January 2012
4 posts
Smart-mouthed by a deer butt
I saw the white-tailed deer from the park path — about 20 seconds before the dog did. It was a doe with her two (now almost fully grown) fawns. They’ve made frequent trips up the street to our house since Autumn so we sort of know each other now.
The dog goes completely nuts every time he sees them — as he was this time. He pulled the leash so hard that I had to lean back to...
December 2011
5 posts
Christmas Eve morning
The child let me sleep an extra hour. It was glorious. I reveled in that lovely wake-up-slowly, it-the-weekend fuzz.
The child was patiently watching a movie in the next room.
It is Christmas Eve morning. I am at my parent’s house. I am on vacation.
The child and I creep down into the quiet house. I beeline to the garage to get my morning “cold caffeine”.
*beep* *beep*...
November 2011
4 posts
The tick
“Mom!” said the child, her face twisted up in an angry grimace and her finger rubbing the side of her face. “There’s something wrong with my ear.”
I glanced at her from three feet away as the grocery store cashier moved things brainlessly across the scanner. There was something dark on her skin, an inch or so in front of her right ear. “What the….”...
Chocolate milk
“Mommy? Can I make some chocolate milk?”
“Yeah. Sure. Just don’t make a mess — and don’t use all of the chocolate!”
“OK, Mommy. I won’t.”
(That’s about two inches of chocolate on the bottom of that glass… in case you were wondering.)
October 2011
6 posts
Ghost leaves
After an autumn rainstorm, mud-coated leaves flow over the asphalt and stick. After a couple of days, the leaves dry and fly away, but their image — in mud — remains.
2 tags
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Creature from the great beyond
I stopped short at the edge of the sink as the autumn sky outside the window darkened to starry moonless black. The child had just left her bath and was cheerfully babbling about something… I wasn’t really listening.
I was transfixed. There was something in the bathroom with me.
Something terrible.
A skull… cleverly carved into the wispy cellulose of my cheap toilet paper....
2 tags
New Doo
The child had a day off from school (Rosh Hashanah) so we decided to get haircuts. Being an adventurous person (who is also cheap and doesn’t plan ahead for these things) we went to the Hair Cuttery. I always just go with whoever is free.
I usually get a decent cut there, but it does vary (in my personal experience) based on the cultural background of the stylist. The Latinas can’t...
September 2011
4 posts
5 tags
Hoedown!
I heard the thump from the kitchen where I was cleaning up from dinner.
“Sweetie? Everything OK?”
“MOOOOOOMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYY!”
*groan* I dried my hands and took a look. The child was sitting on the floor crying and holding her foot.
“It hurts, Mom!”
I took a look. No bleeding, no bone fragments sticking out, not even any redness.
“Well,” I...
3 tags
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August 2011
7 posts
5 tags
A fish-eyed perspective of the Great Darke County...
About a week before we went on vacation, the husband got a gadget that allows him to put a macro (ie., “fish eye”) lens on an iPhone. “Hmmm,” I thought, as he stashed the gadget into the bag he carries with him to work every day. “It might be fun to get a different perspective on the pictures I take with my camera.”
When we got to Ohio and decided on a day to...
2 tags
You learn something new every day
Even when you are a goofy, adolescent dog. Today, the dog learned what happens when you try to play with a live hornet in the same way that you play with dead cicadas.
The first place he goes for comfort? A pile of freshly laundered blankets I had set on the couch.
I suppose I could hardly blame him. He’s got no idea why his foot hurts so bad.
He just licks and licks and licks and...
3 tags
July 2011
9 posts
5 tags
Finishing up this Minneapolis thing
So, where did I leave off? Oh, yeah. The cool Japanese store.
I’m going to try to stick to the highlights (and quit complaining about wayfinding in Minneapolis) so I can wrap this puppy up and move on to more kid and dog cuteness.
We snuck the husband out of his conference for lunch the next day so that we could go to a restaurant that my Minneapolis-native friend told me about called...
1 tag
5 tags
Minneapolis, Part 3
I woke up with a sore throat and a continuing case of denial. “It’s just the dry air in the hotel,” I told myself. “Buck up, lady. We aren’t done yet.”
Maybe some time in the moist water park would help. The child was still asleep so I decided to check it out.
The door was locked. I finally thought to check the hours. The bloody place was only open on...
2 tags
Mystery solved
You know, I thought there was some animal messing with my herb pots.
But to be completely honest…
…I really thought…
…it was the squirrels.
5 tags
Minneapolis, Part 2
The next day was better.
The sun came out and I was itching to get outside into the cool, dry air that was so unlike Washington’s hot-and-humid-as-a-monkey’s-armpit air. The husband wanted to sleep but the child was up. We decided to go see the river.
I didn’t realize until we were were actually in Minneapolis and trying to decipher the map that it was the Mississippi running...
5 tags
Minneapolis, Part 1
We took a trip — a real, honest-to-god, take-an-airplane, board-the-dog sort of vacation. We don’t do that very often. As the family accountant, I prefer smaller, closer excursions and, honestly, it hasn’t been that much of a trial. Where we live, we have ocean, mountains, rolling farmland, and some really wonderful cities all within a 4-5 hour drive of home.
Plus we can take...
June 2011
3 posts
2 tags
The Glitter Incident
It had been a long week. I just want to throw that out there. It had been a long and fairly stressful week.
School ended the week before and summer camp was still a week away. I had a pile of freelance work to do before we headed off on vacation. The child had been spending the week largely on her own. I was in the house and available for deathly emergencies (and snack preparation), but she...
May 2011
4 posts
3 tags
A moment, not so beautiful
“Moooommmmm. I’m bored. Can I have your phone?”
I dug into my pocket, trying not to drift off into the next lane on the highway. “Yeah, OK.” I handed it to her. “Here you go.”
She browsed through my apps. “Ah,” she said. “I’m going to play Chalky!”
For those of you who don’t know what Chalky is: It is basically a desk...
1 tag
A moment of beauty
From the Wings of Fancy exhibit at the nature center in the park behind our house. We go every year — several times every year.
No. I didn’t have a macro lens for that. The thing was as big as my hand.
Happy day!
4 tags
Minor Crises For Everyone
I was expecting a simple day. I had to run downtown for a piece of identification that I needed to get into a client’s network. I got an early start. I was going to waltz downtown, do my little dance of “yes, I’m really me and yes I really am authorized to get this” and waltz back out.
An hour tops.
Well, one thing led to another and by the time I was back on the Metro train, it was 40 minutes...
“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel,...”
– Ray Bradbury (via libraryland)
And that is why Ray Bradbury is awesome. (via amyvernon)
April 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Self portrait, imperfect
The child got off the bus, her eyes red and puffy.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I asked. “Is everything OK?”
She nodded tightly. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
Well, OK. We walked up the street in silence. She kicked some rocks and bent down to study some flower petals that had fallen from a nearby tree. The dog peed on a bush. The...
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