my faith in humanity is restored

on the way home from the paint store, i ended up behind a big ol' slow-moving cadillac. doing seven miles under the speed limit. with a world war two license plate and a little wizened driver wearing a hat. 

and here's what his bumper sticker said:

obama '08

obamazen.com

well, god bless, sir.

just a typical afternoon at home

yep, nothing unusual here.

donna reed i ain't

here's what i had to offer the handsome man for dinner tonight:

• plain noodles
  
• "pasta salad" from an old family recipe consisting of pasta, chicken, thawed frozen peas, and mayo (and i upgraded from the original miracle whip)
  
• 3/4 of a tomato
  
• and a gently used piece of pizza
  

eureka

i have discovered the secret to potty training.

and it isn't a timer or m&ms or a portable potty.

it's an ipod and the new york times crossword and the figs of paradise martini at cafe maude, where the handsome man shipped me off to this evening. no one spoke to me for AN HOUR. it was glorious.

now off to do the pee pee-poo poo laundry.

love is...

accepting a handful of partially masticated gum.

(anyone can cozy up to a warm puppy.)

insanity is hereditary

you get it from potty training your children.

f*** me.

we have a winner

the mystery vegetable is...kohlrabi! (which wikipedia called sputniky, too.)

many thanks to my half-german friend who grew up eating her mutter's version (it's big in germany). she not only identified them but fixed them for lunch during a play date at my house today. here's how:

• peel and slice into french fry-size pieces
• steam/simmer in a little butter, olive oil and broth until fork tender (about 20-30 minutes)
• you can add minced parsley for looks when you serve, if you have it, which of course i do not

dee-licious. although cheetos would have been good, too.

help me out here

what are these?

they came in our farm share this morning. i have no idea if i should eat them or launch them into space orbit (kind of a sputnik-y vibe, no?). extra credit points if you can tell me how to prepare them...

big girl undies!

oh, the thrill of it all.

noooooo!

thing one:  "mommy, is that a bunch of cardinals in the tree across the street?"

me:  "where?"

thing one:  "there, in the top of that tree – see all that red?"

me:  (squint, study)  "those aren't cardinals – those are LEAVES THAT HAVE CHANGED COLOR! AHHHHHHH!"

such a pretty fascia

out on my walk this morning i passed a house in the neighborhood that's for sale. it's been listed for a while, so to help they've hung an extra sign on it that says:

i'm gorgeous inside!

aww. poor thing. it is kind of boxy and plain, but still. i wanted to write "and i have a great personality, too!" on the sign. maybe i'll swing by with a sharpie marker later today...

moo

i just received my new land's end bathing suit in the mail (unhorrible! and it actually creates the illusion of a bust!), and i noticed the tracking i.d. on it:  cow-2748.

cow. bathing suit. that is just all kinds of wrong.

it's braaaaaaat

oh god. remember the pat character on saturday night live? whiny, nasally, off-the-charts irritating?

yeah, that's what my baby has turned into. every request, every protest, every everything is a looong, draaawn-out whiiiiiiiine.

it's a good thing she's cute, or i'd leave her on somebody's doooorsteeeep and ruuuuuuuuun.

fungus or feebs?

i was chatting with another food allergy mama today, comparing theories on why so many kids (e.g., mine, hers) can't eat the stuff we all ate as kids.

she mentioned the notion that we keep potential allergens out of our kids' diets for too long compared to folks in other cultures, thus inadvertently setting our munchkins up for allergies.

i mentioned several wildly different ideas i've heard over the years:  

• the foods we eat aren't pure any more (wheat in vegetable soup, milk in bread, soy in everything)
  
• we've hand-sanitized ourselves so clean that our immune systems are turning on pb&j in lieu of germs
  
• foods have been genetically altered, which has f***ed us up
  
• peanuts, especially imported ones, might have some sort of fungus similar to the ergot – known as st. anthony's fire – that infested rye in the middle ages and sickened huge numbers of people
  

and then i threw out a little something i've come up with in my musing on this subjects:  we've breed a nation of feebs.

think about it:  we've lifted the forces of natural selection so that, instead of the strong surviving, pretty much everyone is surviving. 

case in point? moi. without the benefit of strong eyeglasses, midol and zoloft, i would have been lion lunch on the savanna. when i reproduced, i needed c-sections to get the kid out and then formula when she couldn't breast feed. 

homo erectus didn't have level 3 nicu's. ma ingalls didn't go to a high-risk pregnancy clinic, nor did her friend mrs. boast have access to in vitro, which is why she and her husband tried to get laura to trade her baby for one of their horses. (i may have read all the little house books over and over.)

we are so freaking lucky that we have so many ways to fend off death and disease, to create and extend life. but is the flip side that we're watering down our genes a little bit? or bending them into new forms that leave us vulnerable to new ills?

better than sea monkeys

mix giant influx of plants from master gardener friend (black-eyed susans, day lilies, salvia, evening primrose, and several lovely unpronounceables) with water, et voilà:  insta-garden! 

stuff is already blooming, and so far, i have not murdered anything. (always unintentional, but still – i think plants can smell fear.)

oh, and apparently not only do rabbits find alpine strawberries delicious, they also favor something that's called nigella. or was called nigella.