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there is no vodka in my Arnold Palmer

August 5th, 2009

For real. An Arnold Palmer consists of the following three items:

1) ice
2) lemonade
3) iced tea

The busgirl at lunch brought me a refill, only she just brought iced tea, not with lemonade. That’s fine, I’m cool with that, too. I handed it to my daughter (we always share, unlike my son, who doesn’t want any girl germs, no returns). She started to squeeze the lemon in, then looked at me suspiciously. I’m all, what?

The waiter panics, tells the busgirl it was an Arnold Palmer, oh my God she brought me the wrong drink! and swaps it out. (I didn’t even say anything, okay? Damn. Good service.) Wacky Girl gives me a sideways look, again.

What?

“Is there vodka in this?”

“Honey, it’s an Arnold Palmer, no.”

My mom, “What’s an ‘Arnold Palmer,’ anyway?” She’s all, Sister from Another Planet, my mom. What is this iced tea/lemonade of which you speak? What are capers? What is marinara, exactly? You’re leaving for the beach right now? When did you plan this, anyway? Just now? What?

Etc.

“Iced tea and lemonade.”

My daughter: “And vodka.”

“There is no vodka in there!” (I shove the drink at my mom.) “Here, try it!”

“Uh-uh, not if there’s vodka in it.” She and my daughter look at each other, knowingly.

“Baby. Would I give you vodka?”

My baby: “No. Yes. Maybe?”

It’s enough to make you mix a drink.

QOTD: Sally Mann

August 4th, 2009

“I struggle with enormous discrepancies: between the reality of motherhood and the image of it, between my love for my home and the need to travel, between the varied and seductive paths of the heart. The lessons of impermanence, the occasional despair and the muse, so tenuously moored, all visit their needs upon me and I dig deeply for the spiritual utilities that restore me: my love for the place, for the one man left, for my children and friends and the great green pulse of spring.” – photographer Sally Mann – “Still Time” catalogue

(Got this off Facebook, my new muse… wm)

thermometer said 111…

July 27th, 2009

…but actually it was only 100. At almost 7 o’clock at night. All of you people who now live in Portland and are actually from someplace else, someplace where they had lots of heat and “humididity,” who run around saying, Oh, I just LOVE this heat I just LOVE the sun I just LOVE this weather Portland is SOOOO PERFECT… really, stop saying that.

We Portlanders are just big wusses and don’t do well with anything over, hmm, dunno. Eighty-two degrees? Seventy-eight, mebbe? Ditto all you Portlanders who brag and smugly say, We don’t even need air-conditioning here, it hardly ever gets over 90 and it is only hot about two days out of the whole year the rest of the time it is just gorgeous… really. You need to stop saying that, too. I am the biggest baby in the heat, I hate love everybody especially you.

Steve, just now, “Let’s check the temp outside, then see if it’s time for another round of drinks.”

Oh, he is a pretty nice guy. Vodka lemonades on ice it is.

His ex-girlfriend posted on Facebook, “EMBRACE THE HEAT” and I’m all, EMBRACE THIS: THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT BE FB FRIENDS WITH YOUR HUSBAND’S EX, BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO READ SHIT LIKE “EMBRACE THE HEAT.”

OMFG, as my son would say. Yes, my seven-year-old says OMFG. Don’t judge me — embrace me. No, don’t. I’m too sweaty.

We still can’t open up the house — it’s 10 degrees hotter outside than in. Why do I not have air, you ask?

“YOU’RE KILLING THE POLAR BEARS.” — my children, in unison

No, for real — it’s because our lameass furnace wouldn’t “support” an air-conditioner and we’d need a whole new one. To the tune of how ever many thousands of bucks I don’t happen to have. Window units? We’d need to re-wire, our wiring is that old. Yep. Embrace that.

Just got back from Night at the Museum 2, All Hell Breaks Loose at the Smithsonian, featuring more monkey slappin’, Amy Adams’ ass, The Thinker’s ass, and Hank Azaria’s large, beefy arms.

Not featuring Carla Gugino, aka the History Hottie, aka the Ben Stiller Love Interest, from the first movie. Apparently she’s too busy with her gig on Entourage to bother. Amy Adams was pretty good though, what with the voluptuous behind and all.

Ben Stiller kinda phoned it in. My kids didn’t seem to notice. The actor who plays his kid in the film should have had a bigger role, he’s a cool kid.

We had dentist appointments, all three of us. Air-conditioning. Then Flying Pie pizza, also air-conditioned. (And my solution to the whole “cooking issue.” This is Steve’s solution. Cheaper than mine, per usual.) Then the movies. Tomorrow we might just melt, but that’s the way it goes here, the land where it just never gets that hot.

food, food, food

July 25th, 2009

What we had for dinner this week:

Sunday: Roasted beets (not purple) and carrots (purple) plus basil from the garden, garlic, new potatoes and onions over brown rice; whole wheat biscuits with butter and honey; cherries.

Monday: Pizza Fino! Garlic knots, Caesar salad, focaccia with bean-pesto dip, cheese pizza, pasta Alfredo, pasta with penne, calzone with red peppers and onions. Bonus points: happy hour menu, so it was all cheap, with leftovers, even.

Tuesday: And, because we just cannot get enough pasta over here… Cheese tortellini with alfredo sauce (five-ingredient recipe), greens, cantaloupe slices. The way I did the greens was sooooo good. Oh my gosh, good. I sauteed diced onions with a couple of teaspoons of spice mix my in-laws found for us — Moroccan Spice Mix, with cilantro, lemon, cumin, paprika, onion, garlic, ginger, pepper, mint, cinnamon, raisins, salt and red chiles. Would you like their website? Cocinadelmundospices.com. I washed and chopped rainbow chard, layered that on top of the onions and spices, poured some water on top, simmered, stirred, covered. Once everything was looking right, I took the lid off and let it all kind of braise. Perfect.

Wednesday: Life fell apart. Again. Thai take-out. (Tsunami Thai, home of the best entree ever known to woman — delicious, salty-sweet mango and salmon over rice.)

Thursday: Have no idea.

Friday: Um. Pizza Fino again.

Saturday: Tsunami Thai. Again.

People, my family and I cannot live on take-out! I have to start cooking! Please advise? It’s supposed to be 100 degrees just about every day next week, I have no air-conditioning and do not feel like heating up the kitchen, my kids refuse to eat anything that isn’t macaroni and cheese. Help? Gazpacho? Our tomatoes aren’t ready yet, but I could buy some.

Also, I am still bummed out about my Grandma and missing her so much. It hasn’t even been three months, but you know our society — “Get over it now, would you? Cuz you’re bumming me out.” Grief just kicks my ass. I am tired and need a flipping break. But the cooking cannot be avoided. Nor can the laundry. Everything else? Too bad, you’ll just have to wait.

xo

wm

ps I finally finished my 663-page textbook I’ve been working on forever. One more test + term paper = done.

pss even though I’m not at BlogHer, i did manage to grab dinner out with my girlfriend, and it was so nice. See? Left the house! Also took the kids to OMSI last week. See? Left the house! Today we launched model rockets. Fun.

the worst mix-tape ever

July 12th, 2009

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…

for my sis and the redheaded guy — best wishes, now and always

July 8th, 2009

hello, insomnia

July 7th, 2009

Cat fight outside (not ours, but you still wonder until you get up and go check), early newspaper delivery (thwack) and where am I? Oh, yeah. This is my room. In my house.

Insomnia. 4 a.m.

And I think we used up the last of the coffee at the beach. I’m askeered to go look. Ack.

We were at the beach! Staying at a beach house! For a few days, even. Isn’t that a thing of beauty? My mom and late, Dear Granny share(d? what do you say after they’re gone? It’s still her birthday, even though we can’t call her to tell her feliz cumpleanos) a birthday. Mine, as you may recall, was a week ago. It was always cool, having them together like that.

But this year is different.

Man. Is this year ever different.

When I called my mom to ask her what she wanted to do (thinking she’d say dinner out, maybe go for a hike…) she surprised me — “Take the kids to the beach!” Well, alrighty. So she rented us a beach house, and we covered the driving, groceries and meals out. It was so rawesome, as my son would say. Rawesome. We haven’t rented a beach house since I was a kid. (Pixie Kitchen, Pixieland, hours on the front porch reading, digging an entrenchment and castles in the sand, walking on the beach forever… fun.) (More pix of Pixieland? Okay, here you go. I’ve linked these before, I love ’em.)

I was convinced that the Dorchester House was the old Pixie Kitchen, until my mom reminded me that it burned down. Denial, denial. It is a beautiful place to go in your head. (I had completely forgotten that it burned down. I’ve also forgotten which motels and hotels we’ve stayed at, our favorites, the best routes to the beach, once you’re there. Our house was great, but the staircase to get beach access was not. Concrete, carved into the hillside, 132 steps from here to there.) And being the Oregon coast, and not say, Carlsbad, California, it was blustery, cold and gray. Fleeces, hats that won’t stay on, long pants…

“Perfect weather!” says Hockey God.

We didn’t do any of the touristy stuff (including, but not limited to: Depoe Bay and the Sea Hag (we did go to Mo’s twice, yay, Mo’s), Newport and the coast aquarium — Wacky Boy is fond of the Oddwater exhibit — Devil’s Punchbowl, agate beach, the outlet stores, the freakin’ casinos… so many options, so little enthusiasm for driving). Steve and I did take a walk one morning and went for coffee. The girl was confused by his double espresso order and wanted to put chocolate or ice in it.

We visited Connie Hansen’s garden, which was, as always, delectable and perfect. They built sand castles and entrenchments, I watched until I got too cold. The news about the tides was right — they have been way out and the tidepools were extraordinary. Steve took some cool photos and I’m hoping he’ll post some. We watched movies, ate like pigs, read, did a puzzle, played games — it was a great weekend.

I read Joyce Carol Oates’s “We Were the Mulvaneys” cover to cover like a madwoman — could not put it down, stayed up late, got up early to finish it. It is her masterpiece. She just got out of the way and let Judd tell his story. Oates, the writer, who is such a strong presence in her own work that you can almost hear her voice sometimes, moved out of the way. It was Judd’s story, and Marianne’s, and Patrick’s. And there was Corinne and her husband, Michael Mulvaney, and their eldest, Michael Jr., who, in that frustrating way of older brothers, was elusive, bigger than life, then just almost there — then gone.

Oates is reliably good, spooky, deep, Gothic, emotional and detached all at once. Her writing means a lot to me, as a writer and as a woman. “Black Water” for instance was so good — years later it is still tucked away in my mind. (This is why I can’t remember our phone number, the password for the voicemail, which buildings have burned and which haven’t — it’s all those books tucked away, taking up space.) Intense book.

Gotta work out, catch y’all later.

Hope everyone had a good Fourth (if you’re in the States and like to blow things up). We loved being away from the fireworks and howling dogs.

xo

wm

happy monday

June 22nd, 2009

Sunday Parkways was a blast yesterday — Steve had a good Father’s Day, I think. We never did run into my Mom and her friend — there were a lot of people out there! We saw a bunch of neighbors and friends we haven’t seen in awhile, that’s always nice. The kids got to play and we hit most of the parks along the way (Peninsula, Arbor Lodge, Trenton, Kenton… fun).

There’s another one planned for July 19 in Northeast, and Aug. 16th in Southeast, so if you’re in the area, go for it. It’s fun to walk it but it’s funner to bike it.

Mother-in-law arrives Thursday for a visit. Must clean (we got most of it done this weekend, but really, when is housework ever “done”? “The house is clean!” is such a lie), need to study, the kids are looking forward to watching a movie later and playing all day long…

All for now. Oh!!! MamaToo had a boy, yay! She hasn’t posted yet. She’s prolly a little busy, huh?

xo

wm

Reading this Week — Kid Books: “The Name of This Book is Secret,” “Love, Stargirl,” “Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go,” “Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck,” “3 Willows,” “Mudshark,” “Alvin Ho,” “The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School,” “The Frost Child,” “Friend or Fiend? with the Pain and the Great One,” AND “Oracles of Delphi Keep”

June 19th, 2009

Whew! That’s right. A ginormous box of books arrived today… SUMMER READING. (more…)

No Snails, At Least

June 17th, 2009

Things I Found in Pockets Yesterday:

a green plastic pin shaped like a bicycle
a guitar pick

Things I Found in Pockets Last Week:

a rusty nail
a quarter

(An occasional series, for Nan. PS — “…and Tobago…” was a clue on Jeopardy last night — we both yelled, “WHAT IS TRINIDAD?” haha. Thanks for the geography lessons, Nan and Beth.)

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