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

“this next one… is the first song… on our new album, which just came out this week! it’s called surrender.” — robin zander

did you know that the first concert i ever saw was Cheap Trick opening for Kiss? that was in Portland. i was 12. my mom let me do whatever i wanted. that was good by me, because i had a lot of friends and a lot of plans.

steve’s first concert was Cheap Trick in Iowa City, when he was 14.

steve: “Doesn’t Rick Nielsen look like Barney Fife here?” (yes.)

no wonder we get along so good, it’s kismet. kissmet!

“When I woke up, Mom and Dad were rolling on the couch
Rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records out”

our kids can relate to the whole “mommy’s alright/daddy’s alright/they just seem a little weird” part.

“When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.” — Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)

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

Seriously frickin’ grouchy. I lost my uterus, I sold my house, i moved into a new house, I got unassigned at my job, which means I might (or might not!) lose my job, I lost my beloved, crazy granny, all in the last 12 months. That is too much for a 12-month span of time. Stupid grief, menopause, inflexibility, old habits, and my need to have total control over everything, argh.

I forgot it was late opening and we woke up an hour and a half earlier than we needed to. No, that doesn’t mean that I managed to work out. I did do laundry, though. (thanks Ms. Honeybutt for getting my kid to school, since I had to start work before his school day started.)

Also, I lost the DVDs that were due back at the library. (I know, I know, the irony of a librarian misplacing her library materials is not lost on me. It can happen to the best and the worst of us, folks.) (They’re renewed. For now.)

I’ve lost all kinds of little, medium and big things in the move. We have different voicemail now and I can’t figure out how to work it. (I figured it out! “Press 3, message deleted!” OK, one small triumph.)

Jesus.

It’s five o’clock somewhere, right? In Idaho? It’s 5 o’clock in Idaho. I’m pouring a glass of wine, see you in the moonlight.

— wm

Edited at 9:04 p.m. to say, Thanks, y’all. Thanks, cuz those comments cheered me up and made me laugh so hard that now…

…this is me!

Right here. (As you may recall, I’ve been blogging about this for a little while.)

Y’know, if I wasn’t so busy helping the kids with homework, starting dinner, trying to get the rest of our house unpacked so I could get at least one of the vehicles into the damn garage… I would respond to this crap.

Instead, I think I will celebrate NAWACOTID, one day early.

Cheers!

— wm, your favorite little radical

Hyperbole and a Half, do you know this blog? You should walk over right now and introduce yourself.

happy weekend.

xo

me

Reading this week:

Man, oh, man, I guess I felt like a couple of good cries this week. I’ve been reading nothing but young adult fiction, and found three great books. I picked up a copy of “Letters From Rifka,” by Karen Hesse, that I had on hold at the library. The library is great this way. I wasn’t planning on reading anything too heavy this week, but the book showed up, and I was ready for it. I read “Letters From Rivka” straight through and bawled my eyes out. It’s the story of a young Jewish girl in 1919, who is fleeing Russia for America. It’s good historical fiction, but is based on the story of the author’s auntie, Lucy Avrutin, and “this story is, above all else, Aunt Lucy’s story,” says the author.

After that, of course I had to read another Hesse book — this time, her best-known work (and Newbery award winner) “Out of the Dust.” Billie Jo’s story is written in stanza — the poetry is beautiful. She lives in Depression-era Oklahoma, loses her mother and baby brother in a horrible accident, and her father, in his grief, disappears into himself.

Both of the Hesse books are horrifying, and she doesn’t pull any punches, but life is like that sometimes, isn’t it? And she does do a little bit of deus ex machina at the end, but life is like that sometimes, too, eh? Hesse has written a number of books, and I’ve heard that all of her stuff is good. I get worried, sometimes — I get protective of kids and don’t want to expose them to anything too harsh. But sometimes we can better prepare ourselves for “real” life, reading about harsh realities in a book.

Besides — like my own kids always tell me, “It’s only a book.”

Ha.

“The Candy Shop War,” by Brandon Mull (who wrote the “Fablehaven” series) is a twisted little novel for kids and my daughter and I both enjoyed the heck out of it. I don’t want to give anything away, but kids + magic candy + evil witchy candy shop owner + nice ice cream man (or is he?) = excellent read. They’re making a movie out of this one — we’re eager to see how they film it. Lots of great, candy-colored images, coming to life.

Happy Saturday!

— wm

did you think i fell off the face of the Earth? i did! it was great.

naw, Hockey God (who really needs to put up a new post, no?) was getting us all set up with better, bigger, faster Internet, something about co-axial and CAT and hours on hold w/ the cable company. This also involved him climbing into the fiberglass insulation-filled crawl space and, it appears, re-wiring a whole lot of wires. He is The Man, you already knew that. Now we’re live! And better, bigger and faster than ever!

i love the new house. i love the new neighbors, the new neighborhood, the kids’ new school. i love walking up the street to get my mail, or go for a hike in the woods. I like biking down the street and going on the trails. i like knowing that the farmers markets will open next month. i like that Hockey God surprised me with a huge basket of fuchsias and trailing things, even though it’s not Mother’s Day yet. (I get baskets and baskets of fuchsias for Mother’s Day, i am always so thrilled by that.)

i am happy that Ally-girl and her sweet husband had their baby and he is just fat and gorgeous, and that Vixen and her hubs are new grandparents again.

i’m happy that it’s spring, everything’s pink and green and blooming and lovely and… happiness.

love and happiness.

xo

wm