Ass-balls and other news

About eighty million months ago I posted this post about a onesie I was stitching for Adam's sister's fetus. That fetus is now a fat happy baby and I just finished the onesie today.

Only today is 12:20 a.m. on Wednesday, August 12 and I actually finished this onesie on Wednesday, July 29, and said fetus/baby was born on Tuesday, July 28. We all know I'm behind on my posting, but seriously.

I ought to be in bed right now, only I CAN'T STAND GETTING INTO MY COLD AND EMPTY BED WITHOUT MICHAEL.

I'm not co-dependent. I just know what I like. And I like sharing my bed with that big handsome bear of a man.

Sometimes, if I can see the moon, I will look up at it and wonder if he's looking up at it, too. And then I feel really stupid for being such a cheese curl.

It's really kind of amazing the ache I feel with him gone. I miss him so much. So much. SO MUCH. Have I mentioned lately how much I miss him?

Also, I'm really jealous of my sister-in-law because she is getting phone calls from her husband just about every other day. While I? I get a call from her saying, "The boys are doing great!"

And it's my own fault. Because I told Mike, DO NOT CALL ME. IF YOU CALL ME I WILL THINK A BEAR ATE YOU. (Apparently he listens when I talk.) Why did I tell Mike not to call me? Because I thought I was being all supportive and wonderful and giving him space to have uninterrupted magical man-time with his brother. And I hope he is. I really hope he is.

I am in New York and my wonderful nephew is visiting me and if I ever catch up on my posting, you will hear all about my visit to Los Angeles and my wonderful nephew's visit to New York.

If I ever catch up on my posting.

So anyway, would you like to see some close-up shots of my stitching? I took all the photos before I washed the onesie, so not only is it coated in a fine layer of cat hair, like the rest of my life, but the pattern is still showing through. C'est la vie.

7/29/09

To my Papa: Happy 70th Birthday

When they tell the story, they cushion it with the knowledge that little tiny children all go through phases where they favor one parent over the other. Toddlers skip back and forth, unabashedly playing favorites between Papa and Mama. That's what little kids do. But I remember it different.

When he came home at night, it was as if all the terrifying noises in the world followed him. It began with the low rumbling of his car in the garage - a sound that started in the pit of your belly then crawled up your back and into your ears. This rumbling was followed the clap of thunder that was the garage door shutting. And then the thwomp! thwomp! thwomp! of his feet on the floor. Next, a crescendo blast of his booming voice and clattering keys. By then, teensy two-year-old me was quivering with fear. What could possibly make that much noise? I'd think, shivering at Mama's ankles. And then the next thing I knew, I'd be drowning in the shadow of That Loud Man, enormous and grinning, who, with grasping hands and a roaring laugh was reaching down to pick me up and EAT ME. So I'd run screaming to my bedroom and slam the door.

That was how I greeted my father at the end of his day, night after night, for weeks.

I can only begin to imagine how crushing it must be to come home after a long day, so happy to see your baby girl, and when you try to pick her up she bursts into tears and runs off. I know it hurt my father because he says so when he tells the story. "Oh!" He says, clasping his hand over his heart, throwing his head back and grimacing. "It just broke my heart!" And then he laughs because by now it's a funny story. Then my mother will chime in, "We both knew children go through this phase. But it was devastating, nonetheless."

I don't know how he got the idea, if someone suggested it or if he thought it up all on his own. But what he did next might have been the most brilliant maneuver any man has ever made in trying to win over the girl of his heart.

On his way home from work one night, my father stopped in at the local Salvation Army. He picked his way through the dusty racks, collecting a basketful of bright, silken scarves and shimmering costume jewels, wide-brimmed hats and lace fans. And then he found the greatest treasure of all treasures: a pair of scarlet snakeskin pumps.

I remember the night this happened. I remember the rumbling of his car in the garage, the crashing of the door. I remember leaving my doll on the floor and running to hide behind Mama's legs. I remember the door creaking open, his footsteps on the floor. But on this night, the footsteps didn't crash or thwomp. They were softer, subtle. And I didn't hear his booming voice. I didn't hear anything. Mama said hello and then there was quiet. She looked down at me and smiled. What's going on? I wondered. Then I heard a twinkling, a tiny silver jingling, that was his keys on the marble table. And then a rustling, a crinkling, the most wonderful shrinkiling sound I'd ever heard. What is that wonderful sound? I was very curious. I was so curious, I didn't realize I'd left the safety of my mother's shadow. I was so curious, I didn't realize I'd padded all the way out of the kitchen. I didn't notice my knuckles white, gripping the edge of the door, or the strain of my neck as I craned to peek without being seen. All I knew was that I had to know what in the world was making those wonderful sounds. Those crinkling, rustling, murmuring sounds.

It was That Loud Man, not being loud at all. Instead, with his back to me, crouched on the entryway floor, slowly, whisperingly, he drew the most beautiful things from a brown paper bag. I crept closer. Closer. I could smell his cologne. It smelled warm and nice. Comforting. I crept closer. He didn't look at me. He didn't talk. His arm swayed softly as a scarf billowed from his hand. I crept closer. Something glittered as it dropped onto the heap of treasures. I crept closer.

I can imagine the feeling: For weeks your child has run screaming rather than endure your affection, and now, suddenly, she's placed her tiny hand on your knee to keep her balance, and you can feel her hot little breath on your elbow. You can smell the baby-smell of her hair and you can practically hear it when she blinks her saucer-eyes.

If he had the urge to sweep me up and toss me in the air for a hearty Hello, he hid it well. By the time the scarlet shoes came out of the bag, I was trembling with anticipation. Those shoes were the most captivating, stunning objects I had ever seen in my entire, long, two-year-old life.

"Would you like to try these on?" He asked, gently. I nodded my head, eyes wide with wonder. He placed the shoes on the floor so that I could step into them. My hand still on his knee, I lifted one foot, and nearly lost my balance.

"Would you like me to hold your hands while you step into your shoes?"

I looked up at him. He was very handsome. I nodded yes. He held out one giant paw. I gave him both of my hands. Both of my hands fit in his palm. With his help I stepped into the shoes. My heart nearly beat out of my chest. They were the most beautiful shoes I had ever seen in my life. I was wearing the most beautiful shoes in the world.

"What gorgeous shoes!" He grinned. I grinned. "Would you like to dance with me?"

My eyes went even wider. I nodded so fast my head almost popped off. He stood slowly, stooped so that I could keep a hand in his, and we walked to the living room, my handsome Papa and me.

The next night, when I heard that rumbling car, I left my doll on the floor and went running. By the time the twinkling keys hit the marble top, I was standing by the door, a scarf thrown casually around my neck, wearing my red shoes.

"Papa? Dance with me in the liffink room?"

Top 5 Reasons Why Cats Are Awesome

1. They are decorative


2. They give themselves manicures



3. They add pizazz to boring furniture


4. They leave you presents "just because"


And #5 ....

5. They teach you lessons about NOT leaving your brand-new iPod headphones lying around


psssst! you can click on any of those pics if you wanna see em bigger, k? K.

Dead Things: Or Why Poompy Loves Me

If you've ever been to my Flickr account, you know my fascination with dead things. Sadly, since I've gotten kind of used to living in NYC, I've stopped carrying my camera with me everywhere I go, so now I regularly miss good photo opportunities with the city's beautiful dead. Which just drives me nuts. I'll be walking down the street and I'll see a squashed rat and I'll stop in my tracks, squat on the pavement for a closer look, dig through my purse for my camera and then curse myself for leaving the camera at home. And then a moment passes as I'm squatting on the sidewalk hovering over the rotting carcass of some poor creature, where I seriously consider putting the thing in my pocket so that as soon as I get home I can take a picture of it. Or, if the thing is REALLY dried out, perhaps I can bring it home and just ... save it. Maybe to put in a frame at some later date*. How cool would that be? I think. But then the practical side of me (yes, I have one too) takes over and I realize how upset Poompy will be if he finds out I've stuck this dead rat or pigeon or sparrow or whatever in my pocket and brought it into our tenement. So I sigh, wistfully, and walk away, knowing I'll never have the opportunity to photograph that particular dead thing ever again.

A couple of weeks ago Jen brought Sexy Sadie into work with her for the afternoon. Sadie is a good little doggy, so she has free run of the spa when she's there. A few hours into the work day, I hear Jen screaming in the back. Before I have a chance to see what's going on, she's running up front with Sadie in her arms. "Oh my god! Is my dog's face OK? You'll never believe what just happened!" Sadie's face looked fine, so I follow Jen into the back room where there are two sprung mouse traps on the floor - one of them with a dried out little mouse in it. Apparently, Jen had gone in to check on Sadie and found her crunching on something which turned out to be the mummified mouse in the trap. (Jen was worried that the empty trap had sprung on Sadie's face, but we've since decided that it probably wasn't empty when Sadie found it. If you know what I mean.) So here I am, at work, with a lovely dead thing and no camera. I took a deep breath, looked at Jen and said, "Can I take it home?"

ÅND SHE DIDN'T MIND. You have no idea how thrilled I was to be able to take that little dead mousy home. We put him in a biohazard bag (it was the only plastic bag with a seal that we had around) and put that in a Dean & Deluca bag. I was worried Mr. Mouse would just crumble up if I stuck him loose in my purse. I had a lot going on that night, so I wasn't able to photograph him right away. Instead, he stayed in his baggies on top of my fridge. Until Poompy found him.

We're in the bitchen** getting ready for bed when Poompy asks me, "Hey, what's in this Dean & Deluca bag? Did you get cupcakes?" And because at the core of my being I'm actually quite cruel, I respond, "It's a treat I picked up for you. Open it!" He opened the bag, looked inside, looked up at me, grinned, put the bag back on top of the fridge and said, "I should've known," And that was that.

Does that mean I have permission to bring home dead things?



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*In an envelope inside a box on the top shelf of a closet in the tenement is a dead frog that my parents sent me in the mail about ... oh gee, I guess that's nearly two years ago now. He's beautifully dried and quite gorgeous, really. I'm just waiting to find the time (and money) to bring him to a shop to have him framed. I think he'll look really nice in one of those glass, shadow-box type deals. A real conversation-starter, you know?

**You didn't forget about our bitchen, did you?

New York - the 411 (Frosty Version)

My mamacita is totally dying to get all the deets on my recent "vacation", and just in case you are too, I am providing them here.

But first, let me explain that the reason I put "quotation marks" around the word "vacation" is because while I certainly "felt" like I was on a "vacation", I never actually "left" my "tenement". I mean, I totally left the tenement "every" day, but then at "night" I "slept" there. As "opposed" to sleeping in a "hotel". Which is "why" it was a "vacation" instead of a vacation. And now I'm "just" using "quoatation marks" at "random" to be annoy"ing".

Now here are the details.

But first, (I know, you can't stand the anticipation) let me tell you why I had a "vacation". Because it was my birthday! And my Best Fried Dopey came to visit from LA as my present which also makes her my Best Fried Present. AND she wrote all about her trip here. So... read it. Now. And then come back and finish reading this.

K. Details. Below. Now. For Reals. Right after now. Now. Now.

THURSDAY, MY BIRTHDAY: I woke up and ate breakfast. Then I went to yoga with Poompy. Then I took a shower. Then -

Whoa. Sorry. That's really boring. You don't really want to know all that crap. K. I'll start with when Dopey showed up on my stoop and I was all excited and stuff and she gave me a big ol' hug and I was like, WHOA! Why is she touching me? And then I remembered that people in Los Angeles don't think it's weird to hug, so then I was all like, WHOA! Awesome! And I hugged her back. Then I gave her a tour of the tenement and then we exchanged birthday presents. First, Dopey gave me a gift from my BFF Shmadam, which was freaking awesome (I love you Schmadam) and then, even though she TOTALLY didn't have to get me a present because she WAS my present (seriously, flying 3,000 miles to spend my birthday with me is the best present EVER, no offense Shmadam, I know you know what I mean) she gave me a copy of The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham. I'm really excited to read it because I know it is a book that has a lot of meaning for her and I think it will carry a lot of meaning for me, too. But I'm in the middle of reading Poompy's book right now, so it will have to wait a bit as it is impossible for me to read more than one book at a time. I'm just not one of those people.

Anyway, so then we headed off into Times Square (read: The Dunkin Donuts in Times Square) for some sight-seeing (read: coffee drinking). We eventually ended up on the same block that Poompy works on, so I brought her by the restaurant just to say hi, but the owner found out it was my birthday and so he forced us to sit down, and then he forced us to enjoy some delicious shrimp cocktail (I got Dopey to eat shrimp cocktail for like, the first time EVER. And she LOVED it. Contrary to her belief, it does NOT taste like bugs) and then he forced us to have several cocktails. ALL on the house. What a mean, mean man. (Read: Awesome, awesome man.) So now, we're all like, tipsy and stuff and Poompy was done with work, so the three of us hopped onto the subway and headed uptown to have dinner with friends at my favorite antipasto bar. (By the way, Sibley. Just so you know, Dopey was totally slick in both the purchasing of and the swiping of her metro card. She was faster than Poompy!) We had a lovely dinner that included a birthday song and some molten cake, and then we crashed at Jen's apartment to watch the newest Grey's Anatomy. Which was kind of lame. But that's OK, because the evening was freaking awesome. And then we went home. And cleaned up dog pee. Well, Poompy and I cleaned up dog pee and Dopey brushed her teeth for about forty minutes.

FRIDAY: We set out early (is 2 p.m. early?) for some shopping and sight-seeing. We walked past Radio City Music Hall, we admired the Chrysler Building (from afar), we wandered in Rockefellar Center and laughed at the ice skaters that fell on their asses, and then I took her to Starbucks (because I'm pretty sure they don't have those in LA) and then we did some hardcore 5th Ave shopping. 5th Ave had no idea what to expect. You see, Dopey and I are Master Shoppers. We have developed some pretty amazing skillz when it comes to shopping together. Seriously. We're Ninja Shoppers. Unicorn Shoppers. Magical Fairy Shoppers. I mean, even alone we're pretty good, but when we're together.... man oh man. The shop clerks didn't even know what hit them.

After several hours of exercising our Shopping Muscles we were STARVED so we went for dinner at Patsy's and then we walked over to Serendipity 3 for their famous frozen hot chocolate. And HOLY CRAP that stuff was good. Except for the 435 lb woman who stared at my frozen hot chocolate the ENTIRE time I was sipping it, the whole experience was lovely. We spent the rest of the evening shop-shop-shoppping, even though we could barely waddle what with our full bellies and all. By the time we got home, we literally passed out from Shopping Exhaustion. OH! I almost forgot. I also took Dopey to see the Statue of Liberty that day!

K, between you, me, and the lamppost, I know that that is not the "real" Statue of Liberty. Dopey was confused at first, because she expected it to be bigger and someone had told her it was on an island, but then I told her that people were much smaller in the olden days, and that made the statue "seem" bigger. And that the island it's on is really the island of Manhattan. (Even though we all know it's really on Brooklyn. Geez.)  She totally bought it. So don't say anything to her, k? I just didn't feel like a trip to Brooklyn while she was here and I thought taking her to one of the plaster rip-offs in Times Square would be WAY easier. Besides. I don't know. I've never really been to Brooklyn.

SATURDAY: We hit the 10:30 a.m. yoga class at my yoga studio and then we spent a good two hours or so primping. Well... I did. I'm not sure what Dopey was doing. OH! She was chatting with me. Duh. That's why I took so long! She was distracting me. Ha. When I finally looked pretty, we headed uptown. We did a little shopping along the way - Dopey bought a kick ass mood ring that provided hours of entertainment (though I hear it has since given her finger a most attractive green hue.) I walked her past the Dakota, through Central Park, we stopped at W******* to say hi to the girls and so I could show Dopey where I work, and then we stopped at Dunkin Donuts, shared a grilled cheese "sandandwich" from a bodega and stopped to ogle the apartment building which was used as the facade for Holly Golightly's apartment building in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Then, since we were right there, we walked through the first neighborhood I lived in when I first moved to NY. It was strange to be there - it's been nearly a year now! Anyhow, we couldn't wander for too long because we needed to primp for my birthday party. And you KNOW how long it takes me to primp. So we got home, and primped and primped and I tried on eight different outfits, some of which belonged to Dopey, and when we were finally ready, we took a cab downtown for my party which gave us a nice little driving tour of Chelsea and the Village - I was able to point out Hotel Chelsea, you know, where Sid stabbed Nancy. My birthday party was freaking awesome. Lots of good friends showed up, and those who couldn't were missed. But all the same, it was a fantastic night. Except for the part where a drag queen projectile vomited all over the stage and then masturbated a rubber penis. Except for that part, it was really a fantastic night.

SUNDAY: We woke up bright and early and went to yoga. HA! Yeah right! We slept until after noon more like it! (My birthday party had kept us out past 4 a.m. the night before. That morning? Whatever.) We'd both really wanted to go to Glennis's Dance Dance Party Party, but it started at 2 and Dopey didn't think bouncing around with a severe hangover would be good for ANYONE. So instead, we took the mutts to the dog park for a bit. Dopey got peed on and the Chiremlin tried to start a fight. But that isn't unusual. After that we were in dire need of greasy food and coca-cola, so we got some and curled up in my living room to watch 'Into the Wild'. We eventually got our butts in gear to get to Jen's for game night....but that just turned into a bunch of girl talk (sorry Sibley) and no actual game playing was had.

MONDAY: We went down to Union Square, the lower east side and then to SoHo this day. Did some more shopping, ate some more good food (Red Bamboo, introduced to me by JT), and had some more Dunkin D. We had to head back early to meet Sibley for a top secret mission by 7. Unfortuantely it fell through, but we managed to have a good time sitting in a coffe shop and having some seriously NSFW conversations TOTALLY worthy of overheardinnewyork. Did someone say DVDA?!?!? Then, to culminate the vacation, Dopes and I rented a few chick flicks, made some crispy treats and had a pillow fight in our panties.

You sicko. We SO did not do that. I've never had a pillow fight with anyone other than my brothers in my ENTIRE life. And all participants were fully clothed. Dopes and I DID rent chick flicks and we DID make crispy treats but the rest of the evening was spent curling our hair, cuddling stuffed animals and talking about boys.

TUESDAY: Sibley, Dopey and I reconvened for our top secret mission. Well, we had breakfast first and introduced Sibley to the "LA" idea of on-time...you know...45 minutes late. (Totally Dopey's fault.) After the mission was accomplished we had some more coffee talk and then it was time for Dopey to leave. And once she was gone, I sat down on my bitchen floor and sobbed. Because, for a moment, I could not remember WHY I am so far away from the ones I love.

I have the BEST Poompy EVER

He just gave me my birthday present and it's something I've wanted for years.

Guess what it is!

No, it isn't a dead animal. No, it's not a shiny piece of charcoal either. It's a pair of 20-hole Doc Martens! I really do have the best Poompy in the world.

In case....

.....anyone was wondering what to get me for Christmas........

I mean, it totally takes you back to your childhood, right? It would just be soooo cozy.... sigh.

Click here, silly! To see what I'm talking about!