Shrinking Those Degrees.

I don't put a lot of thought into that whole "Six Degrees of Separation" thing, but I came across this little item (okay, so I'm only 3 or 4 months behind in seeing it...) and I it gave me a little thrill.

You see, my father-in-law is a retired Navy Captain.  He also got to work with (now) Cmdr. Mike Lopez-Alegria back in his Navy days, and even (so I have been told) got to help recommend him to NASA for the space program.

That alone is a cool enough "degrees" thing, but that I can then connect the dots between Mike L-A and Alton Brown?  Our Good Eats Hero? The Man who inspires my husband to tackle new and exciting challenges in the kitchen, and who may yet inspire my eldest to set his sights on Culinary School? (Okay, so the kid is 5, but Good Eats is his favorite show and he already talks about being a chef when he grows up)...

Well, that's pretty schweet, y'all.

Oh, and before I forget, I do realize that today is Friday.  I also realize that means I should, according to my own schedule, be posting a "Friday Foto Feature".    Due to circumstances beyond my control (read: I am exhausted... and lazy) we will be skipping it this week.  I'm sure that a combination of therapy and dark chocolate will help you recover from your massive disappointment. (*cough*)

My Cup Runneth Over

This is not in reference to my pregnancy-enhanced cleavage (Although those cups? They also runneth over, in case you were wondering. And we both know you were.)

No, instead this is about all the blog love I have received this week.

First, there was the Fiddley Gomme BLOW interview - with your host, Pete!  I highly recommend the experience.  If you are a lesser-known blogging type entity with an interest in pulling back the curtain a little and letting people get to know you better... well, I highly recommend getting in touch with Pete and asking very sweetly if he would like to BLOW you.  Just make sure it's the right Pete, because someone else could take that the wrong way.

Then!  AND THEN!  The lovely Stacey from Is There Any Mommy Out There? gave me a totally unexpected gift -- a profile on the maiden voyage of AllMediocre's new feature  -  the spankin' fresh "The Lonely Blogosphere Guidepost Series".

So be sure to stop by and check it out.  While you're at it, peruse the rest of the AllMediocre blogroll - there's some good stuff up in there, y'all - and see if you don't find a few new daily reads.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off in search of Coffee.  I hear it's a local specialty in the Land of Aum...  

Now and Then

Then

(Ziggy was my home boy)

Now

This Girl Goes To 11.

Blogger Love On Wednesday is up at Fiddley Gomme.

Pete did a great job interviewing a guest that interrupted him at least a dozen times... someone who has obviously been off her ADD meds for the past 8 months...  

Someone who has just now, this moment, vowed to make her husband sit in the next time she does anything like this - so that he can fit me with a shock collar and give me a good jolt every time I forget to SHUT UP ALREADY.  

In my defense, I do talk the most when I'm nervous.  Also this was recorded on a day when I had been awake with Toby since 4am and my allergies were kicking my tuckus.  So that buys me about 30 seconds of the 20 or so minutes I talked nearly without interruption or maybe stopping to breathe.

Thanks again to Pete, who could teach classes in being patient with the Crazies.  (and by crazies, I mean me.) 

BLOW Me.

First off, quick aside.  I had every intention of posting this yesterday, but then our power flicked off and on and the wireless router died for the dozenth time this year and then refused to come back.  And so I was without internet, because I refused to sit down like a normal person and plug into the ethernet cable.  Because - WIRES! The weight of it all, the tied-down-ness.  It was all more than I could bear.  Also I was somewhat busy digging my way out of the pit of despair our house descended into over the course of the busy weekend.

So now things are back to normal, the house is no longer in danger of being condemned, and Big Daddy picked up a spankin' new wireless router, thus restoring my faith in the internets. All is mostly right with the world.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled insanity.

I may have mentioned once or twice or eleventy-billion times that I have a small problem with phone anxiety.  

Talking to strangers or even acquaintances over the phone has been known to give me heart palpitations, sweaty palms, and halitosis.

So it was a big step for me to spend an hour chatting with Pete of Fiddley Gomme for his Blogger Love On Wednesdays podcast.

Pete is an incredibly personable guy, and I have a feeling he'd be great to set with over a couple of beers.  Not that lightweight Utah stuff, where they water the beer down to like 4 percent.  I'm talking good, New England Lager beers.  

That said, I'm also fairly sure that I talked too much, talked too fast, and meandered down Tangent Lane a few too many times.  I mentioned to him (off recording) that I have been living happily in my little bubble of relative anonymity, and I'm somewhat ambivalent about venturing out into new territory. I've never received hate mail, nor have I had to deal with trolls and other lower life forms.  It's like the Garden of Eden -- all naively exuberant exploration without any real consequences.

It's probably to be expected, then, that I'm feeling a little anxious about letting that go and moving on into the Big Bad World.

But moving on I am.  I started with getting my ticket to BlogHer for this year... and now everyone except my Mom can tune in to Pete's B.L.O.W. podcast this Wednesday to hear me interviewed.   He's too nice to tell you that I'm as awkward to talk to on the phone as you would imagine, but I suspect he required a stiff drink and perhaps a high colonic in order to recover from exposure to all hundred kinds of my crazy.  Anyway, be sure to give it a listen so that you, too, can hear me cackle like a hyena and possibly talk about conceiving my children under the influence of too much wine. 

Thanks, Pete.  You're a gentleman and a scholar. :)

Technicolor Spectacular

So last night was the Tee Ball Team Party.  The season ended all-too-quickly, and I'm already feeling unexpectedly nostalgic for Saturday afternoons at the ball field.  

The players, coaches, and parents met up at a restaurant to engage in the time-honored tradition of the Team Pizza Party.  The pizza and soda flowed, and we wrapped up the journey we have taken together over the past few months with a spectacular cake.

This cake was a replica of, what else, a baseball diamond - complete with rich green grass and muddy brown infield.  The colors were really quite eye-popping.

And the point of this little anecdote (about which none of you really give a flying rat's buttocks) is to get us back to this morning.  Specifically, you may follow me to the bathroom where I had to help Jack wipe his bum this morning.

He usually does this on his own now, you see, but he was in a bit of a panic because his poop was the exact color of green Play Doh.  Which scared the junk out of me - until I remembered that frosting.  I explained to him about the color coming out the same as it went in, and he finally came around to believing his insides weren't about to spontaneously combust.

And just to drive home the point, about 20 minutes later I did my own Play Doh-tinted party trick.  Which, of course, he demanded to inspect - just to be sure I wasn't pulling his leg about the food-coloring.

Welcome to The Family Aum.... where we are comfortable enough to critique each others' technicolor poo.  That's real LOVE, man.   

Extremes of the Waking Spectrum.

This is the difference between the toddler who wakes up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at 4am and the Mother who had to get up with him.  By 9am he is ready to conquer the planet, whereas I am still looking for the license plate on that tractor-trailer that ran me over.

Summer Book Review #1

Note:  When I decided to do a short review for the books on my list as I finish them, I may have neglected to mention that these reviews may have very little to do with the actual content of the book.  

I feel it only right to give fair warning that the reviews may have as much (or more) to do with my feewings about the book as they do with the actual content of the book itself.  But then again, if you're still here (after.. um... 5-ish years now? HOLY CRAP.) you're probably cool with that.

The Good, Good Pig - by Sy Montgomery.

I didn't expect to love this book.  It's not that I hate animals, it's just that I've been known to be.... let's say "somewhat ambivalent" when it comes to the furry creatures in my own life.  I love other people's pets - the ones who do not threaten to leave feces or hairballs on my rug, the ones who do not wantonly chew on our dirty underwear.  It's MY pets that give me the cold night sweats.

So I didn't expect to love this book.  But I have to admit that, beyond giving me a new appreciation for pigs in general (did you know their meat tastes just like ours? I can't stop imagining myself as a lovely sage-rubbed roast...) and this pig - one Christopher Hogwood - in particular, it made me take a new look at the animals in my life and vow to extend them a little more understanding.

Sy Montgomery knits together the stories of her life and her passionate pursuit of knowledge about the most exotic species of animals (pink dolphins in the Amazon! Doesn't she know there are PIRHANA there?!) (Yes. She does. And she swam in the river anyway!) with stories of the life and times of one ordinary and extraordinary hog.  She treads lightly in describing her many adventures, focusing instead on the cozy comforts of hearth, hog and husband which keep her coming back to home.

If I had to do a quick and dirty summary, I'd tell you that this book is about the relationships that we cultivate - both human and animal - and how they enrich our lives.  I found it particularly poignant that the author was estranged from her own family but, using the titular pig as an ice-breaker, was able to overcome her innate awkwardness with other humans and build a varied family of her own from the kindred spirits she has met along the way.  

It was a great beginning-of-Summer read that went down like a good slice of country corn bread slathered in honey butter.  

So there you are.  Next up: I will begin reading .. umm... something else from the list!  I haven't picked up another book from the list yet, but I'll get on that later in the week.  Lounging in the shade of the big Bradford Pear tree in our front yard with my book while the kids ride their bikes back and forth down the sidewalk and we all slurp on popsicles?  My own little slice of Summer heaven.

Indeed.

"I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them."
– Galileo Galilei

Why You Haz Evil Humors, Horrid Humans?

I love that my kids treat our ginormous, scary-looking dog like he's an obnoxious sibling. 

The big, strong guy who delivers our pizzas? He backs away from the door  at the sight and sound of Gizmo's frantic (but friendly) barks of greeting.  

The boys, on the other hand, are apt to react to his attention by shoving him out of their faces with a distracted "shoo, Gizzy!" without even looking up from their play.  

Case in point: Jack decided to mess with the dog just for giggles.  On this particular day that meant subjecting the dog to 15 minutes of "dress up" play, including this scene I caught on camera.  My best guess? Gizmo was playing the part of "Major League Baseball Player With Severe Hangover".  

Garbage Pail Kids.

Because Mama is watching her "So You Think You Can Dance", I'll keep this short and, uh, sweet.  Actually, more sour than sweet.  Allow me to explain.

 The boys got into the nasty, fetid trash on the back deck this morning.  I'm talking empty charcoal bags, old newspaper, and various plastic bags - all of which have been soaking in the rainwater from the storms of the last few weeks.  It was.... gross.  To say the least.  AND it stank.  Which meant that my little angels stank, horribly, and had to be dumped in the tub for a quick hose down.  

Let me reiterate: I had to bathe them in order to scrub off the nasty moldering garbage and muck they had been PLAYING IN.  The next time I decide I need to spend perfectly good money on toys for the little buggers? Remind me I can just dredge the neighbor's dumpster and save myself some coin.

Summer Reading Awesomeness.

On to the Bounty of the Written Word.... Summer Reading List-a-palooza!  I thought about dividing it into parts and putting at least 10 items in each, but then I realized exactly how self-defeating a proposition that would be.  Instead, here is the list in no particular order with no particular reasoning for the number of books.  Also, it is divided into 3 categories: Books I Will Most LIkely Read Between Now and September and Books I Have Already Read That You Should Read This Summer If You Haven't Already and Books We Should Both Read In The Future That I Probably Won't Get To This Summer.  Actually, let's just refer to them as "Books for Me",  "Books for You", and "Books for Us".  Again, each list is in no particular order.... Okay? Go!

BOOKS FOR ME

The Good Good Pig (Sy Montgomery)

The Road (Cormack McCarthy)

The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)

Slightly Shady (Amanda Quick)

Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (Fannie Flagg) 

The Devil in the White City (Erik Larson)

The Seventh Sinner (Elizabeth Peters)

The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)

The Wife (Meg Wolitzer)

Water for Elephants (Sarah Gruen)

Look at Me: A Novel (Jennifer Egan)

BOOKS FOR YOU

The Glass Castle (Jeanette Walls) 

The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffeneger) 

The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Gregory Maguire)

Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) -- (Love this whole series.  Great Historical Fiction/Romance)

BOOKS FOR US

Use Me (Elisa Schappell)

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital (Lorrie Moore)

Cowboys are My Weakness (Pam Houston)

Garlic and Sapphires (Ruth Reichl)

Finding George Orwell in Burma (Emma Larkin)

If you note any gems that were suggested  (by you or others) that I somehow left off the list, please feel free to bring them to my attention.  

I had to go see the vampires LabCorp peoples yesterday and have my blood sucked out an hour after drinking that godawful glucose solution that they always try to convince you "tastes just like orange soda".  Ugh.  My stomach turns in a very queasy roll just thinking about it.  But I digress.  The hour between drinking said awful concoction and having needles punched through a tender nerve or two gave me ample time to start on the first book from the list, and the only one I happened to already have handy.  

And so I am about one-third of the way into The Good, Good Pig and so far it's a breezy and delightful summer read.  I'll post a full review when I finish it, and then start on whichever book from the list happens to catch my fancy (or that happens to leap out at me the next time I'm at a book shop.  I'm going to try to skip Amazon as long as possible... what with the spectre of possibly crippling car repairs hanging over our heads.  But I won't think about that now.... I'll go crazy if I do... I'll think about it tomorrow.... etc. etc. etc.  and fiddle-dee-dee.)

Good Reading, all.

With Much Further Ado...

Remember that list I've been attempting to pull together for simply ages?  The one I promised to post MONDAY?

*Checks to see if pants are on fire*

Oh, sure, Monday started off well enough, all full of optimism and idyllic good intentions ... Toby was sleeping in (a rare event) and Jack was happily settled in with his matchbox cars while I, in my comfy jammies, enjoyed my morning coffee and perused the CNN.com.  

Then the phone rang, and Monday reared its ugly, ugly head.  

Big Daddy's car had suddenly and inexplicably stalled out at a light about 20 miles from our house; he was now parked on the side of the road and in desperate need of rescue.

So after waking Tobin, changing out of my jammies, throwing the kids into clean clothes and then into the car, and heading down the road, we picked up our stranded damsel hero and headed up to drop him at his office. (His office which was still another 30 minutes further down the road. The man has an unholy commute, he does.)

To avoid simply turning around and subjecting the kids to an additional hour of uninterrupted car time, I decided instead to tote them over to a farm near our old apartment.  We peeked in at the baby cows, pigs, and goats and they each sat a spell on the old tractors (engines removed) while I sweated and generally cursed the passing heat wave.  We grabbed some candy cow tails at Ye Olde Commercialized Country Store and then headed back on our way towards home.

And so it was that all thoughts of carefree summer reading had fled my heat-baked brain.  Long story shortened: No List For You Peoples.

Then? Then, yesterday, (that's Tuesday for those of you keeping score at home)  our wireless router decided that it was ready to pass on to the big data stream in the sky.  Ergo, no internet for me.  At least, not until this morning, where I am currently perched in our cat-litter-scented basement plugged in to (hand to God) WIRED ETHERNET.  (*cue up the tiny violins playing "Nobody Knows... The Trouble... I Seen....."*)  I know, I know. These are first world problems, my peoples, but they are MY problems just the same.  We're working on sorting out the wireless situation (NOTE: Potential Givers of the Free Stuff, I am happy to test drive a wireless router for you!  Becuase BlogHer has eaten up all spending money for the forseeable future.  And because pregnant women have very, VERY sensitive noses and OH MY FLAMING HOLY COWS, Big Daddy needs to change that litter box!  My EYES, y'all. IT BURNS!)

BUT! Today is a new day, and the faster I take care of this, the faster I can hustle my buns upstairs and take the kids for a walk to drop bills in the mail.  Because Big Daddy's car is still in the shop and he has taken the still-unnamed (though I'm leaning towards "Bertha") MiniVan of Doom, leaving me stranded.  SO, on to the good stuff.

First allow me to share the unholy cuteness of my spawn, and then I shall make with the Book Love.

And now... for some bullets!

*  Two-year-old Tobin has learned to say "Oh, SNAP!"  I find this endlessly hilarious.  You should, too.

* Jack inexplicably refers to Ruby Tuesday Restaurant as "Rooty-Fruity Tuesday".  He is also, at this moment, down on all fours and barking at the 60-pound dog.. in what I can only describe as a comic attempt to assert his dominance.  The dog is suitably unimpressed, and probably wondering what the child would taste like smothered in kibble sauce.

And now, because it requires its own post (so you and I can refer back to it as we make our way down the list... right? RIGHT!)  On to post #2 of the day...

Random Musings on Country Cooking.

It is safe to say that when Big Daddy and I met I was somewhat less than a whiz in the kitchen.

It is safer to say that I was basically a disaster.

Big Daddy's Mama, my mother-in-law, whom we shall now dub - for official blog purposes - "Cooking Mama"  (also a wickedly addictive game that Jack and I both play obsessively on the Nintendo DS).... anyway, Cooking Mama was horrified at the prospect that her only beloved son should face the rest of his life with a companion who had only just got as far as mastering the art of boiling water.

She decided very quickly to teach me a thing or two - or fifty hundred million - in the kitchen.  I was a slow pupil, but eventually I started to learn a few things.  I am happy to say that I have finally learned a passable imitation of the art of home cooking.

And so it is that Big Daddy returned home tonight from his week in the Czech Republic, and together we prepared a feast fit for the king's return to his castle.  He threw a couple of New York Strip steaks on the grill (after liberally seasoning with cajun spices).  Hearty rounds of salted, sliced pineapple joined the steaks over the toasty coals.  Add some fresh cobs of boiled corn, some even fresher homemade fried okra, and a big bowl of chopped heirloom tomatoes tossed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.... and it was Summer on a plate.

And see that part up there? The part where I said "Fresh Fried Okra".  THAT, my friends, is the product of having a culinarily inclined mother-in-law with an Alabama/New Orleans sensibility in the kitchen.  I FRIED FRESH OKRA.  If I had completed Maggie's challenge to write up 100 life goals?  That would totally be up there, so I'm going to go ahead and start my list just so I can cross that off.  

I'm not kidding when I tell you that before the tutelage of my kitchen mentor, the finest thing I ever cooked in the kitchen was a pot of spaghetti with a jar of ready-made sauce.  It dawned on me tonight that I've been cooking for long enough now that I didn't even think to be scared of boiling and frying okra - AND I was able to use the corn meal we bought at a local agricultural festival last fall - from a guy who we watched grind the corn fresh - corn that he had grown on his own farm and harvested with his own hands.  

Holy crap, I might be growing up to be a country girl after all... or at least a woman who can cook like one.  Next Cooking Challenge: wait for the apples on our tree to get ripe this fall so I can make an honest-to-goodness homemade apple pie from scratch.

In the mean time, the plum tree is nearly ready for fruit harvesting.  Anyone know what on earth I can do with several bushels of plums?  (Don't say can them.  Anything but that.)

...

And with that - admitting my lack of canning knowledge? - I believe I just heard my hard-fought Country Kitchen credibility shatter into a kajillion tiny pieces.  Somewhere, Paula Dean just shuddered involuntarily.  

Ah well.  The education continues.  It's not like anyone is going to be all that impressed anyway -- especially after I admit that the kids and I lived on bologna sandwiches and Papa John's pizza for most of the week that Big Daddy was away.

But. Still.  I FRIED OKRA!

Friday Foto Feature

So I took this photo of the box that the MacBook came in

And then I kinda, sorta got distracted by the actual MacBook once I opened the box, and then I never took a photo of it, the end.

But! Mayhaps I can redeem myself with a new feature.  I have decided to make Fridays the day that I remember to share photos, since I seem to have an unconscious aversion to posting them more often during the week.  (Except for the totally rad photo from King's Dominion circa somewhere around 1986.  The pigtails, sunglasses, and jams combination was too bodacious for words, y'all.)

I am also going to attempt to include in the Friday Fotos Feature a photo of one of my favorite maternity outfits each week.  I am not, by any stretch of anyone's imagination, much of a fashionista... but this is the first pregnancy where I have felt reasonably good about the clothes I am wearing most of the time.  I'm not sure how long that will last, as I will likely soon outgrow most of my mid-trimester duds, but what the heck, let's give it a shot.

So, without further adieu (but not before noting that the Summer Reading List will be posted Monday! For really and truly this time!)

FRIDAY FOTOS!

Our Little Graduate.

In this moment? I remembered why we haven't sold them on eBay.  

 The first sure sign of Summer: the ice-cream truck makes a daily sojourn through the neighborhood... and slowly pulls me into a diabetic coma.

Too Cool Like the Old School.

Also, coming home today!

These sandals took 2 months on backorder to finally make their way to me.

Sooo worth the wait.

"ASDFJKL" or "How you like me NOW, Suckah?!".

Do you see? Do you see how I am typing like a normal human and not like LOLCats on the crack?  This is because I now have the ability to use the keys in the home row that are not G or H.  Yes, that's right, the ENTIRE home row except for G and H keys on my once trusty Dell totally crapped out on me, leaving me scrambling for a way to actually type the letters asdfjkl.   Can you BEGIN to understand the massive suckage?

"So how, then, dear MeL, are you now typing in the usual fashion?" you must be asking.

How, my friends, is a magical story indeed... a story of me posting this morning about how my magical MacBook would arrive in a cloud of fairy dust tomorrow, only to then check the FedEx website and realize that my prize had made it onto the truck A WHOLE DAY EARLY for delivery.

I decided to take a celebratory shower. (Well, that and the fly that was buzzing around me at breakfast were the inspiration, really, but let's not squabble over details; I have been without proper computerage for nearly a week now, and my husband has been in the Czech Republic while I have single-handedly parented our small offspring for a whole 5 days, so it's best we don't talk about the drop in standards for my personal hygiene when faced with the prospect of endless hours of Handy Manny and Little Einsteins while attempting to fold 6 loads of clean laundry.  Because I might have to CUT YOU, and we wouldn't want that.)

Actually, we REALLY wouldn't want that, because then you wouldn't get to hear about how I jumped into the shower and had just finished washing my hair when I heard the dog barking to signal someone at the door.  Now, because I had to actually SIGN for this delivery, I faced a small dilemma.

Apparently the dilemma was extraordinarily minor; I jumped from the shower dripping wet and stark naked, threw on my dirty pants and a zip-up sweatshirt and ran for the door in one swift motion.  At least, it was swift in my head -- in reality, it was likely the ponderous and lumbering gate you'd expect of a woman six-months-pregnant, but it felt much faster.

And the FedEx guy?  Bless him with angel kisses and unicorns, he waited for me.  I guess the half-naked urchin children peeking out at him from the windows clued him in that someone was home.  

And so, dear friends, it is that I type this little tale on the pristine keyboard of my beautiful new MacBook.  (BOOK! I CAN TYPE THE LETTER K! AM PARALYZED WITH JOY!)

Tomorrow, perhaps I shall post photos of my new paramour.  Assuming I have gotten over the basking in its beauty by then. (Does licking void the warranty?)  Also, I may or may not post a photo of my dog in a baseball cap... because, at the end of the day, I'm not so much higher brow than LOLCats after all.

Yet No Puter.

New m@cbooc to @rrive tomorrow. In the me@n time, here iz photo to bring you h@ppy!

The eightiez were @wezome. I'm the one in pigt@iwz.

Oy vey, I c@n't w@it to get the new puter.

Puter No Worc.

No worcing puter. Home row iz 4 buzt, except g & h. I hev to put up booc recommenz when new puter comez. New M@cbooc iz en route. Which iz goot becuz typing thiz wey? Iz the worzt.

Bonuz pointz iv you c@n cipher wh@t thiz zez. 4 Zeriouz.

Be b@c zoon! H@ppy Mon.