Reviewed today:

It pains me to say this, Internet. But until I picked up a copy of “When French Women Cook,” Madeleine Kamman’s “gastronomic memoir” from 1976, I did not know how to make a pie crust. I longed to make blueberry pie. Apple. Chocolate. Lemon meringue! (That would have been a dazzling feat, requiring both the pie crust and the meringue, which I also didn’t know how to make.) Now, I can make a pie crust. No, I won’t tell you the tricks — you just have to buy a copy of this book or get it at the library.

Bon appetit!

Anna Jane Hays (author) and Linda Davick (illustrator) have put together the sweetest little book, “Kindergarten Countdown.” (Ms. Hays spent 29 years with Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop.)

Wacky Boy’s review: “I don’t want to read any more of those books.”

So I read it by myself. It’s a rhyme book, and goes over everything a kindergartener-to-be might be thinking about: backpacks, lunches, saying the ABC’s, sneezing, games and writing. The illustrations are adorable. Don’t be put-off by my son — he is just not interested in anything that is unrelated to dinosaurs or snakes. The book came with a little sheet of stickers — I think he’ll like those.

Who’s Rumi? Not Raffi! Rumi! The Sufi mystic Rumi is what is getting me through this first month of school. I really appreciate his works.

“Move Within”
Rumi

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

Namaste.

WM

This morning I tell my daughter, “Get up, daughter, and get dressed.”

She tells me, “You do not need to pick out my clothes.”

Me: “As if I would.”

I then tell my son, “Get up, son, and get dressed.”

He is now upstairs shouting, “It’s not rocket science! Big bacon! Big, big, big, fire bacon! Bacon on fire!” Then bursts into a rousing chorus of “Big, Big, Big, Big Water” from “Land Before Time XXIV.” (Or whatever one it’s from. There are so many sequels, all with singing dinosaurs.)

Here’s a good one from Anna. (Thanks to Stu from Grasshopper for the link.)

And no, if you’re wondering, I’m not writing about my son, my baby, going off to kindergarten. Things aren’t going as smoothly as hoped for.

But it’s only the second day.

Well, look who was quoted in the Portland Tribune today — that’s right. Hockey God, aka my husband, Steve-o.

I haven’t spent a lot of time at Humboldt, but the times I have been there, I’ve been impressed. (Do you remember that post, you old-timers to this blog? My legs were bruised for weeks. Harsh toke.)

(Now that we’re being interviewed by the media — and by “we” I mean Steve — do I have to stop saying things like “harsh toke”? How about “ride the fucking six pack”? Where do you stand on that? How do you feel about the “f” word? Hmm. Will ponder. Leave me a note in comments if you’d like.)

And Humboldt — excellent work, you guys.

(If you’re interested in more PPS archives, right here is where I started bitching up a storm about a little $5.2 million dollar grant that wasn’t getting spent in the Jefferson Cluster. And right here is where you’ll find a Willamette Week story about all the hard work Lynn Schore has been doing to track said grant money. And right here is where you’ll find one of the money maps my husband has put together.)

“How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward.”
– Spanish proverb

My little tiny son started kindergarten today. I am crying.

wm

You’ll find a post from me that will make you itch if you click here.

“Two of this baby equals one of yours!” — nurse in the hospital, holding up a five-pounder next to my daughter’s bassinet

Ten pounds two ounces of baby love! That was you, Wacky Girl. Happy birthday, sweetie — you’ll always be my big girl.

love,

Mama

Thursday 13ers and Usual Suspects,

Are you thinking to yourself, “You know what WM needs to do? The girl needs to become a Sunday School teacher!”??? Were you really? Because I was, too. Spooky!

13 reasons i became a sunday school teacher
by Wacky Mommy

1) I couldn’t find a “real” job

2) If you saw how disorganized I truly am (well, maybe you have a clue, given how random this blog is), you’d realize I really need to throw some stability into my paperwork and life. Lesson plans! A set schedule! A need to wear grown-up clothes!

3) My husband thinks it’s sexy. Meow.

4) I pawned off my children on my unsuspecting mother today, so I was free. FREE! Freeeeeeeeeeee… Mom, thank you, you rock, Mom. I bought myself some take-out for lunch, then I watched a little of “One Life to Live” and a little of “General Hospital.” (Both dull, I am sorry to report. Can we sex it up a little, soaps? Because, damn.)

I was looking through the Good Vibrations sex toys catalog, after I watched “Weeds” on DVD, after I got bored with the soaps. Then I had an iced coffee.

When your children are away for the day, it is good to multi-task.

Then I went to Teacher Training tonight at church! People, it is the little quirks and turns in life that make it beautiful.

5) Also, the church staff asked (read: begged) for volunteers, cuz we were way short on teachers. They needed me!

6) Teaching is stressful, it turns out, and you know what a little stress biscuit I am. High on Stress! (I used to have a T-shirt that said that.)

7) Who needs sex on Sunday mornings when you can go teach 20 little wildcats all about music, love, Zen principles and Earth Day?!?

8) That’s right. I go to a hippie church. An all-inclusive, extremely accepting, gay-friendly, “fudge-packin’, crack-smokin’, Satan-worshippin’ motherfucker” church. (That’s from Nirvana, remember them? Their “good boy” T-shirt said “flower sniffin’, kitty pettin’, baby kissin’ corporate rock whores.”)

Because where else would I fit in? When you see the church-folk marching at the peace rallies here, right behind the No War Drum Corps, that is my church. I love my church. And I would like to say thank you to the drum corps, if they’re reading, for fricking rippin’ it up all the time. (They start off with the drums, we start marching, my daughter asks, “Mommy, why are all those police there?” and points to the 200 cops on bikes. I say, “To escort us!” and off we go.)

9) I like kids. I think they deserve love, peace and no wars. I think that little kids, Iraqi kids especially, deserve for their grandparents to not be killed by the U.S. government. I think the U.S. government should get behind this sentiment. “War Kills Grandmas” was a slogan Wacky Girl came up with, all on her own. I was very proud, the day she dreamed that one up.

I know I gripe about kids all the time, and puzzle over their crazy antics, but at the heart of it? I like kids. I want them to be happy, and know we care about them.

10) We do fun stuff at church, too, not just political and educational stuff. We make art. Read. Have potlucks and picnics. Give each other flowers. Do the baby tree dance around the courtyard.

11) I like the other teachers, they’re kooky.

12) One word: snacks and juice.

13) God loves me.

Eh, it’s like my old roommate told me, after seeing the Mona Lisa on free day at the Louvre: “Talk about your unwashed masses, babe.” Yeah, that’s pretty much Oaks Amusement Park in Southeast Portland on one of the last days of summer before school starts. (Would you like e-mails from Chipper, the park’s mascot? Sign up here!)

I have never particularly liked Oaks. The rides, the cotton candy, the dirty boys who work there, the roller skating. Not my trip. We are ice skaters here, you know that, right? The organ music is enough to give me a screeching migraine. The only good part about Oaks is that we usually go for Salvadorian food after at El Palenque. (If you get the enchiladas or taco salad there, you will be happy. Especially if you get a strawberry margarita, Negra Modelo or horchata, too. But you will be missing out on the fried plantains, black beans and sweet cream, and the loroco pupusas with fresh slaw and salsa. Dear God, I miss living by El Palenque.)

I liked the Willamette River below Oaks Park plenty when I was a teenager. Because, as you probably have already guessed, I was a teenage girl. (more…)

An interview with our neighbor’s friend’s kid, E, who recently moved from New York to Seattle.

WM: When did you move to Seattle?

E: I moved to Seattle in June 2nd of 2007. This year. Before that, I lived in New York, in Astoria, Queens.

WM: So, did you ever meet the guys from “Entourage”?

E: Answer: No. (more…)