NaBloPoMo Archives : Page 10 of 13 : Fluid Pudding

This is why I can’t chill with the bird watchers.

The girls are home from school today. I’m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with either staff development or the birth of Matthew Sweet.

As I prepared my very large cup of coffee this morning, I glanced out into the back yard where I noticed a fairly large bird with a red spot on his head.

Me (still suffering from pregnancy brain, five years after the fact): Sssh! Girls! Come look at this! We have a red peckerhead in our back yard!

Harper (scrambling toward the window): What’s a peckerhead?

Me (still completely unaware of what I’m saying): A peckerhead is that bird with the red spot on his head! He takes his beak and he beats it against a tree so it goes knockknockknockknockknock!

Harper: Meredith! We’ve got a peckerhead in the yard!

Thank God for Meredith. She slowly wandered over, looked out into the back yard, and said, “Actually, Mommy, I think that’s a woodpecker.”

Okay then. Right you are. And while we’re here, let’s not ever speak of the peckerheads. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I’m thinking of pulling out The House of Mirth again.

The first book my book club read was Revolutionary Road. Because I recommended the book, I read it. On book club night, we watched the movie, discussed the book while eating at Canyon Cafe, and chose our next book .

The second book my book club read was The Other Queen. I tried to read it. Really, I did. And when the book club scheduled the next gathering and I hadn’t even made it to the halfway point, I purchased the audio book. And I tried to get through it. But I failed. And when I went to the meeting to discuss the book, I spent most of my time discussing the lemon bars I had made. (They were really great lemon bars! Worth talking about! Mary, Queen of Who?!)

The third book my book club read was Three Cups of Tea. And something must be wrong with me, because I couldn’t get through that one, either. And when the book club scheduled the next gathering and I hadn’t even made it to the halfway point, I purchased the audio book. And I tried to get through it. But I failed. (Does this paragraph sound oddly familiar?!) I had a migraine the night of the bonfire/discussion session—which bums me out to this day, because come on. Bonfire. I still haven’t read the book.

The fourth book my book club read was The Shack. And get this. We chose the book sometime in April, I believe, and I’M STILL NOT FINISHED WITH IT. We’re meeting on Sunday, and I have about forty more pages to go, which means I’ll probably get through it, but what is wrong with me?! I can’t read a book in six months? And it’s a book about God! I should totally be done with it by now!

I’m still working on Infinite Jest. I had a brief e-mail exchange last week with a woman who summed up my feelings perfectly. The more I read this book, the more I fall in love with it, and the more I don’t want it to end. So I’m reading it very slowly. Too slowly. I don’t even believe I’ve reached page 300 yet.

I am not getting any smarter, Internet, and I believe it’s because I’m not reading as much as I should.

I blame silk and wool.

What are you reading these days? ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I sort of love Jonathan Safran Foer. And long mittens.

Thanks to all of you, my family will be eating chili for the next three weeks. High fives to one and all.

I’m leaving the house in a few minutes to get a little bit sushified. I may or may not add on a trip to the book store to pick up Eating Animals. I’ve been cheating on my vegetarian sensibilities for the past few months, and I believe this book will put me right where I need to be.

Most importantly, the holiday knitting has begun.

So far, I have two mittens, neither of which have thumbs. I shall thumb them in the coming weeks, and they will be gifted to one of Meredith’s teachers. Next up? A hat for the coach who lets Meredith out of the car every morning. Because he does it with a smile and a “Good morning, Meredith!” Every Single Day Even When It’s Raining.

Raw fish doesn’t really count as meat, right?

Don’t answer that. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I put the meat-free thing on hold when it comes to chili.

My father and I have a problem.

We’re chili fans, you see, and it seems that RB Rice has stopped producing their chili block, which was a vital ingredient in our Perfect Chili recipe. Without the RB Rice chili block, we’re left shaking our heads and throwing beans and spices around all willy nilly.

Dad has found that the recipe on the back of the Brooks Chili Seasoning bag is good, and adding a can of drained kidney beans makes it even better.

I have been known to melt Hershey bars in my chili. Once again, I have no idea what I’m doing.

Are you sitting on The Perfect Chili Recipe? Cough it up, my friend.

My father and I are starting to feel desperate.

And ’tis the season. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

NaBloPoMo Day Two: Thorn in the side, pea in the shoe, etc.

One of the Pudding kids is not eating the turkey we pack for her lunch. According to her best friend, she throws her turkey away Every Single Day. That’s a lot of wasted turkey.

One of the Pudding kids has not been washing her hands after using the bathroom. Instead, she finishes using the bathroom, turns the water on for ten seconds, turns it off again, and walks out thinking she has fooled us. However, I caught her this morning, so she has lost her Washing Hands in Private privileges until further notice. Everyone is sick. EVERYONE. You HAVE to WASH your HANDS. (Yes. I’m very paranoid about this.)

The sink in the kitchen is backed up and I believe it’s because of tree roots growing into our front yard pipes. The plumber came out last year and predicted that he would be making yearly visits to clear the roots. Today is the day. Meanwhile, the kitchen, which is normally fairly messy, is Messy Deluxe. And this is two hundred dollars that we really should not be spending.

While taking Harper to school an hour ago, I drove past a bunch of protestors dancing and yelling at cars while waving their hands in the air like a bunch of idiotic marionettes near the Jewish Communty Center. From what I could gather during my ten second drive-by, they “HATE OBAMA the ANTI-CHRIST!”, they know that “JEWS will be FORCED to REPENT! NOW!”, and “HEALTHCARE for EVERYONE is STUPID!” And, you know what? After the whole turkey/handwash/sink thing, I was already nearing the end of my wits. When Harper asked me to read the signs to her, for the first time ever, I refused. All I could say was, “I don’t think they’re being very nice, Harper.” You know, I respect anyone’s right to speak their mind, if they can do it respectfully and intelligently. In fact, I encourage it! More importantly, I won’t hit you with my car if I disagree with you! But I have to say, standing near an elementary school with a poster of President Obama painted to look like Satan? Really? Worst of all, I saw at least three kids amongst the protestors. Kids who were laughing and yelling out hateful things at passing cars.

I’m tired. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

NaBloPoMo: Kicking it Real.

According to my calendar, this week we’ll see the frost moon, a day to vote, and Roy Roger’s birthday.

Last night found the girls dressed up exactly as they were for last week’s Trunk or Treat minus the rain plus the pink hair.

The night before last saw us posing to show off my recently completed February Lady. (And yes. Harper had whiskers. Actually, she still does! They’re very faint. Don’t mention them to her unless you want to see her explode.)

Today? A late brunch with my road trip posse and an appointment to see a store about some yarn. I have been told that all my cousin wants for Christmas—all he has EVER wanted—is a pair of hand-knit socks. Hand-knit socks for his Size 13 feet. I need to see what I can do about that.

Good morning, NaBloPoMo. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I totally wanted to go out with a bang. Take that as you will.

So, here we are.

November 30th. 9:30 at night. I planned on making another video for you. It was going to maybe feature a bit of French horn. Perhaps piano. Most likely a bit of spoken word. (As opposed to the unspoken word that you’re mucking through right now.) I had such good intentions.

Anyway, as you know, I spent today going to church (I was a mess in church today, by the way. I chewed at all of the wrong times, and I actually watched a fly buzzing around on his back until he eventually died and for some reason, that struck me as being the funniest thing I’ve seen in my life so I ended up doing that ridiculous thing where my face is all contorted and I’m silently laughing so hard that my eyes are filled with tears, and I simply Could Not Stop, so onward with the facial gymnastics and tears for nearly two minutes which is a really long time when the pastor is trying to tell us who is sick and who is well and yikes. What a disaster I was.) and buying cookies and choosing a calendar and meeting a friend and driving to book club and socializing with friends and strangers and eating a chicken buffalito without the chicken and hunkering down for Twilight. And now I’m home. And I need to finish my current book so I can start reading our book club book. And I need to knit two more sock ornaments and plan Meredith’s holiday party and get to work on the yarn store’s holiday party and do a bit of holiday shopping and knitting and kick off the new tradition of cookie baking with the girls and something about salsa dancing and I tried my first pomegranate raspberry beer last night and did I mention that I bought my 2009 calendar/planner today? Last year I was all about the suicidal rabbits. This year, sadly, I went bland. I honestly could not find anything better, which makes me want to make my own stinkin’ calendar, but we all know that I won’t do it.

All of this (and much more than you needed or wanted) to say, thanks for sticking with me during NaBloPoMo. I know I was not at my best this month. But with the imminent arrival of Santa and Leonardo DiCaprio coupled with the possibility of potato chips, it looks like December is going to be good. There will be a French horn. Possibly some piano.

As always, I wish you well. Even you, believe it or not. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I honestly thought today was December 1.

I’m just going to say this: Today has been fairly strange and exhausting. (Strange days tend to be exhausting, don’t you think?)

I’m currently sitting here in red flannel pajamas just hoping that the next few hours will happily fly by (for everyone) so that I can wake up and welcome Sunday, which will include presenting a brand new baby with this, grabbing a tray of cookies because today was too strange for baking, meeting an old friend for the drive to a new book club, and then catching up over dinner and a twilight viewing of Twilight. For me, it really doesn’t get much better. Wait. Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate and Andrew Bird kissing my neck. There. Perfect day. (Did I say Andrew Bird? I meant Jeff, obviously.)

One more quick thing.

I can’t stop watching this episode of Nova.

Actually, wait. Here’s the first part.

(If you’re interested, the episode appears in six parts on YouTube.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I always leave out the tiny details.

This afternoon I had lunch with a friend from college who is in town from Los Angeles. Because he hadn’t been to our house in several years, I had to give directions over the phone.

Me: After making a left on This and That, you’ll see our house right where This and That meets Such and Such. So, you’ll be on This and That, but our street address is Such and Such. Um, we’re the third house on the left on This and That, but again: We actually live on Such and Such.

Doug: I’ll call you if I have any trouble.

What I neglected to mention? We are the only house on Such and Such (or This and That, for that matter) with a skyscraping penguin in the front yard. In other words, I could have saved something like 51 words by simply saying, “We’re the house with the monstrous inflatable.”

Welcome back, John Green. ‘Tis your season.

‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I never got to taste him, either.

This is the pumpkin cake my sister contributed to Thanksgiving dinner. Sadly, due to an oncoming tantrum, we had to leave the celebration before dessert was served. However, I will always have fond memories of this amazing cake. Even if I didn’t get to taste it. (The cake has a lot in common with George Clooney.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>