Installment Art and The School of the Living Room

My 3 year-old is infatuated with school. Not her school, which she refuses to discuss, and which she will be forcibly deposited into in exactly 9 days, 16 hours and 35 minutes, but our own utopian School of the Living Room. In this school she is the star student and deigns to assist Rom, Pickle, Souci and Kimmy with spelling, math, shape identification and humming practice. Today we had an extra-special art installment that all lessons were to incorporate (see photo). This installment was called the Box-a-treater. Yeah, I have no idea. The first lesson required us to drop pennies into a cup inside the Box-a-treater. The cup had a hole in the bottom and we had to sing a song about carousels as we made our offerings. You are now telling me to put the mushrooms away, and I have. I just asked the star pupil what we called the singing-and-Canadian-money-offering ritual and she said, "It's just an empty cut-up beer box, Mommy. Now will you help me get all this glue off my hands."
Yeah, sweetie, and quit sniffing it while you're at it.

Birthday Extravaganza and the Mysteries of Diesel

Today was my birthday. I got some flowers and cookbooks. I suggested the cookbooks, after jewelry, tennis lessons, and a weekend trip, and I got the cookbooks. Gifts from the 3-year-old: no tantrums were thrown during a nice lunch out in an actual restaurant, she went pee once by herself without me crouching in front of her, semi-cradling the baby and holding her hands, and an awesome picture of an apple with 8 heads. Gifts from the baby: poop stayed inside the diaper, naps were taken, and smiles abounded. Things I wish hadn't happened on my birthday: a big, uncoordinated man stepped on my foot during a soccer game, I mistook the tempura dipping sauce for the soy sauce and my sushi tasted weird and kind of sweet, and Letterman was a rerun.

I was half-watching a PBS show this morning on sustainability (I think it was called "Lunch with Bokara") and they were talking about how the diesel engine was originally designed to run on recycled vegetable oil in vehicles used by the farming community. The guy (Dr. Diesel - awesome!) showed his engine for the first time at the 1900 Expo and it ran on 100% peanut oil (much like myself). Then he was found mysteriously drowned in 1913 and our country went on to invade Iraq twice and drill millions of holes in Alaska. All in the name of freedom - {nudge, nudge, wink, wink}.

Sorry Dave, I Can't Do That

Right now I'm online, it's 10:00 and dark and my retinas are burning from my too-bright monitor, and a giant moth is fluttering around the screen and believe it or not, because I was scrolling down the page at the time, I actually tried to use my mouse to shoo the moth. And no, I didn't physically raise the mouse and whack the screen with it, I tried to scare it with my teeny little arrow cursor. And it took me a minute to realize how weird and sad that was.

Two Good-lookin', Incontinent, Guys

My friend and I ran into these dudes at the coffee shop yesterday. They were pretty cute, but both of them had bizarre fixations on our breasts. Anyway, I'm not ashamed to admit that I went home with the one on the left. He smiled at me and I just melted.
(was that creepy?)
On an entirely different subject, I went to see Allison Krause and Union Station last night. Great, awesome, and all that, but a highlight was watching a middle-aged couple do a two-step to all the bluegrass tunes. The woman's long, full skirt twirled hypnotically as her fancy-steppin' partner spun her around and around and around and around... They looked almost as if they had choreographed the whole thing, it was so fluid and beautiful. The combination of the dancers and the angelic voice of AK almost made me unaware of the sweat rolling down my back and pooling in the waistband of my shorts. It was 125 degrees. And the woman next to me was so into the show she was leaning into my personal space exuding a smell similar to those vanilla car freshener thingies. And then she would sing outloud, in my ear, to all her favorites. Boy! I should have paid double, because I got two, TWO, I tell you, concerts.