Mumbling Madly

I shoveled cat poop out of my bulb beds…it’s no wonder nothing is growing where the cat turds lie–that and I’m not sure if they’re getting enough sun. I talked to Hobbes about how inappropriate it is of her to poop on my bulbs. Sure, it might very well be other cats and I understand we don’t do the greatest job of cleaning out her litter, but still…(Side note: I recently taught a three-year-old boy whose name is Hobbes. I almost said, ‘that’s my cat’s name!’ but realized I shouldn’t plague him with the comment that’s probably going to follow him throughout his life).

I hacked away a little bit at the shrubs that separate our property from the sidewalk. They’re getting tall and out of control–they also serve as trash receptacles. Using a dull clipper was dumb: It hurt and was slow. An electric bush trimmer popped into my head: how great would that be? Just pull a string and RRRRRRR there goes the overgrowth. Maybe I could even start shaping the bushes into animals like Ed Scissorhands.

Josh made Chicken Pot Square the other night. I’m always pretty thrilled when Josh decides to cook. A friend of his served it to him recently and he got the recipe because Josh loves naughty food. Of course it involves puff pastry, canned vegetables, chicken, and Cambell’s cream of rice soup. Of course the pastry makes it that much more FANTASTIC and we wolf it down while watching Children of Men. The movie makes my stomach hurt, a dismal portrait of our future where everyone gets shot, the kind of sci-fi that makes me cringe. I leave and return to my latest book The Time Traveler’s Wife which is SO GOOD and everyone should rush out and read it right now. After the movie is over I convince Josh to walk to Safeway so we can buy Dreyer’s Low Fat ice cream bars.

I am ecstatic that it is a three day weekend. I am thrilled, overjoyed, and I revel in it. I clean my kitchen floor by skating across it with old towels, (my mop has disappeared). I’m planning my 30th birthday–cupcakes, coffee, and crafts. I wasn’t sure about the crafts but I brought it up to KT and now she is insisting we paint blocks of wood on my lawn. This is fine. I want it to be joyous and fun. Josh made a comment to me, like, “Sexiest thirty-year-old I know” and I had a quick second where I thought, “What the hell is he talking about? Sexiest thirty-year-old? Oh, right, he means ME. I’m almost thirty.” It doesn’t help that my sister is in Portugal right now…I feel old and out of touch. I feel like I’m missing something huge by never having been to Europe…or Asia…or anywhere else other then Canada.

The yard is our Memorial Day mistress, always calling to us from outside: weed me, feed me, give me flowers! And so, we awoke bright and early with many a hope to shop at the wholesale florist down the street from where I work. My job has a wholesale account there and I had huge plans of stocking up on pots and plants for the weekend…only the jerks were closed for Memorial Day weekend. Even though their phone message said they would be open Saturday morning, 6am-10am. AAARG! I was so disappointed.

Josh and I made up for it by getting coffee at Bulldog News, buying the new Star Wars stamps while at the post office, and hitting the best farmer’s market ever in the U District. I bought another tomato plant start and woefully commented on my lack of pot for the plant. I bought some little lettuce starts in the hopes that maybe the ancient compost garden behind the house near the alleyway is actually decent planting soil. I bought overpriced tomatoes just cuz I was so excited to see them…and Fuji apples. The musician tent held a single solitary girl strumming a guitar and she sang, I’m not kidding, Puff the Magic Dragon over and over again.

We went to Nordstrom and I am officially trying out the new seamless panty by Felina. That’s right, zero lines. It sort of hovers on you, in a weird way, and while I’m not sure I can dance in them I think they’ll work great for my usual day to day. I realized that I have to wear dance pants M-F. I usually bring them to work and change into them. With all the fancy new svelte fabrics being used it’s almost impossible to avoid underwear lines. We’ll see if Felina can prove that wrong.

On our way to Trader Joe’s I spotted a ‘garage sale’ on the grass median near an apartment complex. I found a big red terra cotta planter! And a baby planter too! Hurrah! I bought both planters for $1.50. Now my tomato start has a home! The world works in mysterious ways.

When we got home, (and after I potted my tomato plant) I cheerfully went to work on a patch of grass next to the house near one of my gutters. The soil was fabulously rich and full of worms. I am determined to grow bulbs–a few in the front have survived and the joy of watching them grow is pretty exciting for this novice gardener. My shovel scraped the side of the house and a piece of it broke off! Now granted, it was crappy wood board put up to cover the fact that our house sits on stilts. Frantically I tried to prop the piece back where it was in the attempt to hide the evidence. It broke in my hands. I sadly called Josh outside to survey the five inch hole in the house. He was a good sport. We put a piece of wood over the hole and casually dumped potting soil against it. I planted my bulbs (hopefully they’ll turn into lilies!). The hole is hidden. It’s our secret.

We continued to attack at the patch near the alleyway. The ivy is dying on the tree and yet it still grows throughout this old compost pile. Josh took the shovel and uprooted all this old garbage, bleh. The fantasy of having something really beautiful back here is wavering. Now we just need a nice plant that will reproduce fast and hold its own against ivy, rocks, and candy wrappers. Later that day Josh gingerly went through another patch of ivy in the front of the house next to the sidewalk. He found an ancient pair of panties. That’s right: PANTIES. I’m not sure if this is worse then the enormous used condom or the rolled up maxi pad I found last month. Either way we’re trying not to think about it…

My sister is/was a painting major…but she also dabbled in sculpture and she’s been writing zines for eight years. For her senior thesis, she interviewed 10 people about what they thought about feminism, body issues, sexism in society, their achievements, and wherever else the conversation might lead to. She created a piece for each individual–a painting, drawing, or sculpture. Then she published her interviews in a zine (which she’ll be selling at 2007 Zine Symposium alongside my Kindergarten Underground Vol. 2).

It’s important to note that all of her drawings and paintings were huge, 5 ft by 4 ft renderings. Most of the paintings were mounted on wood. I’m pretty sure the drawings were done with pastels:

I’m so proud of my sister. Her work stood out amongst the tons of other graduates in the gallery. I’m steadily making my way through her zine, and while it’s difficult, (she reveals very personal information about herself), it’s truly a remarkable piece of work. Maybe, her best zine ever…

Check out the hands on this fellow; Gina said he has a degenerative disease that effects his limbs. I think she truly captured that in this illustration:

Here’s the lucky lady getting ready to graduate:

I know I’ve already mentioned this but words can’t describe how proud I am of my sister. I’ve already offered my house for an art showing in the Fall. Gina plans on moving Seattle for a year before applying to grad schools and I want to support her as much I can.
Sigh…they grow up so fast.

My sister graduated with flying colors this last weekend from a very well known private art school in Portland, OR. We are rediculously proud of her and the weekend went by way too fast.

Gina is not only graduating but she is leaving for a THREE MONTH trip to Europe on Wednesday. Of course she’s not entirely prepared and we briefly hit the mall to look for supplies. The Portland mall scene has recently incorporated public service announcements with an education-y feel to them:

My mother’s side of the family was there for the celebration; this includes two aunts and an uncle we only get to see on special occasions like graduations. We had an enormous dinner at a chinese restaurant in the Hawthorne district. We’ve been eating their food since we were kids and Hawthorne wasn’t such a hipster destination.

My dad ordered ten dishes–half of them were very thoughtfully vegetarian for the vegan mistress of the hour. Sam and Erin had me take their picture a whole bunch so they could pick one for their wedding announcements. I feel like the one I captured at the Fujin was probably the best one:

Sam bought Gina a half dozen vegan cupcakes from Saint Cupcake, the new royale of Portland. I hate to say it, but they rival what we have in Seattle.

Sammy very thoughtfully treated me to my own cupcake experience after dinner. Here is Gina standing next to the huge story of Saint Cupcake written on the wall (it looks like she has a horn!)

I’m so proud of my sister!  Stay tune for pictures from her stellar senior thesis entitled “10 Feminists”…and as a bonus here is my brother and my aunt sharing a beer my brother tapped from the fridge/kegerator in his garage:

I just got home from the closing night of the high school musical I co-choreographed.  It was amazing, I hardly stayed in my seat.  I hooted and hollered during the whole thing, shouting out, “YAAAY!” whenever the performers executed a lovely tourjete (we worked HARD on those jumps, I tell you they’re not easy).  The kids brought us up on-stage and gave us flowers and I, ah, got to hug the leading man.
The co-choreographer brought up a story I had forgotten to tell:  I inadvertently cast a very inexperienced actress as the Old Lady.  She’s very tall for her age and still trying to figure out what ‘old’ really means.  She was too old…she became decrepit.  I told her that she needed to make her old lady character a little more hip…a little less ‘old’, like The Golden Girls. She looked at me blankly. I repeated loudly, “You know…the Golden Girls?” She had no idea what I was talking about and I was hurled into the depths of old-dom. So then I had to think of a pop culture icon who was feisty and old. Who did I come up with? Grandpa Simpson. She got it.

I’m heading out this weekend for my baby sister’s college graduation.  Stay tuned…

Josh and I were taking our standard walk (in the sun!) when a big dog trotted amicably up to us. It became apparent that he was lost. We called the number on his pet license and took him home while we waited for either his owner to call or the humane society to come pick him up. We were concerned his owners might be out of town and we are currently ill-equipped to house a dog for any long period of time. The pet licensees told us his name was “Bear.”

Bear was really happy for the most part. He drank a tupperware full of water and ate kitty treats with no problem. Because he was huge and slobbery we hung out with him on the front porch. Hobbes had serious concerns:

Luckily Bear’s owners called us before the dog catcher came. He was very thankful…so was our cat.

Attacked a savage batch of ivy consuming one of our only trees in the backyard. To the tune of our neighbor’s wailing Chihuahuas, Josh and I donned gloves and impractical shoes as we began, what we thought, to be a mild outdoor project. Vintage beer cans were found hidden in its innards; the ivy had begun to break apart our wooden fence. It consumed an ancient piece of wire, a retired compost pile, and most of the tree trunk. We look at this patch by our alleyway every day when we pull in and out of our parking pad. Watching the slow demise of the tree and the fence nearby was becoming too painful. Josh and I attacked it with vigor, taking out all our aggressions on pulling the vines off the bark and freeing the tree from its captor. We filled bin after bin with ivy, hacking at the big pieces with clippers and destroying the ivy down to the root. Ivy is really like an enormous weed, consuming and healthy yet devilish and manipulative.

This is the first time I’ve really felt like my gardening was worth something. The last place we lived in I took pride in pulling the weeds, mowing occasionally, and “dead-heading” the rodies. Looking at the sorry shape our old place is in now with its current owners I realize we actually did a fair amount…well versus doing nothing I suppose.
I planted bulbs a few weeks ago, and a few of them are actually sprouting up through the poor soil I planted them in. I bought two more bags of bulbs on sale at Home Depot over the weekend in addition to a bag of organic, composted, soil. I bought a tomato sprout at the Farmer’s Market and dumped it into the same old cracked pot I used last year. I watched the ineffectual nature of weed and feed on our infested grass.  Our yard seems so big and yet I know it’s really not…there’s just so much we want to do.

Josh has been working 7pm to 5am this entire week and while it’s fun to pretend to be a single gal living it up in my big house, the novelty has worn off. The first few days of multi-tasking, getting a massage, taking class, making jewelry, watching movies has now lapsed into aimless wandering. Oh sure, I’m still making jewelry and experimenting with painting blocks of wood. But I’m a big baby when it comes to sleeping alone, and I look forward to Josh’s return to a normal schedule.
At work I baby-sat a six month old who was charming for ten minutes and then spent a half hour roaring with tears over a stomach ache. He cried until he was purple, he cried until he got the hiccups, he cried until his little fist became balls, his sobs switched to random bursts as I pumped his back with my hand and walked him up and down the wheelchair ramp of our building. Multiple co-workers aided me in the struggle and it was certainly confirmed: he was constipated. Forty five minutes later his mother apologized, saying she hadn’t slept in two days due to his stomach troubles. The batteries were promptly removed from my maternal clock.

A few weeks ago an unhappy customer at the studio threatened me, “I’m a blogger.” She said this menacingly, as if she had already composed a hateful passage about how expensive the baby classes are, how few people were in attendance, and the hellacious parking. This was after I had done everything I could to abate her, appease to her sensibilities, and yet she came in with a big chip on her shoulder and no way could we knock it down. I realized the threat, “I’m a blogger” is a very new millennium insult. From the days of bad mouthing school mates on Live Journal to slandering businesses on the web we have reached a scary age of intimidation. I was hard pressed to respond, and told her, “Well, we’re not for everyone.” Sure enough, a scathing review of our business popped up on several websites. I’m sure I was mentioned but I have no interest in finding out. Of course she doesn’t mention the personal phone call the owner made to try and work it out with her…or how nice I was by helping her carry her double wide stroller up the steps.
In other news, I recently confirmed my participation as a “Freedom Dancer” in a Soft Rock Spectacular premiering at the Rebar in June. It should be fantastic.