i’d forgotten what it was like living with a musician, Steve has been into the politics and out of music for so long. however, the main reason for our getting the hell out of Portland was so we could say buh-bye to the politics and, “Hey, you! You still love me? Sorry I’ve been ignoring you” to writing, reading and music.

yes, we moved to the suburbs so we could get back to being artists. The Only 2 People in the History of the World to pull that one. People, it’s working. The kids have friends over all the time, or they’re at their friends’ houses. There are parks, schools and empty lots within walking distance. They both are into taekwondo (i read while they kick and yowl). I have never spent so little time with my children in… almost 12 years.

Steve’s got the music studio set up now, it’s pretty cool. and i say this as someone who has nary a musical bone in her body. i like to sing, but I don’t think anyone else enjoys it as much as I do. when i sing with my students, I get them started and they take over on “Chicka-Chicka Boom-Boom,” “Down By the Bay” or whatever else ties in with the book we’re reading for story time. (We mainly sing variations on “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” ie — “The Big Fat Spider,” where you clap your hands and make your voice go deep, and the “teensy-weensy spider,” where you make your voice as tiny and squeaky as possible. No, the 7th and 8th graders won’t sing with me. Come to think of it, they won’t do story time, either. Why???)

So when I heard car brakes screeching (no the boys didn’t get run over, they were on the sidewalk, allegedly), when the girls were slamming the door in the neighbor’s face (sweet. sweet, sweet girls. I made them take over brownies and apologize) and when I heard, “ewwwwww you can see the dead snake from the front window” (in the front flower bed, where Steve left him. next to the dead salamander. neighbor’s cattle dog is a good little hunter)…

i’m thinking, Steve? Where the hell…?

Oh. In his studio. Headphones on.

Guys are so smart.

Friday Night Lights is back, season 4, and i’m so happy.

happy mother’s day to all you mamas out there. hope you have a spectacular weekend.

— wm

I finally took a break from unpacking boxes (of books, clothes, candles, candleholders, files for the office, files for work, art supplies, more books…) and took a peek out in the yard. Even though it’s been raining (some) it was parched out there. That’s the way it goes in Oregon, in the spring. You think everything’s getting a good drink, then you realize that some of the plants are below the eves, under the trees, or just need more of a drink than they were getting.

I found the shovel, some gardening gloves and…….. planted. We divided plants at the old place before we moved (half of the stuff was so overcrowded it wasn’t blooming anymore). My mom gave me some plants, and I had a bunch of stuff potted already that i just brought with me. My girlfriend J gave me a strawberry planter box, as a housewarming gift, so nice! So we ended up with quite a few plants that need to go… somewhere. I already planted columbine, peonies and Hockey God bought me a hanging basket. The yard is (tentatively, creeping along) starting to feel like mine. We have several blueberry bushes, and two Granny Smith apple trees (yay!) and… bees! My mom bought my son a Mason bee house for his birthday.

He and his dad hung it up on the shed, and within 24 hours the bees had found it. We noticed today that they started making their little dirt mounds in there, for extra protection? It’s cool. We need to help save the bees, y’all, they’re having a rough go of it. That is no good.

Mason bees, by the by, do not sting, says Wacky Boy and his grandma.

Today I planted…

1) a snowball bush
2) Japanese iris
3) more iris
4) my daughter’s birthday asters (they are fantastic — purple and glorious and quadruple their territory every year)
5) and…. what else? black fancy grass
6) a small rosebush
7) some sedum (the former owners left us those) and………

wow. a little tiny tree frog went flying out of the grass and down by the shed, in between my planting the asters and the black fancy grass.

i don’t know what to do with frogs, being a City Girl. so i yelled for Wacky Boy and Hockey God, and they played with him (let him crawl all over my son’s hand and arm — sticky little feet, really adorable), took some pictures and waited for Wacky Girl to get home from walking her friend home, so she could see him. “Ahhhhhh!”

Last week my son spotted two garter snakes. Today it was:

“Snakes eat frogs!”

“Yeah, that’s the way the world goes ’round, son.”

We didn’t have ribbity frogs, tree frogs, deer, snakes, any kinds of critters like that at our old place, although i once saw 2 raccoons and once i saw a rat.

okay, and a little mouse one time, running under the fence. I have those frogs that one lone frog in the tank, but that’s different.

i like it out here.

what kinds of critters do you have in your part of the world?

— wm

now living across town, on the west side, out of Portland, Oregon, and into suburbia. boxes and bags all over the place, but that’s alright. the new neighbors brought us cookies and said, and i’m quoting here, “We wanted to welcome you.” there are kids running wild all over, and you can hear the frogs at night and see the stars.

we could not often see the stars at our old place, due to the neighbor’s big-ass vapor lights, light pollution, and bad air quality. it is a trip to be able to see the stars. also there are woods all around, greenspaces, nature preserves. wow wow wow. people riding bikes, walking their hounds, running… wow.

we like it here.

— wm

“Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round/They sing ‘I’m in love. What’s that song?/I’m in love with that song.'” — the Replacements

http://youtu.be/6RYQ8Y-ObMw

yeah, yeah, yeah, there goes my youth. again.

Steve, on the biggest assholes he ever did sound for: “The Replacements. No, the Del Fuegos! No, they were both assholes, it’s a tie.”

The nicest guys? “The bigger the star, the more gracious the are. Billy Bragg — super-nice guy. Nicest bloke you could ever meet. I asked him, ‘What do you want in the monitors?’ he says, ‘Just the vocals, mate!'” And all the Chicago blues guys — Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor… all good. You know, Al Collins was just always nice, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Taj Mahal, John Lee Hooker…”

You know what I want? I want to say a big f.u. to politics and I want to write again. Really write — here, and fiction, too. I’d like for someone to publish my damn book, cuz it’s good. It’s the story of a girl, and there’s a lot of suicide, not by the girl, and art, some by the girl, and some by other people, and funny situations.

“Well, that was just a situation.” — my Dear Granny, when she didn’t want to give up details

It’s not chick lit, but you’d like it anyway, ha. I want to finish my Dear Granny’s cookbook, too. I want to concentrate on my kids, and my students, my library work and the flowers and vegetables in my garden. I want to plant some asparagus and a kiwi vine at the new place.

And I want my husband getting back to music. He hasn’t played sax in I don’t even know how long. We’ll have space for a studio for him, at the new house. The piano can go in there. And we’ll have a library/studio for me. Also an office for both of us to share. And the new kitchen? Righteous. So we can cook up all the vegetables we grow in the garden.

“plant a little garden/eat a lot of peaches/try and find jesus/on your own.” — John Prine

happy first day of spring, y’all. here’s to some goodness for all of us, and some art, in the new season.

— wm

we had our little buddies, ages 4 & 6, over for dinner and play tonight. they are so good, I forgot they were here. seriously. their mama came by to get them and i was all, Nice to see you, but why are you here?

our kittens are not always nice to guests.

wacky boy to friend: “The one cat is mean to kids and the other cat just doesn’t like kids. but the other one is okay.”

i made waffles (“…with WHITE flour!” wacky girl told her dad, gleam in eye) the special way. that’s right. with white flour. cinnamon sugar, organic milk and eggs, REAL butter and REAL maple syrup. won award for mother of the year, yes, that’s right.

but i’m thinking, why is it that as a mother, your worth is measured by how good the waffles taste and how entertaining the puppet shows are?

just wondering.

because the content of my character, my love of books, my ability to spin gold from straw, my large and impressive vocabulary, my inability to properly use capital letters, my newfound skill at knotting scarves… shouldn’t that matter, a little?

My Dear Granny has been gone almost seven months now. (Do you need her recipe for Lemon Bundt Cake with Orange Glaze Heartbreak?) We made it through the first Mother’s Day without her, her birthday, most of our birthdays… now the big holidays are coming up. And my sister’s wedding. My stupid surgery. My lungs hurt, and I’m always such a baby when I’m sick. Seriously, I alternate between calling my mom, my grandma, and my girlfriends. Steve and the kids totally baby me. I get bronchitis and pneumonia is why.

I could write an essay, “What Getting a Cold Means to Me: Fear of Bronchial Pneumonia.”

I’ve gotten bronchitis once, twice, three times a year, pretty much, since I was 12. Once in awhile I go for two or three years with just little colds, nothing more, I’m all yes, no more bronchitis, my lungs are strong, then boom. I get worried the antibiotics won’t work. If it’s viral, they don’t do anything, anyway. So I’m thinking of all those times when it was probably viral and the doctors and I panicked, treated with antibiotics, anyway.

Who knows what the hell to do when your lungs betray you.

“Girl, you’re burning the candle at both ends,” was what my Granny would tell me. “That’s why you get bronchitis.”

Colds without laryngitis, she was convinced, did not lead to bronchitis. Laryngitis = bronchitis. I must say, she has been right on that one every time. Ah, well. We’ll see, okay? I have been losing my voice off and on the last couple of weeks. I talk too much, anyway. haha. Can always blog.

I got the nicest e-mail the other night, from a lady my Granny went to church with. She wanted to know, have I finished Granny’s cookbook yet? (That I started, what, five years ago?) No, I have not. It was like getting an e-mail kick in the pants, which I needed, ha.

I love this lady. She and my Granny talked on the phone often, she said, especially Sunday night, when they would discuss the sermon at church. They worked on the senior luncheons and holiday luncheons together.

“I loved her outlook on life. I thoroughly enjoyed her commentary on life. And I miss her encouragement and good humor about life. Losing her has been a tremendous loss for a lot of us.”

Yeah. I just smiled and got misty all the way through this e-mail — it was like getting a hug from my Granny. Then she gave me some recipes, and told me to let her know when we get the cookbook done. (I’m hoping we finish it over the holidays — just need to cut and paste the files together. I think we’re going to do it as an on-demand print job through Cafe Press.)

love,

wm

Apple Pizza

Crust (or make pastry for 2-crust pie)

Add the first 4 ingredients and mix with a pastry blender or fork until fine grained:

2 c. flour, sifted

3/4 c. shortening

1 2 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

In separate dish, mix these 3:

2 egg (2 T.)

2 tsp. vinegar

3 c. cold water

Add the egg and water mixture to the flour mixture. Gather dough together so it cleans the bowl. Chill at least 15 minutes.

Cinnamon mixture

2 c. sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

3 tsp. nutmeg

Mix these 3 together.

Apples — 4-5 peeled and finely sliced.

Topping

Blend together:

1 c. flour

2 c. sugar

2 c. margarine

Roll pastry to about 15-inch circle on cookie sheet or pizza pan.

Slice apples on top.

Sprinkle cinnamon mixture over topping.

Sprinkle on topping mixture. Bake 20-25 min. at 450 E . (Check at 15 min. — you don’t want it to get too brown.)

GRAMA’S SUGAR COOKIES

Beat well:

1 c. sugar

1 c. butter (2 cubes)

2 tsp. vanilla

1 egg

Sift:

3 c. flour

2 tsp. cream of tartar

2 tsp. baking soda

Add to sugar mixture and mix well.

Drop by large spoonsful onto greased cookie sheet. Flatten with a greased glass dipped in sugar. Bake at 400 E for 8-10 min. (watch carefully) or until lightly browned. ENJOY!

UNSTUFFED PEPPER SOUP

2 lbs. ground beef

3 large green peppers, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

2 cans (14 2 oz.) beef broth

2 cans condensed tomato soup (undiluted)

1 can (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes, undrained

1 can (4 oz.) mushroom stems & pieces, drained

2 cups cooked rice

In a Dutch oven or large saucepan, cook the beef, green peppers and onions until meat isn’t pink. Drain off fat. Stir in broth, soup, tomatoes and mushrooms. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add rice, heat through and serve.

Yield: 10 servings

i thought it was gone, but it’s not — thursday 13, alive & kickin’… so i’d better write one, eh? In honor of Halloween and my baby sister’s impending nuptials, I present:

The Wacky Mommy Thursday Thirteen, Halloween Edition, with an emphasis on WEDDING DRESSES

1) my sister, when we were in the middle of wedding dress shopping today, “You know who hates shopping more than us? Mom. Mom hates shopping more than we do.”

2) she does. our mom hates shopping. my sister isn’t keen on shopping and i’m not, either. especially since i have more boob, hip and BUTT now. Awwwwwww, it’s the New Old Wacky Mommy Body.

3) Did I tell you Happy Halloween yet? No? Happy Halloween! We’re celebrating by eating miniature candy bars, chocolate chip cooky bars, and later, we will have some kind of non-chocolate related feast for dinner. Steve is drinking a Red Stripe and I’m enjoying my 2nd nice glass of white wine. Abymes Vin de Savoie, 2008, from France. me: “mmm, this is nice!” steve: “honey. it’s cheap white French table wine. you need to branch out from the pinot grigio.” he’s right, i do.

4) My other new favorite: Trevisiol Prosecco Venteto, Extra Dry, from Small Vineyards, Seattle, Wash. We drink it with a splash of grapefruit juice, with a sugar cube dropped in, in a sugared-rim martini glass. (that idea was from Brian Boitano. i love his show, “What Would Brian Boitano Make?” on the Food Network. This Amaretto Prosecco Sour also sounds good.)

5) i believe my mom and sister are coming over to have Halloween dinner with us and take the kids out tricker treating. fun!

6) Do you celebrate Halloween? Day of the Dead? Some kind of harvest festival? Please advise.

7) OK, back to wedding dresses. My sister, just six weeks shy of her wedding date, has been a little nervous about the whole “wedding dress” portion of the occasion. I was, too, after we visited a stuck-up shop (i will not include their name here). (oh, what the hell of course I will. Tower Bridal, not to be confused with Tower Records, at the Water Tower at John’s Landing. Really should have read the reviews first, which included this gem, under the heading, “Don’t Shop Here” — “I will never ever recommend this place to anyone. When I went here looking for a dress they were nothing but rude to me. I didnt have a crap load of money to spend which can become a problem when looking at dresses. Some bridal shops dont like dealing with people on a budget and this is definately one.” I do not care if she can’t spell, that is one zinger of a review.)

8) So. They were rude there. I especially loved when the sales associate sized me up with her eyes, glanced over at the maid of honor dresses, glanced back at me and gave me a look like, “It’ll never work.” Here’s the thing: I’m not a size 2. I’m not even a size 10. The point is, I still like to look good. Who doesn’t? And it’s my sister’s wedding! Outfit us, alright? We went to a vintage place in Northwest Portland. I found two great purses, one for me, one for my sis. Then we went to another vintage place. Neither place carried wedding dresses. “It is kind of a niche,” we were told. A niche. Would it kill you to have a rack with a couple of dozen wedding dresses? Apparently it would. It would kill them, and then they would be dead and they couldn’t sell their moldy fake-fur coats and ’70s retro Marimekko knock-offs.

9) Discouraged and with no prospects, we went to Sushiville and had a delicious lunch. (For those of you keeping score: Tower Bridal: two thumbs down; vintage shops, thumbs akimbo (cuz of the purses); Sushiville: BIG thumbs up.)

10) wandered down 23rd Avenue. saw a wedding dress hanging in a window of a boutique, Cocoon Silk. “Wanna check it out?” “OK.” Full selection of dresses, scarves, shoes, prom dresses, party dresses, dresses for little girls, big girls, mothers of the bride… jewelry… Oh. my God. “Do you have this in my size?” my sister asks, about gorgeous dress after gorgeous dress, each one more spectacular than the last. “Well…” the salesclerk tells us, “Those are samples. We custom-make the dresses for you. It will take about three weeks? That’s how we do it in Cambodia, you make the dress to fit.”

11) That is how we all three, my sister, my daughter and I, all are completely won over by Sovanna Yun, whose family is now sewing our dresses. Black cocktail dress for me, with a blue shawl, decorated with peacocks, sequins and fringe; for my daughter, a blue dress with a matching silk ruffle bolero jacket; and my sister will be the one in white (it is a secret, thus I cannot describe it). The Red-Headed Guy is wearing a vintage suit; my husband and son will be in black.

12) That’s Cocoon Silk, and they have two locations in Portland. You can also just send them your measurements and some cash and they, in turn, will send you a stunning dress. You know how he made me feel about my body? He made me feel beautiful about my body. It’s a good body. It’s not perfect, it’s scarred, it’s too curvy — but it’s what I’ve got.

13) So… no attitude from this place. Just beauty. Go figure.

Happy Thirteen and Happy Halloween, y’all! Best wishes to my sis and her guy.

hello.

do you remember when we had time for one another?

yeah, me too.

— wm

ps — happy weekend, everybody. It’s Wordstock here, it’s 3 days off from school, it’s ice cream and Italian food and running into my sister, her red-headed fiance and their friends at dinner. that’s alright. (no, we did not run into the Mayor.) (You will be pleased to note that the service at PIZZA FINO in beautiful downtown NORTH PORTLAND KENTON was the WORST IT’S EVER BEEN IN OUR LIVES.) (No, worse than that, even. I kid you not. It’s a tragedy. It is an urban tragedy how bad the service is, YET WE CONTINUE TO DINE THERE. Why? I have no idea.)

(The best rock and roll song ever.)

Is it any surprise that this was my Dad’s favorite movie? This could be the theme movie for my entire family. It was his best friend’s favorite movie, too. It happens to be one of my favorites, too, but not for the same reasons as theirs.

Happy Sunday!

xo

wm