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


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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

Pencil

I found this in Ella's pocket.  

Machinery

Depress this button and observe the delicate steel arm swing up with an immediate satisfying click.  Now the paper is changed forever. Steady snapping from brain to page.  Look child, this is how a machine works. Before vacuum tubes and silicone circuits and plasma screens and 3-D printers this is how pulleys and levers changed the world.

I'm glad you said you liked the font.

Polar Ham

It's eighteen below zero, that's -39° F with the wind-chill. School is closed. The dog refuses to go outside to pee and I'm not even mad about it.  I'm going to bake a ham today for a really long time in the oven.  I'm putting it in at 11am and putting a can of 7up on it like my Mother-in-law used to and then I'll put it on low and slow and often go in the kitchen to lean against the stove and see how it's doing.

What I Wanted

I wanted to write a piece about what it might be like living as an artist in a socialist nation.  I wanted to make five tins of fudge and fold all the laundry.  I wanted to sand that slice of oak from my grandparents' forest until it was smooth and soft and glassy. I wanted to send out letters telling people what happened all year and I wanted to make it to the gym and to give blood and have a new key made and get stamps at the post office. I wanted more day in this day.

How Poetry Works

You have some lines that roll around in your head against the rough edges of your thoughts until they're polished into a shiny little gem... or turd, depending.

The toaster lasted

Longer than the marriage

In my defense

It was a damn good toaster.

I made him wear mittens

Reasons My Son is Crying

I Boo these Boots

I have some lovely knee high faux leather biker boots I usually wear in the winter.  They're pretty beat up and I retired them this fall.  I wanted to spend a little more and get the exact same boot but in leather this time so they'd last more than the seven years I had the last ones.  I could only find them ankle height.  My feet hurt and they've been cold.  Tonight I went out to shovel the walk and move the car into the driveway and I threw on the old boots.  That was when I realized how much the new ones suck.  Having warm feet for me is everything in the winter.  After today I said I'd like to wear two little snuggly fuzzy baby bears turned inside out and dipped in whale oil on my feet if that's what kept my toes from going numb with cold but tomorrow I think I'll set out to look for some nice rubberized fluffy synthetic somethings instead.  Hopefully I'll find something that doesn't break the bank.  I may shop in the men's department.

Self Made

Among the busy bustle of the everyday living of one adult and two kids my son decided to potty train himself.  He and his sister are different in so many ways.  She was content to hang out and quietly color, play with small toys and/or join in the adult conversation.  He wants to chase the dog and climb tall and dangerous things and in general keep me on alert every minute of the day.  But it's incredible he decided he wanted to be done with diapers and then ever more that's how it was.  No effort from me.  It's how he is, when he decides something he figures it out and just does it for himself.  He can load his own dvds into the computer - starting with turning it on, he can pour a bowl of cereal (milk supervised), he can get dressed all on his own and I imagine soon he'll have how to drive the car figured out.  I think he'll be one of those guys people say is a self made man, but hopefully the kind that looks back into the camera and says "Hi Mom!"

Lottery

Sure, I could stop worrying how to make ends meet and I'd have way better health care, but I'd still live right here, I'd still drive my same car, I'd still eat my favorite breakfast ever - toast and coffee, I'd still fold my own socks when they come out of the dryer and I'd still be trying to get the kids to eat more vegetables.  I think I would travel just a little more to some prettier places and maybe I'd have a second car to zoom around town in, something small and red perhaps, and I could give a little more to the charities I like.  I'd still be looking for a reliable babysitter for my family to fall in love with.  For sure I'd have a bigger bathtub and a fluffier bed.  But mostly, you'd find me here, raising my babies, typing posts for this blog and getting the good pen out to draw and paint things for people I love, just like always.