon Squares, Chocolate Chip Cookies and fresh fruit. For the toast, sparkling pear and apple ciders. Only two of us drink! So the drinkers can bring wine or beer if they want. We’re all making jokes that it’s something in the water — or not.
10. I’m not really sure how these progressive parties work, which is too bad, since I’m kind of the hostess. It was not just my idea! V, A and Wacky Nekkid Neighbor have been talking for ages about a block party. So if you have any suggestions, please e them to me or leave a message in comments.
11. Hockey God and I are going to make up a menu card/invite thing, with everyone’s full names and details about the food they’re sharing. (I do not know all of my neighbors’ last names. Do you? And we’ve only recently started trading phone numbers. We’re popping in and out of each other’s houses all the time, though, and leaving things for each other on porches or in mailboxes. We all look out for each other, it’s nice.)
12. Wacky Girl is thrilled about this party — why should I bother to worry about details when I know she’ll come up with some great elaborate plan and all I’ll need to do is say, “Yep, what next?” and follow along behind her? (Most of our days go this way. Thank God one of us is chop-chop.)
13. I think this will be a cool way to welcome in 2007. Bye-bye, Year of the Dog (George W. Bush? Dick Cheney? Kevin Federline?) and helloooooooooooo Year of the Pig! Bon appetit, everyone!
Rest in peace, James Brown, who passed away Christmas morning. The newspaper said he held one last toy giveaway on Saturday in Augusta. Yay, Santa… My favorite song of his, that I’m always humming at Christmastime…
Santa Claus/
go straight to the ghetto/
Santa Claus/
go straight to the ghetto/
Tell them James Brown sent you/
Ha!/
go straight to the ghetto/
you know that I know that you will see/
’cause that was once/
me/
hit it/
hit it/
And for Tuesday Recipe Club (you might need to save this one ’til next summer, but the pie crust recipes are great for any time):
Hello friends and lovers,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’s to you! All is fine here at Wacky House, other than we can’t seem to agree on pancakes (over- vs. under-done) and I misplaced all of the kids’ presents. (My husband figured out where I stashed them and saved the day.)
Lots of love from us to you,
Wacky Mommy, Hockey God, Wacky Girl & Wacky Boy
Yeah, that last post was a complete downer, sorry. So here’s something funny…
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. It it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
— E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
We saw Charlotte’s Web on Thursday, the new one. (The actors who voiced the animals were great, as was Dakota Fanning, who plays Fern.) Wacky Girl kept sneaking little sidelong looks at me during the movie, Is she crying yet? No. Now? No. So stoic, my kids. They never cry at books or movies, and they only rarely sob about real life. (Right before winter break, Wacky Girl saw someone at school pitch a major tantrum and asked me later, “What was up with her, anyway?”)
She knows how I feel about Charlotte’s Web because I won’t read it with her. She’s read it with her dad three or four times, she reads it sometimes by herself, but for me, I can’t get over Charlotte dying.
“But her babies live!” Wacky Girl tells me. Spoken like a true spawn.
Unlike many creatures, I’m here to do more than live for one mere year (possibly less) have my babies, nurture my babies (or possibly not be allowed that opportunity) and die. I hope I’m here for more than that. But some days (weeks, years) it does seem like that’s my only purpose. I hate that. I love mothering, but I hate having it define me. Being seen as a “bitch,” or worse, “a fat bitch,” who is here just to mother. Gestate, nurse, mother. Gestate, nurse, mother. Die.
“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”
Of course I cried.
THIRTEEN THINGS I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS
by Wacky Girl
Dear Santa,
I have a long list for you. I would like
1) an Ipod
2) the game Guess Who?
3) Pom-poms for my cheerleader outfit
4) a Bratz Baby
5) I would really like a new Lamby
6) the American Girl doll Emily
7) a Hannah Montana CD
8) a fuzzy poster
9) the movie Star Wars
10) the movie High School Musical
11) a sparkly purse
12) a scooter
13) a Doodle Bear
You don’t have to get that all. PS — My brother wants a million pieces of money.
From,
Wacky Girl
Everyone has been sending me stuff, but have I been kind enough to review any of it? Noooooooooooo. Too busy bitching at Emilio Estevez.
Reviewed today:
And, just to mix things up:
Student’s Go Vegan Cookbook, by Carole Raymond. (And no, I don’t like the placement of that apostrophe, either. Talk to Carole’s publisher about it, not me.)
The God of Small Things, by the political, brilliant and irrepressible writer and speaker Arundhati Roy.
And… (mixing it up, get it?) how about the Jiffy Mixes recipe book? If you go to their website they’ll send you, one, too. If you have an Easy-Bake Oven, Jiffy Mixes work just splendidly and do not cost as much as the Easy-Bake mixes.
Emilio,
May we have a word, Emilio? “Bobby”? “BOBBY”? No. No, no, no, no, no. Repo Man. And in case you’ve forgotten it, here’s a hunk of dialogue:
Otto: You eat a lot of acid Miller, back in the hippie days?
Miller: I’ll give you another instance. You know the way everybody’s into weirdness right now? Books in all the supermarkets about Bermuda triangles, UFO’s, how the Mayans invented television. That kind of thing?
Otto: I don’t read them books.
Miller: Well, the way I see it it’s exactly the same. There ain’t no difference between a flying saucer and a time machine. People get so hung up on specifics. They miss out on seeing the whole thing. Take South America for example. In South America thousands of people go missing every year. Nobody knows where they go. They just like disappear. But if you think about it for a minute, you realize something. There had to be a time when there was no people. Right?
Otto: Yeah. I guess.
Miller: Well, where did all these people come from? Hmmm? I’ll tell you where. The future. Where did all these people disappear to? Hmmm?
Otto: The past?
Miller: That’s right! And how did they get there?
Otto: How the fuck do I know?
Miller: Flying saucers. Which are really? Yeah, you got it. Time machines. I think a lot about this kind of stuff. I do my best thinking on the bus. That’s how come I don’t drive, see?
Otto: You don’t even know how to drive.
Miller: I don’t want to know how. I don’t want to learn. See? The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
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