Dooce

I had to stop reading Dooce when Heather got pregnant with her second child and so did I but then I miss-carried.  I always thought of Leta and Ella as internet sisters and Heather's monthly letters to her were all the things I wish I'd written.  On a whim, I decided to hit her website again and was met with the beautiful smiling faces of her children.  Leta is starting 5th grade like my Ella and Marlo is a few years older than Jack but the dynamic between she and her older sister is adorable.  I scrolled down and down and saw Chuck the dog and the not so new dog Coco, but I didn't see John.  I paged through a few pages looking for his smile.  Looking for the transcribed banter between the two, I used to love to read and found none. I got worried. Is John ok? So I googled and found that they split last winter.  I clicked a few fan blogs and news sights to briefly read about what happened.  I have a sense of how it went down and I have concluded, I still can't read Dooce, but I may go ahead and follow John.

The End of a Good Summer

This first week of school is the hottest of all the summer.  We were waiting for this week so that we could go swimming up at the springs.  It was one of the last few things to cross off the list of 50 things to do this summer. So, no swimming in the icy blue water of Pearl Lake and for the 3rd straight year we were not able to hear any live yodeling.  Apparently it's just harder than you think to find a good yodeler in the summer.  We also did not roller skate outside due to the rampant growing of children's feet around here and we also never made it to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison.  Not too shabby for finishing a list.  Some of the highlights of what we DID do:

#25 Pee in the ocean. (Not pictured)

#8 Eat Something New

 


#5 Use the wagon #12 See a parade #6 Get up early



#17 Family painting

  

There were regular things like find a penny and roll down a hill, and there were regular things that will stick out to me forever now.  I put walk the dog on the list.  We hadn't been doing this very often any more because our dog was very old, 119 to be exact. She didn't really feel like walking much any more, she mostly just slept.  I had to lay her to rest over the weekend.  I'm glad we spent time with her. I'm glad she was on the list. There are so many things to say about a beloved dog of 17 years, but I'm not together really enough to say them yet.

This is Wednesday and Ella and Jack in the backyard.



It was a good summer.

More Uneaten Foods

Red's Little Black Heart

Temporary Public Art outside of Bennie's Cleaners in Rockford, IL.  This is part of Rockford's ART ATTACK series going on all summer.  This is one of three I've done down-town. The unofficial title is "Red's Little Black Heart", it's acrylic paint on glass.  

Freshwater Mermaids of North America - NOW IN COLOR!

Freshwater Mermaids of North America

"Freshwater Mermaids of North America"  It's what I'm spending my summer working on and the show is Friday, August 1st, 2014.  These are sneak peak sketches of something I'm so obsessed with and it's so huge and awesome I'm dreaming about it.  The show is at 317 Market St. Rockford, IL and some of the prints will be available online later in the month.  

Immigrant Children in the Heartland

In direct contradiction to Davenport IA, Mayor Gluba's efforts to coalesce local agencies to welcome the fleeing immigrant children to the Quad Cities, Catholic Governer Terry Branstad (R) says "I do not want to house immigrant children in my state."  Seems Pope Francis who called for tens of thousands of unaccompanied child migrants to be "welcomed and protected," is yet again in opposition to the GOP platform.

Despite Senator Mark Kirk's (R) of IL implication that the refugees are gang members and other tiny unaccompanied criminals, Illinois has welcomed 429 unaccompanied children under her wings.  Senator Durbin (D) of IL says we "would want to adopt these children if you spent five minutes in the room with them,....They are lovely, beautiful little kids." Heartland Alliance in Chicago is in charge of placing and overseeing the care of the kids placed in IL.  I'm checking to see if there is anything even more local for people right here to do, I'll update when I know more.

Can you imagine sending your kid out into the dessert by themselves in hopes they find something better? How bad does something have to be before you'd do that?  We can't send these kids back to whatever it was.  This isn't what America is about.


The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Restless Legs

I've been doing three miles on the elliptical machine at the YMCA.  I was so proud last month when I came in under 30 minutes, and last week right before they closed the cardio room for renovations I made it in 28:15.  I did the arms over my head celebration pose.  I felt mighty.  So now the cardio room is closed for a few weeks.  Yesterday I went to the track at my down-town Y, ready to run three miles in about thirty minutes.  Of course it was going to be easier because I wouldn't have to swing my arms all big and go uphill in intervals and sometimes backwards. Then, I hurt myself.  running.  Well, mostly running and sometimes just fast walking.  I did 2.5 miles in about thirty minutes and my shins are trying to leave my legs.  They want to go to Florida and retire in a nice little community of sunny yellow condos on the beach and hobble down to the water twice a day where they sit tiny little folding chairs and watch the stingrays flutter up on the beach looking for clams. And there's a tiny little muscle just next to my knee that is really pissed off right now and as a result keeps stabbing me in the leg when I go up the stairs and my hips whenever addressed look up sulkily and tell me to go fuck myself. I'm going to do it again tomorrow.

Happy 4th Birthday Jack

Jack turns four today.  He's a funny guy.  He never stops moving, not unless he's sleeping, and since he started talking, he does it almost non-stop.  He's curious and caring and adventurous and likes birds and worms and sports and painting and anything with wheels, and tools - especially hammers and nails and the color "lellow." He likes to dance, loves the beach and just discovered you can slide down the carpeted front hall stairs. I'm proud of him every day for wearing me out and making us all so happy.

Another Dear So and So Letter in which I Get to be Snide.

Dear Dude glaring at me while I use the only mat in the whole YMCA to stretch on after running two and a half miles on that awful machine I hate,

I will only be visiting while the down-town branch gets newer and better machines and then I won't be stretching my calves and other yoga bits on the mat you had planned on rubbing your balls up against for the next ten minutes.  Please stop glaring at the side of my head and just get your butt down here and your legs spread with your shorty shorts right next to me, there's plenty of room and really I can't stop what I'm doing to move on to the next thing or my legs will cramp up into horrendous knots of gristly, tangled, painful meat.  Also, you should get the disinfectant spray and wash your ball sweat off the mat when you're done so the next unsuspecting push-up doer from the down-town branch who doesn't realise this is your own personal mat available for only your ball rubbing use won't have to go nose down in your crotch funk.

Sincerely,
The Slow Stretcher invading your space who will henceforth disinfect everything at the East branch before using it.

Summer Family Painting 2014

He Makes Me Laugh

"Mom, let me squish you're belly and see if you're funny." Jack age 3

Dumb

Toddlers aged 2-3 being medicated for ADHD?!! 

What is wrong with people.

Link

Once We Become Parents We Don't Want to Hang Out With You Anymore (But Not for the Reasons You Think)

yep.

Who Buys This Crap Part III

Who Buys This Crap Part II

Who Buys This Crap Part I


***


This was selling at Walmart last week.

See something - Say something. 

Artist's Statement

I've started working on illustrations for my second children's book.  I'm very excited about it but now the hard work of getting the vision in my head down onto paper happens.  It's not actually hard work, the work is... time warping. It's like stepping into a different dimension and waking up after a large amount of time has passed and I don't exactly have a handle on my surroundings and there's art in front of me.  Last time I was putting together a show I lost my keys twice, my wallet once and three pounds.  When I finish a project my head feels swimy like I just had a huge complicated dream with codes and instructions and the secret to everything whispered to me by phantom caterpillars riding on surf boards. How do you put that into an artists statement? I'm supposed to be trying to sound intelligent and telling the viewer something about my process yet, all I can muster is "I went somewhere and when I came back there was this."

Orange Juice

A Boy and His Pool Noodle Snake

Jack loves to watch Sanjay and Craig with his green pool noodle wrapped around his middle. That is all.

Oh Lolli, Lolli, Lolli...

These pictures were all taken yesterday at various places in my house.  Here's the thing; I have never bought a lolli-pop.  But apparently the whole world thinks my kids should have one.  The doctors office, bank tellers, the grocery check out ladies and every valentine.  The kids give a polite thanks and then hoard them, probably in the same place they keep their marbles, markers without lids and endless supply of stinky socks rolled into a ball.

I've pulled them out of car seats, off the carpet out of hair and even off the top of the toilet tank.  I'm not even sure Jack knows there is a center in a tootsie roll pop.  He just gets some taste and says "nope" laying it down wherever.  Ella thinks all lollis have a chewy center of; candy, gum or just plain paper stick.  Later I find a soggy half spit ball - half lolli stick, while reaching into a pants pocket or leisurely sliding my hand under a couch pillow.

I can't stop them.  The nice folks who give them out always ask.  But that's the thing... they always ask in front of the kids.  "Can they have a CANDY?" and then I sense a tremor of excitement emanating from the adorable cherubs who's very flappy eye-lashes enticed sugar from the finger tips of a stranger.   And that's the point of no return already.  Unless they've been terrible, it's impossible to say no without being the meanest Mom in the history of ever.

I realize what a stupid first world problem it is to be all winey about free candy.  How affluent does a society have to be, before they give what was once only available to royalty, away to every human that walks by? And how much more affluent does a society have to be before mothers start complaining about it? Cripes.

Messes We Made Before 10am