This is the haps

Basement: smells like poo.

My shoe: smells like poo.

Baby: crying.

Preschooler: conked the hell out.

Yarn: purchased.

Buyer’s remorse: experienced.

Blog: updated.

Word.

November 13, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized, baby | 3 Comments

A Falcon good time

I went to Homecoming with my sisters and some friends yesterday.

After many, many hours of walking around in the sun (and a beer or two from the BG News alumni tent) —

— and a couple of Pollyeye’s breadsticks, I arrived home feeling like a little kid who had been at the zoo all day. *Clonk! ZZzzzzzz*

Very fun. And I got express permission from Emmy, Katie, Dani, Jenny and Rema to put that group shot on Supafine, which was basically the whole reason for this post. Hi, girls!

October 5, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 10 Comments

Tripping sensuously over my pants

… to steal a line from New Zealand’s fourth most popular digi-folk paradists.

Hee. But seriously, though. Evidently I have finally lost the baby weight, because my jeans from last fall — a size 4 Old Navy abomination of denim — are falling right off my hips. I have to hold them up with one hand when I’m out shopping. But pushing the stroller and holding on to Owen leaves no hands left to hold up my pants, so my quest for Mom Jeans begins anew.

I dragged both boys throughout Ross Park Mall yesterday, hissing at Cormac not to touch things and explaining ad nauseum to Owen everything about everything. (“Why is that man—”) It was not a good scene. After three hours and a side trip to Plato’s Closet, I had tried on at least 15 pairs. And I figured out the problem: you never know what will happen to your jeans once you get them home. If you wash them, they shrink up to your calves. If you wear them, they start to droop and bag. Unless you count on them shrinking or drooping and they refuse to do either, leaving you with an expensive pair of pants that didn’t fit in the dressing room and don’t fit you now.

I went so far as to quiz the Gap clerk on shrink factors and inseam lengths. I need a 30.5” or a 31” inseam. My choices are a 30” inseam or a 32” inseam. The shrink factor, she said, was a quarter to a half an inch. If I get the 30” they will shrink a half an inch and leave me high and dry, but if I get the 32” they will shrink a scant quarter inch and leave me swimming. And my sewing machine is in storage, so they have to fit right off the bat — I can’t hem them myself.

I know this is high drama, and that you are on the edge of your seat, but come on. I’ve been on this planet for nearly 29 years (tomorrow!) and I have yet to find a pair of jeans to fit.

But I do have this little nugget to pass on: If you go to Plato’s Closet, there’s a kindly old man working there who will humor your children, and also the Citizens of Humanity jeans are only $45. They don’t fit me, either, but I figure somebody out there should benefit from my trials.

September 25, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 12 Comments

GLARGLE. Please send reinforcements or, failing that, a reliable wi-fi connection

So hey! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING has changed. Well, Cormac’s lip healed, OK, there’s that. But everything else is dreadfully, awfully, the same. Our “new” house still smells like moldy old breath and we are still living with relatives. Owen likes to pass the time by asking me to describe his toys, which are all still boxed up in storage and many of which he hasn’t seen since June. As for myself, it’s been so long since I sewed anything that I’m afraid I will have forgotten how.

Rick Sebak documentaries on WQED have been nice for occupying our minds and hours, but it’s a weak condolence prize when my new house sits empty, bedraggled and unfinished for lack of time and childcare. We have yet to sand the hallway and third bedroom and then stain and seal those floors, plus then we need to replace the staircase (!), patch and prime and paint all interior rooms and wait for it to dry in this constant drizzle, and maybe THEN we’ll be ready to start bringing over truckloads of our cheap but beloved possessions from the storage unit. Oh hey, lovely story about the storage unit: APPARENTLY somehow, and I won’t speculate how this might have happened although I’d dearly love to do so, somehow a bottle of floor varnish (ironic! or whatever!) sprung a leak and leaked over a bunch of our stuff, coming to rest in a puddle under our brand-new Macy’s mattress that was the cause of so many marital tiffs over the last, oh, five years. I can’t get past the boxes to see the damage, but I’m afraid I might cry when I do.

Many small occurrences are making me question myself: Either this move to Pittsburgh is the smartest thing we’ve ever done for ourselves, or hands-down the worst. At this point I feel like it could go either way.

September 12, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 6 Comments

So long, and thanks for all the crabs

Tonight will be our last night in Baltimore. What I will miss the most:

our friends on the faculty of the high school, who were nearly always up for poker
my coworkers and friends at the Baltimore Sun Media Group, who understand why some things aren’t done, and why some things must be
The awesome local people I met in real life through this blog, who introduced me to quite a number of delicious eateries, drinkeries, and quirky points of interest, as well as being righteous dudes and dudettes
Sonia and Ethel, guardians of the Lower Level, who helped me out of jams and made night work a cheerful proposition
the checkers at the Mars on Joppa Road, the grocery store we’ve been going to every Saturday afternoon for the last six years
Governor O’Malley, his sleeveless shirts, and his guitar

I’ll miss Baltimore the location, but mostly I’ll miss Baltimore the people. (and, as Iain says, I’ll miss the way yinz guys say “hon.”) We’ll be back out to visit soon. Meanwhile, keep an eye on things out here for me, ‘kay? I feel sort of invested in this place after six years.

August 4, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 8 Comments

Sold!

Sold in six days.

June 26, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 13 Comments

Ready to do this thing nonetheless

Well, the house goes on the market in like two hours. As I explained to Owen, that means our friendly real estate agents are going to come over, take a bunch of pictures, and start letting strangers poke through our medicine cabinet. Like a party, right. Only without warning and without any Parrot Bay (and hopefully without any nude picture-messaging).

Our storage unit is 9/10 full. I have every intention of going over there and taking a photo, but as I mentioned, the damn place has been closed for days for “floor refinishing,” which I suspect is code for either “drug bust” or “bug dust”.

The house gets cleaned every night after the tots go to bed, and every morning by 8:30 a.m. it looks like a team of wild donkeys has stormed through.

I can’t believe we’re selling this place. I have finally come to halfway enjoy it, what with all the work we’ve put in. Sometimes I think about when we bought it; it was 2004, and the Baltimore housing bubble was just about hitting its peak. People were throwing thousands of dollars over asking price at anyone with a For-Sale sign. Houses were getting contracts within minutes of listing. Our own sellers nonchalantly tossed a list of conditions at us when we made an offer — they wanted to sell it as is, purple bathroom and all, and they wanted to move fast. And of course we had no option but to accept. The only reason we got any sort of deal is because they’d already bought a bigger house across town and were counting on their 100k profit for a down payment. Bastards.

Sometimes I think Iain and I were born at just the wrong time. By the time we graduated college, the dot com bubble had burst and the economy was entering a recession. Then, when we got pregnant and were ready to buy a house, real estate was soaring. Now that we are ready to sell, prices are plummeting and sellers are laughed at left and right. Sigh. If only we had been born, say, two years earlier, how things could have been different.

Anyway. Things are not so bad now; we are still at the beginning of the race, when the course looks short and flat and breezy. Anything could happen. Theoretically, we could get an offer Friday and be ready to go. What? It could happen. You never know.

Meantime, I think I’ll just start crate-training the children and save myself a headache or two. And if you’re looking to buy in the County, do drop me a line.

More on our future living plans slightly later in the summer, ja?

June 19, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 7 Comments

two macs

Bondi iMac running 8.5, 1-year-old Cormac running 24/7.

June 18, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 3 Comments

Kids these days

Don’t let them fool you. Under those grizzly exteriors lie squishy, adorable hearts of molten gold, ready to slather you with drooly kisses or compliment you on your hooded sweatshirt (“You look cute, Mom!”).

It’s just that those loving moments never seem to happen when I have a camera in my hand. When I’m holding the camera is when they dish the sass, the sour or the sullen. Ah, children. You’re cute even when you’re scowling.

April 22, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 1 Comment

Crockpot challenge: Faux Toledo

Tonight: Chicken Paprikash, like a good Toledo girl should. Sadly, this was not my best work. In fact, it was barely edible. Sometimes the crockpot turns meat dry and sawdusty, and I don’t know why, and that’s what happened this time.