“Miss Otis regrets, she’s unable to lunch today, madam,
Miss Otis regrets, she’s unable to lunch today.
She is sorry to be delayed,
but last evening down in Lover’s Lane she strayed, madam,
Miss Otis regrets, she’s unable to lunch today…”

Oh, now. It wasn’t anything grim, don’t get excited. But I wasn’t able to lunch with y’all last week because I was… Where? You guess. Vixy was the only one who missed me, apparently. (And no, you don’t get a guess, girl. Cuz you knew!) (Ditto the rest of yins who already know the answer.) So, where in the world did the Wacky Family go on vacation?

And did it really warrant removing the children from school for an entire week? (I’ll answer that one: Yes, it did.)

Would you like to know the lyrics to the song my daughter sang most of the way home? Yeah, OK. Here you go:

“That darn party pooper there he goes,
pooping out parties!
Paaaaaaaarties once again! Yeah, yeah.
Shake that booty, right in the Baaaaaaaaaarbie’s face! Woo!
Where’s… Super Granny? Where?
There she is! Look Super Granny, it’s the party pooooooooper!
‘Little girls, do not be crude!’
That darn party pooper, Super Granny can’t solve the riddle.
Oh! Oh! There’s my pizza, left over from yesterday!”

(Like how she worked the reality of finding old Pizza Hut in the car right into the song, no problemo?)

Her brother, in a deep voice: “Super. Batman. Is. Here.”

Yes. Imagine all that, times 2,000 miles. (That’s a hint.)

xxox

wm

Post-a-vista No. 2: Planet Nomad

Planet Nomad, this is everyone. Everyone, this is PLANET NOMAD! (I always want to sing that Duran Duran song — “this is planet earth/ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!!!/this is planet earth…”) There! It’s done. Now we all know each other. (more…)

Christmas is gone and I say good riddance, ol’ pal. The kids had fun, my husband and family made a huge effort to make things nice — and special, not just the usual routine — but I just was not crazy about Christmas this year. Maybe it’s because I always expect snow, and instead we get buckets of rain — and I want to go out and see the lights, but it’s cold and wet and I am getting over bronchitis and still feeling run-down.

I’ve got no idea. It’s ennui. It’s me being selfish. I keep trying, but I just cannot get out of this little funk.

But yesterday — Christmas Day — it snowed here. (more…)

Reviewed today:

The Fed Ex girl was the most popular visitor at our place this week. She arrived with a couple of boxes of books and games from Little, Brown and Company for review, just in time for the holidays. I’ll review three at a time, so no one gets overlooked. We’ll make it a family affair.

“Hug Time,” by Patrick McDonnell, stars Jules, the sweet little tiger kitty. (Click on the Little, Brown link above to hear Patrick McDonnell read from “Hug Time.”) We’re big fans of the Mutts comic strip over here (Grandma likes Mutts, too, especially Jules, aka “Shtinky Puddin'” and his little pink sock). In this artfully painted and written children’s book, Jules travels the world, collecting as many hugs as he can, from as many creatures as he can find along the way, including a wombat, a humu-humu fish, and a polar bear. We’d hug him, too, if he stopped by here.

On to Cranium… If you call yourself “The Ultimate Book of Fantastic Fun & Games,” then you’d better hurry up and live up to your title. This set does. It includes plastic frogs for flipping, an egg timer, a deck of Cranium cards, a dri-erase pen, a spinner, a pull-out game board, and purple modeling clay, so you can sculpt tiny brains or anything else you feel like sculpting.

It’s for ages six and up, but the five-year-old at our house was extremely taken with the set, especially once he figured out that the whole book is rewritable, so you can play the games over and over.

Hockey God and Wacky Boy, on Ed Emberley’s “Bye-Bye, Big Bad Bullybug!”:

WB: It’s very funny.

WB: They’re queen ants, silly!

The pages are die-cut, with each page revealing a little something from the next page. It’s a clever device for the younger set, as the Big Bad Bullybug is gradually revealed, in all its comical horror.

And now, some big news — I have so many goodies to share that Melissa Lion (who, like me, is a North Portland blogger and writer) and I are going to throw a meet ‘n’ greet. We’ll do it sometime in January. We’re thinking… a coffee house in North Portland. Just for something a little different.

I’ll give away kid books for door prizes! Ms. Lion may bring copies of her young adult novels to sign and sell. I think she should, don’t you? I think once you’re a published author you should just carry a stack of your books with you everywhere. That’s what I’ll do, if and when I get a novel published. I’ll be all, “My name, see? On the cover. Woo!”

I love Melissa’s writing, it’s true and honest, and she hooks you right from the first paragraph, but the real reason she’s won my heart? She taught me what others have tried, and failed, to teach me: I now know how to purl.

Melissa’s books:

* I’m listening to Tracy Chapman’s version of, “3 Little Birds,” Van Morrison, “How Long Has This Been Going On,” and Elvis Costello, “Every Day I Write the Book.”

* Just talked with Planet Nomad; they are back from California safe and sound, studying French and enjoying the rain.

* Hockey God and my mother-in-law just ran the kids to school. She’s here for four days which means… I GET TO WRITE WHILE SHE AND MY HUSBAND, HER SON, WATCH THE KIDS.

* My kids are blessed, blessed and extremely spoiled rotten by four grandparents (3 grandmas and 1 grandpa) who are all playful, talented, and good-looking, to boot. (The blue eyes, the kooky mannerisms, the musical obsessions, the love of books — they get all of it from their grandparents.) Before school, Wacky Boy and Grandma were playing with transformers.

Her: “Look! This one turns into a guy, then back into a car, then back into a guy again!”

Wacky Boy, eyes shining and looking at her adoringly: “YES.”

She also admired the “fossils” that the kids made for her out of plaster-of-paris and seashells. Tonight we’re having dinner with my mom and sister. In the meantime…

* …I write. More fiction.

* Hey, is NoPoMoFoMamaLamaDingDong over today? It was fun.

Happy Friday, yins.

WM

I would like to swing on a star, if it meant getting out of the house.

Also, I would like to point out that a whole week off for Thanksgiving is an awfully long break. (We had conferences for two days, beginning of week, so it wasn’t such a long break for the staff.) If we had traveled for the holiday, it would have been just right, but since we stayed home? And I had (have) bronchitis? It was a long haul. The kids are squirrelly, Hockey God’s birthday was not all it could have been, but I’m not wheezing like I was.

As one of my girlfriends phrased it, listening to me over the phone, “Oh, good. You’re wheezing on the inhale and the exhale.”

Happy Saturday, everyone. Salud.

Just got back from doc and good news is… Mom came over and I didn’t have to take 3 kids with me! Daughter, son, and son’s lil friend, who is playing with us today. He adds a balance and kindness to our house that is often lacking. He is peacekeeper and little sweetheart. For example, he showed up with brownies for the kids, and his own lunch, which he had packed himself. Then he fed himself lunch when he got hungry. Also, he eats whatever I feed him. And he says, “Excuse me…” when he needs something. Our household is a more low-key place when he is here. His mother would like me to interject here, “I don’t think she’s talking about my kid, cuz that’s not the story at our house. So I don’t know whose kid she’s talking about.”

I’m grateful for friends.

And family. I am grateful for my mom, who is RETIRED and apparently has no desire to take on a part-time job. “I want to hang out with my grandkids,” sez she. Yay, just a big ol’ yay!!!

More good news! I don’t have pneumonia! Just bronchitis! Woot!!! Thank you amoxocillin you are my friend. Add a “grateful” for modern medicine.

Happy Thanksgiving, you all. I am grateful for you. And for not having pneumonia. Also, I’m grateful for my husband, our families, our friends and community (online and off) and the way the sun is shining.

And I’m grateful for NAWACOTID because, om, zen.

Farewell — off to lie on couch and wait ’til antibiotics kick in.

“It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses. Hit it.”

— The Blues Brothers
(Titania was in a “blue” mood)

I would love to leave this messy, half-packed house behind for a week and hit the road with my husband and the kids. Would love that. Maybe the carpet guys will come over and move all the furniture for us and we can go? (We’re getting new carpet this weekend! Not for us — for whoever we sell the place to. So they can say, “Jeez-US! This carpet is ugly — who would pick this color?” It’s kind of a taupe, kinda wheat color? Neutral but not boring.) Then they will spend much $$$ tearing out carpet and putting in laminates. Or hardwoods, if they have that kind of cash. Or maybe under the plywood upstairs they will find… oak!

(They can dream, can’t they?)

Even more than the carpet situation, the carpet situation which is going to consume our entire weekend and on into next week, this fantasy hinges on us having enough cash to do what we want, where we want, without having to worry about work, vacation time, depleted PTO, kids who are in school. And you my dear, beloved readers, would say something like “Girl disappeared! Huh. She’ll be back later…” so I wouldn’t have Blog Guilt. (Those of you who blog, do you have guilt for not updating? I do, sometimes.)

Top Picks if We Were to Pack Up and Go Right This Minute:

* Disneyland!
* Vancouver, B.C.
* to see the grandparents, first in Denver, Colo., then in Iowa City, Ia.
* MEMPHIS!
* New. York. City!
* Kelowna, B.C., sez Hockey God

I think it’s because my Mom hates moving so much that my sister and I love moving so much. My Mom is a little shy and a bit of a homebody. So for her parents to have packed her up and moved her around on the average of every year for the first 14 years of her life was pretty shattering. After she married my Dad, they lived in a rental for the first two years they were married — it was a pretty little guest cottage behind a pretty house on a double (or triple?) lot in Northeast Portland.

Then they purchased a house in the Rose City neighborhood in 1966, when I was two. She has lived there ever since.

I have always liked to move. I’ve lived… lemme count ’em up real quick… (more…)

Is it the cussing? Am I dull as a butter knife and no one has known how to tell me? Pick me! (Jumping up and down, waving her arms around.)

Just for you:

* Last Friday (Oct. 12, 2007) there was another shooting outside of Jefferson High School. Two, in fact. No one was killed. Thanks, Jeebus. We appreciate your attention. (Please send good thoughts to the kids in my neighborhood, would you?)

* In spite of the violence, the tough schools, the white parents bringing their white privilege to the table (“We are here to save the neighborhood! To save you from yourselves! Do what we say!” etc.), the pitbulls, the jerks who look like an angry white mob, with red faces and bulging muscles in their necks at neighborhood meetings re: name change from Intercourse Ave. to Chavez Blvd. (my favorite line in the string of comments on that link was “Wacky Mommy, you ARE wacky.” Yeah, tell me something I don’t already know), in spite of the traffic, in spite of the meth labs and the police with their SWAT vehicles and all of that?

* In spite of all of that, when our (new & improved) realtor told us, “When people think of Interstate Ave. and North Mississippi, they have preconceived notions about prostitutes, drug use, gangs, and whatnot,” (she may not have said “whatnot,” it is just my favorite word lately) all I could think was, “What the fuck do you know, bitch?” and I really wanted to go all North Portland on her ass. Especially when she suggested that perhaps my neighborhood isn’t “all that” and perhaps we should wait until spring to put it on the market? After we remodel the kitchen?

* (I’m fucking not remodeling the kitchen. The kitchen is functional and the lighting is good. Go look here here and here to find out why pigs will need to zoom across the sky before I tackle another big project here. Edited to say: We have since found an awesome incredible painter and no, I won’t give out his number.)

* You know, when my realtor (who is a west sider, by the by) went off about hookers and guns I wanted to say something tactful at that point. Like, “Why don’t you stick it in my eye and then I’ll be able to see that you’re fucking me?”

* I do not feel that she was being positive enough.

* This is a great neighborhood, shootings and SWAT teams aside. Ten minutes from downtown Portland, 15 minutes from Vancouver, Wash. Several schools nearby that, while my husband and I may not always be so keen on them, are loved by a lot of parents, kids and teachers. These are schools, some private, some public, with waiting lists. We have the Mississippi and Alberta “arts districts,” with fancy restaurants, galleries and bars, right up the street. We have fancy-shmancy restaurants and coffee houses right in my neighborhood, up the street. A farmers market within walking distance. Several community centers. A fancy grocery store and a regular grocery store. Yadda yadda blip. And we have a nice house. I am sorry to be a jerk and brag, but it’s pretty, my house. And good-sized. It’s vintage, for pete’s sake — its celebrating its 100th birthday this year. We’ve babied it and it shows.

* It is “Old Portland,” whatever the hell that means. Some people are impressed by it, they’re all “oooooooooh, Old Portland.” But not our realtor.

* Anyway.

* We decided to fix her up even a little bit more, This Old House. Because we haven’t spent enough money here yet. New carpet, maybe some new landscaping, touch-up paint here and there, yadda yadda blip blip, and wait a couple of months “until the market isn’t so smooshy” to list it. My mellow was pretty harshed after we made this decision, especially since we’d already found a really decent house across town and of course in my mind I was there, in my new kitchen, drinking coffee, so I took myself out for coffee to get my mind off things.

* I was reading Andrew Merton’s bio/autobio of Princess Diana — so good, but so heartbreaking, of course — and drinking my boring little decaf. (It may have been caf. You will never know, will you?) These two idiots sit by me and one starts bragging loudly of how he screwed someone on this real estate deal. He wanted this house in my old neighborhood (Rose City/Madison South) and they offered them thousands under what they wanted, and the owner countered with how about this much, instead? and yadda yadda blip and, smugly, “We just out-waited ’em. They finally had to drop the price and ha ha ha! I want them to pay closing costs and ha ha ha!!! I am not fixing the whoozit, they need to pay for that, too…”

* At which point his friend, who may I say to his credit was not being all gleeful and smug, said, “Who much would it cost to fix the whoozit?”

* “Just two thousand, but fuck that! Ha ha ha.”

* At which point of course I rolled my eyes at him and was tempted to crack a chair across his head because next he started bragging about how huge the house was (3,200 square feet). And hello? You just ripped these people off, don’t gloat. Instant karma’s gonna get you, buddy. That’s a sweet deal you got in my old neighborhood. I don’t want my mom to have you as a neighbor, you jerk.

* Then he starts bragging about the East coast, and “Back there it would cost you…” And I’m thinking, dude, pay for the whoozit yourself, you scam artist.

* But I’m glad I ran into him because it made me realize that while I do like getting a killer deal (who doesn’t?) I do not enjoy the gleeful pride of knowing that I screwed someone over.

* So I do want to get a fair shake for our (beloved, beloved awesome pretty) house, and I don’t want to pay tens of thousands more than I should for our new house. But. I do not want anyone coming away from the deal feeling all, nyah, nyah.

*Because that is wrong.

* Really, really, really wrong.

* So now I feel more okay about the whole thing. We’re still selling, just not this weekend. Because that smug guy? The thief? He’s that way, but you and I are not that way, savvy? Are you with me on this, Internet? I know my readers, I know you’re decent people. The housing market is in a little slump here, and there are way too many “PayDay Loan”-type home foreclosures going on because some loaners are opportunists and jerks. People’s lives are getting ruined because of it. Which is messed up and not fair to anyone. Is that instant karma? No, not usually. It’s usually someone who desperately wants to own their own place, and housing prices here can be pretty intimidating, and even though they can’t afford it, the loaners are all, “Suuuuuuure you can, sign your life away right here and I’ll go ahead and keep two of your kids.”

* I have karma on the brain today. Then when I got home, my favorite guy next to Hockey God stopped by: the UPS Guy! He brought me Sharon Stiteler’s book, “Disapproving Rabbits.” It’s all pictures of rabbits! With funny captions! Man, oh man, did I need this book today. And he also brought…

* Richard Avedon’s “The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family,” with seventy-five images from the Smithsonian Collections. I just glanced through it — it’s spectacular.

* So more later on those three books.

* Let’s not crack open any heads out there, okay people?

Love,

WM