Dance Groundsfolk! Dance!

Dance Groundsfolk! Dance!

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I Love Being a Mom

Okay, yesterday was the Best. Mother's Day. Ever. The kidlets made me all kinds of sweet cards and pictures, stories and painted rock paper weights. We ate blueberry muffins, listened to the Tiger game (Tigers won! So did the Mariners!), ran a couple of errands and cleaned the garage while Stephen put some insulation in the attic to help keep the upstairs cooler. While manual labor might not sound like a great way to spend Mother's Day, it was exactly what I wanted to do... we've had so little time to spend on the house that all I asked for was a day of it with no complaints from kids that they were BORED.

Later in the day we did all go down to the park and Nathan got back on his bike a year after first removing the training wheels (with marginal success). After some initial stubbornness (on both mother and son's part), he started pedaling and didn't look back. The boy can now ride a bike and I am very proud.

We ended the day with salmon on the grill and a picnic in the backyard. Well, we actually ended the day with baths for two very grimy kids. Slept well, they did.

In keeping with the bike-riding theme, this poem came into my mailbox this morning. Made me predictably weepy.

Learning the Bicycle
by Wyatt Prunty

The older children pedal past
Stable as little gyros, spinning hard
To supper, bath, and bed, until at last
We also quit, silent and tired
Beside the darkening yard where trees
Now shadow up instead of down.
Their predictable lengths can only tease
Her as, head lowered, she walks her bike alone
Somewhere between her wanting to ride
And her certainty she will always fall.
Tomorrow, though I will run behind,
Arms out to catch her, she'll tilt then balance wide
Of my reach, till distance makes her small,
Smaller, beyond the place I stop and know
That to teach her I had to follow
And when she learned I had to let her go.

I'm not sure I needed to know this

But I am sure that I want to share it with you.

My Eyeball Just Fell Out of Its Socket. What should I do?

I found the link to this informative and somewhat squicky article on Literally, A Weblog - a fun place for those of us who include among our pet peeves the boneheaded misuse of words and phrases.

A Lesson Learned

A word of advice, gleaned from piping-fresh first-hand experience.

If you have the opportunity to do any travel by bus in Peru, and you're assigned to seats 1, 2, 3 or 4... ask very nicely whether you might be able to change your seat assignment. It doesn't much matter where, just do yourself a favour and request a higher seat number.

Why, you ask?

Peruvian driving is... how shall I put this? Insane and scary as hell. And if you're in the front row on the top level of a double-decker bus, you get to see the insanity up close and personal. "Safe following distance?" HA! Yield the right of way to pedestrians? HA HA! It is to laugh. Double-yellow means no passing? Thank you for that quaint... suggestion.

So unless you're looking for hours of nail-biting, seat-gripping, laughing-in-the-face-of-certain-death fun... move to the back of the bus.

Waiting...

A quality I find very endearing about myself, as I imagine you do also dear readers, is that I truly believe that I may have been the person to download the billionth song on iTunes. I so firmly believe that things like that can happen that I actually skipped yoga class so that I could be among those attempting to snag the lucky number. I mean - someone did, right? Why not me?

I wonder how long it will take them to notify me? Maybe Steve himself will send the e-mail.

I'll let y'all know.

Musicky Meme

My friend Betsy tagged me with this one and I figured - what the heck?

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

1. The River Driver - Great Big Sea. My kids have been way into the newest Great Big Sea Album, The Hard and The Easy. It's a collection of traditional Newfoundland tracks, and this one happens to be acapella. Is it a bad thing that my children are going around singing "I'll eat when I am hungry and I'll drink when I am dry. Get drunk whenever I want to; get sober by and by"? Nah.

2. Captain Kidd - Great Big Sea. A theme here, no? And can you believe that instead of seeing GBS here in Seattle this weekend, we have to attend the kids school auction. Doh! Haven't told said children; they'd surely rebel.

3. Let 'Em Run - The Bills. Yummy.

4. Somewhere Only We Know - Keane. First heard this on Grey's Anatomy and immediately downloaded it from iTunes. It's a great little pop tune, hits all my buttons no matter how many times I listen to it.

5. Does He Love You? - Rilo Kiley. My dear blackwingedboy introduced me to RK, and I thank him muchly for it.

6. Snoopy vs. The Red Baron - Royal Guardsmen. Holy crap, this is an earworm. I accompanied Nathan on a school field trip a couple of weeks ago to see "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown." He asked some questions about Snoopy's nemesis, and I pulled this one up for him to listen to. And he does. Over. And over. And thus, so do we.

7. Imogen Heap - Headlock. I'm loving Imogen. I first became aware of her as the singer of "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia" on the Six Feet Under soundtrack and so liked her voice that I went looking for more.

Well that was fun! Now who to tag (and who might actually take me up on it)... let's try JBo, Lora, Toast, SandraDee, Ms. Boo, AP, and Anne. That should provide a nice variety. If you take me up on it, link back here so I'm sure to see what you have to say!

Modern Classic, Revisited

Another grey rainy day + post-traumatic rejection funk + normal dark sense of humour = LOVE this

Sleepless In Seattle Trailer re-cut as a horror movie

Revel. Enjoy.

Exhaling, Or Always A Bridesmaid

I've been metaphorically holding my breath for a couple of weeks now, waiting for some news, and it's made it difficult for me to feel much like writing. The news came today; not what I was hoping for, but at least it's movement. I'll try not to dwell in my little self-pity party for long, but let me just say that today I have a huge amount of empathy for anyone who has ever heard the words "if for any reason, Miss blahdy-blah is not able to fulfill her duties..."

Because while you'd like to think that there's some comfort to be taken in knowing you were almost good enough, there's no getting around the fact that being first runner up SUCKS no matter how "fabulous" you might be.

I've disabled comments on this post because I just need to vent and stomp my virtual foot for a bit without hearing about how one door closes and another opens. I don't want another door. Can't I just pick my own goddamn door and have it work out one time?

God, I love Molly Ivins

Read her latest column, if you haven't yet. Yes. This. Exactly this.

It's time for Democrats to put up or shut up

That Garrison Keillor

How does he know just what I need to read?

Poem: "Lost," by David Wagoner from Collected Poems 1956-1976 © Indiana University Press.

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.