just the two of us

it happens so rarely that we get time together, just us.

me and the new york times sunday crossword.

ahhh.

the best part about vegan baking

no eggs = eat as much raw cookie dough as you like.

things my children have argued about today

• who gets to brush her teeth first
• who gets to hand whom a stuffed bunny
• why they are not speaking to each other (this took a surprising amount of time, given the subject)

paging merriam-webster

some newly coined words, courtesy of my peeps:

squir•mish [skwurm-mish] noun - a distressing or embarrassing conflict with someone: "boy, my neighbor and i got into a real squirmish about his loud music."

al•loud•ded [uh-loud-did] adjective/adverb - highly vocal grant of permission: "mommy, we told that kitty it's not allouded in our yard!"

cut•e•ful [kyoot-uh-fuhl] adjective - cute and beautiful: "look at my cuteful hat!"

the klutz doesn't fall far from the family tree

i'm always riding my mother about the injuries she sustains. she, her mother when she was alive, and my brother all share an ability to hurt themselves frequently and in odd, even spectacular ways (falling into a swimming pool, closing a garage door on the head, trying to get a pop bottle from a soda machine, driving a motorcycle into a wall). yet they are/were oddly coordinated, too: gramma was a dancer, dave excelled at every sport he ever tried, and my mom has great large and small motor skills.

i, on the other hand, am uncoordinated but cautious. this has allowed me to avoid the stitches, surgeries, broken bones, sprains, strains and knocked out teeth that they have racked up. plus i got to take a pretty smarmy tone about their injuries.

and now i owe them all an apology.

because yesterday, while with my girls at gymnastics, i strode off a raised mat before realizing it was a sloped, sort of isosceles triangle-shaped mat. my ankle buckled and rolled with a dreadful cruuuuuuuuuching noise, and i went down like a tranqued rhino where i stayed, pale and nauseous, for several minutes until my friend discovered me.

so, many advil and bags of frozen veggies (they make great ice packs) later, i am here to say, "i'm sorry for making fun of you, you big klutzes."

hard sell, minnesota style

seen emblazoned in two-foot-high letters on a shipping truck:

bushel boy

probably the best tomato in minnesota

because we wouldn't want our produce to get the big head, dontcha know? oh, ya.

things i wouldn't think i would need to tell my children, but apparently i do

• don't lick the counter at the library
• don't spit at cats
• don't put a train with battery-powered wheels in your hair

my new hero

is susan boyle.

here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luRmM1J1sfg

(can't embed it, unfortunately.)

earnest white people

i have just come from a meeting of preschool church folks. ye gods. so many earnest white people.

i think that will be the name of my next imaginary band: earnest white people. i'll play bass.

i may have just had an aneurysm

an hour.

that's how long i just played candyland with my kids. an hour.

and most of that was consumed by one game, one interminable game where we kept getting stuck in cherry pitfalls or being sent back to the peppermint stick forest.

it ended, as it had to, with me snapping, thing one sulking, and thing two happily oblivious.

my eye is actually twitching.