She Loves Him, Really

The marker board often has mysterious messages appear. We have our hunches who wrote the following, and her name starts with Ch and ends in e:

Payback

While waiting to pick up the Double Mother (known in the civilized world as "grandma") at the airport, the girls commandeered the radio, tuning in stations playing much hipper music than I tend to have blasting. And then they blasted it, toggling between the two stations of choice and singing along.

I think the other rides waiting in the cell lot at the airport appreciated hearing our music, too. They certainly could hear it.

Some of their music is really inappropriate, some of it I actually like, all of it is going to be playing loudly in my car for years to come, I can tell.

Can You Put on Some Music?

These words are – really – music to my ears. Chase asks this often, while we are riding in the car, and I couldn’t be happier to oblige. I love my music, love to have music on at home, in my car. I notice the absence of music, I notice when I dislike the music playing somewhere. I have been known to flee teen-clothing stores because I couldn’t stand the music even one more second.

The kids are understanding, know that there are times to just let me enjoy it, I need it. They don’t try to talk to me when I have a new, great “album” playing, loudly. I’m sure I’ve damaged their hearing with so much loud music, starting when they were in utero.

As we motor along, Chase asks an even better question: “Can you turn it up?”

Hot Doggin’

Sitting on the porch together, Chase asked me, “Would you be surprised to see Charlie on top of the hot tub?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Charlie climbing a tree,” was my reply.

The mangy mutt is clearly settling in, filling out (as our pets are apt to do), and finding her spot in the pack. She really is mangy, needing medicine every day for six weeks, in addition to medicine for an ear infection and medicine for some sort of intestinal issue. She takes her meds pretty well, in between eating my favorite sandals and Chloe’s homework.

When we returned home from dinner on Chloe’s birthday and I looked out on the porch and saw all the pages littering the floor, my first thought was, “I hope that wasn’t one of my books…” Chloe’s scream confirmed that it was one of her books, her school copy of Treasure Island. Chloe didn’t like the book and might have been happy for Charlie to destroy it except she had a test in two days. What was left of the book was the embodiment of “the dog ate my homework,” covers ripped off, pages torn out of the middle, all edges dog-eared.

Charlie treats Chase like a littermate, jumping on him and rolling him around against his will, nipping his tender parts. She must feel sorry for him, thinking he’s some hairless puppy who doesn’t wrestle very well. She joins in song when Emma practices cello or Chloe practices clarinet. She’s a music lover, which matters to us.

When she first wakes up in the morning, she is so sweet and subdued, stretching and cuddling for a few moments before she remembers she’s supposed to nibbling and jumping and chewing through the pile of magazines. I have caught her trying to pull a shoe out from under a door so that she can chew on it. Walking her is a full-body experience.

Charlie’s pedigree continues to fascinate. We hope she has some of our sweet Pepper in her somewhere, since Pepper was The Best Dog Ever. The way she nibbles our clothes while-we-are-wearing-them prompted Chase to speculate that she’s part goat. When she’s calm enough to let me flatten out her big floppy lips, she looks like a platypus. When the vet first saw her, she thought her face was great dane-ish. Emma’s nickname for her is Charlie Horse and she can be a pain. But she’s our goat-platypus-arts-loving-great puppy.

Good Qualities

Garrison Keillor, answering the question, "What is the quality you like most in a woman?"

High-spiritedness, wit, a love of repartee and wordplay and allusion and jokes -- in other words, an English major.

from Vanity Fair, September 2009 issue

My Little Fish

I recently bought liquid hand soap for the bathrooms that had a graphic of a mama goldfish and her three little baby fishies swimming behind her. I asked the kids if they liked the new soap, told them that I liked the image of the mama and her three babies.

"Well...goldfish eat their babies," said my smart little fishies. Put a damper on the charm a bit.

"She's Getting Fat"

So said Chloe a few weeks ago – the very day we brought puppy Charlie home. She wasn’t talking about Charlie, but about her new pet, the hedgehog, Francie. At this point in our story, we had Francie about three weeks.

“Already?’ said Emma. Because our pets do like to fatten up. When Mimi came to live with us, her hair was a mess, so it was hard to tell how big she was. After a haircut, we found she was quite small, about 12 pounds – an even match for the cat, Milo. I think Mimi was underfed when she came to us, but she’s not anymore. Milo had been dieting (not his idea) and was back to a reasonable fighting weight for him.

So, Emma’s question was valid. It was no surprise Francie-the-hedgehog was getting bigger, it just seemed a little soon. Chloe bought Francie from a pet store, and the people at the store said there had been another hedgehog in the cage beforehand. Yes, there were two hedgehogs sharing a cage. When we bought Francie, we asked if she was a girl or a boy. They guessed girl. No report on the other one, her former “roommate.”

“And she’s only getting fat in part of her stomach,” said Chloe. Francie also had lost some quills, another oddity.

Chloe checked gestation periods for hedgehogs and it was…about…three weeks. While the idea of having babies seemed exciting to those of us not actually expecting (a fairly universal truth), the somber fact was that hedgehogs reportedly are not always the best mothers and sometimes eat their babies.

We determined that we’d better take Francie with us to the vet, where Mimi and Milo were having their yearly check-ups. The vet was pleasantly surprised, had never seen a hedgehog, and seemed slightly nervous to pick her up. Chloe finally just picked up Francie and held her up so that the vet could peek at her underside.

“What’s that in the middle of her stomach?” I asked.

“I think that’s his________” said the vet. Fill in the blank following the word “his.”

He’s Frankie now. A wonderful pet – who is NOT having babies!

She likes mind games

Charlie likes chewing on Mind Games, the book of word puzzles I keep around to keep alzheimer’s at bay. She’s getting more use out of it than I am. What was I saying? I’m not forgetting, I’m just having trouble tracking since we brought a furry toddler into the house and gave up sleeping in.

Charlie, short for Charlotte (after Charlotte's Web), is a sweet, enthusiastic, seven-month-old mutt pound PUPPY. Puppies like to jump and chew and jump and chew. And then chew some more. Charlie also likes the New Yorker, often stealing them off the table to destroy. New Yorker reviews may be harsh, but they don’t scare Charlie. Although many, many other things do scare her – loud noises, teen boys, sudden movements, other dogs. It’s a long strange list, a product of her unknown background.

She was at our home about 7.5 minutes before she tore through the screen on the porch door to race out and knock down the volleyball net. Now the yard looks like a crime scene: items scattered here and there, big pieces of wood dragged and abandoned, the porch furniture cushions askew (and muddy). The hammock has hung for years without incident, but somehow Charlie has untied the rope and run off with it.

Mimi (the little dog) and Milo (the little cat) are not amused. It’s been about a month and they’re plotting something, I can tell. Charlie loves both of them, but can’t seem to convince either to play with her. It could be the giant rough paws, the floppy, slobbery lips, or the love nips. These aren’t the greatest when you are bigger than Charlie, but when you are smaller, you get knocked about quite a bit (ask Chase).

Creepy and Funny

While watching part of the old "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" movie, we couldn't believe the scene where the boy offers some money to his grandpa for his tobacco. They are all crazy poor (recall that the four grandparents share one bed...) and Charlie's sweetly insisting his grandpa take the money. 

"I'll buy your tobacco, Grandpa."

Chloe waited just the perfect amount of time and then turned to me and said, "Mom, I'll buy your tobacco," straight faced. (I don't buy tobacco, for the record.)

Later, I joked that no one loved me and Chloe said plaintively, "I said I'd buy your tobacco!"

Not too sly

I was driving home and called to tell the kids I was on my way. Chloe answered and we agreed that I would just take them to school, so we had more time before we had to leave.

"Just tell Chase that he has a little more time," I said.

"I think he's on the phone," Chloe said.

"No, I'm not," Chase said.

Book Review

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken, is A Great Book in the Genre of Grief Writing. 

The title is one of the biggest, but the beloved being mourned is one of the smallest. The author details the nightmare she and her husband endured when their first child is stillborn, while they were living in France, working, writing, and oblivious to the risks of parenting. The writing is beautiful and the feelings shared sometimes are ugly, as grief usually is.

McCracken and her husband survived and now have a son, a testament to the difficult and almost ironic fact that, oftentimes, life does go on. Maybe someday her son will read her lovely book of loss, but you don't have to wait. If you've lost someone (which covers everyone reading), you might find some comfort in McCracken's memoir.

Some days

this is how I feel:

Free Rice

Forget the resolutions: have some fun while doing some good at FreeRice. This rice site offers trivia questions and for every correct answer donates 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. Categories include famous paintings, world capitals, pre-algebra, vocabulary, and even foreign languages. The more you play, the more sponsors donate rice. And really, did you already know that philippic mean tirade? 

Thanks to my friend Jami for showing me the site.

Wimpy, Wonderful Thanks

From Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney, here is a nice fill-in-the-blanks thank you note for those holiday gifts:

Dear Aunt Loretta,

Thank you so much for the awesome pants! How did you know I wanted that for Christmas?

I love the way the pants look on my legs!

My friends will be so jealous that I have my very own pants.

Thank you for making this the best Christmas ever!

Sincerely,

Greg

**********

I hope everyone enjoyed some great pants this holiday season!

PediCare

PediPaws awaited Mimi under the Christmas tree this year. If you don't know what this is, you clearly don't watch cable television, where it has been heavily advertised as the BEST THING EVER FOR TRIMMING YOUR DOG'S NAILS. On the commercials, of course, it looks like the easiest thing ever, the dogs calm and almost smiling while enjoying their pet pedicure.

One of the inserts in the box has a large STOP! warning, saying "All Pets Are Different! Read All Instructions Before Use!" Meaning, some pets really freak out. "Use Praise!" "Use Treats!" 

The multiple-day exposure, treats, and praise have not lessened Mimi's freaking out. Yet.

Another Shoebox Goodie

The Good Ole' Days

From Shoebox Blog

When I Grow Up...

I hope my blog is a fraction as good as Kristin Espinasse's French Word-A-Day. It's well written, educational, and offers her fantastic photos, including this gem, titled petite amie and captioned: 

A paramour and his puffy petite amie in the town of Grignan (where Madame de Sevigné famous for the witty and entertaining letters that she wrote to her daughter, lived).

The Cat Likes Pie?

For anyone madly cooking before the feast of Thanksgiving...

Several years ago, on the day before Thanksgiving, we rested at the end of the day, with friends and drinks at a neighbor's house. The shopping was done, the pies were cooling, the kids were playing quietly. The peace was shattered when it appeared that the cat had eaten some of the pumpkin pie.

Upon closer inspection, the damage was clearly done by little hands, reaching up to help themselves, a small canyon in the middle of the pie. You could see the finger marks! It wasn't the cat, it was the kids, thankfully.

Sign of Winter

When I do the laundry, I can do an entire load of jeans.