Square-Peg Reflections

Belly Laughing Through 2009

 

Today's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge question is:

Laugh. What was your biggest belly laugh of the year?

One? One belly laugh? I can't think of a specific one. Nope, can't do it. But I can think of the situations, occasions and folks that belly laughs are usually associated with in my life.

Around here we've laughed hard and often at the nasty-funny comedy show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And (lovingly) at each other's foibles. And Slightly-Brit's dry humor will often cause me to roar with laughter.

But, for me, the biggest belly laughs are usually associated with visits from Little Princess. We've had a lot of belly laughs while Slightly-Brit is trying to put us to bed. Let me explain...

When LP visits she sleeps in Slightly-Brit's room. And when it's time for her to hit the hay SBD, LP and I all head on up to the room - because SBD reads to us from the best books on earth. The plan is for me to aid and abet getting Little Princess to fall asleep. She loves being here and doesn't want to miss anything - so she fights sleep BIG time!

And though I'm supposed to help, I'm usually kind of worn by the time we head up to bed - and when I'm worn I'm giddy, goofy and weird (oh stop it! Do NOT ask me how you can tell the difference between worn times and normal times!).

Many, many times I've said something silly (when we're supposed to be quiet) to get a giggle out of Little Princess - causing her nearly-sleepiness to disappear completely. Really, it's a wonder Slightly-Brit lets me take part in the bedtime ritual at all!

And many, many, many times Little Princess has said something that just tosses me right over the edge of silliness into wild belly laugh guffawing. Which is, as you know, contagious. So I'll be belly laughing to beat the band and then LP will catch it and I'll be slowing down - but I'll be infected again by her laughter - and it goes on for quite some time (or until I fall asleep grinning and leave LP wide awake and SBD reading till the cows come home. Which is why, again, I wonder how it is that SBD hasn't banned me from the bedtime ritual).

I thought it'd be nice to let you in on some of the guffaw-inducing comments, but when I typed them out it seemed prudent not to tell you. Not that there's anything wrong with them, or even (good heavens - LP is 6!) anything nasty-It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia-ish about them. It's just that they lose something by virtue of you not being here when it's late and we're all tired and giddy and goofy and weird.

But one day we'll have to have a BIG slumber party - you'll be invited - then you'll see what I mean.

Coffee, Tea or...

Yesterday's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge question was:

Tea of the year. I can taste my favorite tea right now. What's yours?

Currently my favorite tea is coffee. Junk coffee (no real coffee-lover would approve) - a couple spoonfuls of a mocha mix and half a teaspoon of instant coffee. 

But when I settle down and appreciate tea (it used to be at the center of most of my over-the-kitchen-table socializing) my favorite is Bencheley's Apricot tea.

When I get a chance to enjoy Wild Violets, a local tea shop in an ("an" or "a"? hmmmm) historic building, I sometimes experiment with green teas or a Rooibos. And, for the record, I don't like bergamot - it hits me the way coffee used to -- I like the smell, but gag at the taste. Is that maybe just a little too much Karen trivia?

Ok, how about YOU? I need to know in case you drop in for tea! Now that would be fun!

Catching Up With #Best 09

 

I'm verging on grouchy about this - I missed a day of the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. But I'm going to catch up today by putting December 13th and 14th in the same post (oh, the ingenuity of the old girl). And really, why get grouchy over a gratitude-boosting challenge? Might be counter-productive.

So...Yesterday's question was:

What's the best change you made to the place you live?

...and the runner up is decluttering. Decluttering (on-going) has been the next-to-best change around here. But the numero uno change around the house that Jack built (which is the only way to describe this house) is the chalkboard door Slightly-Brit and I put in (sorta).

I say "sorta" because there are a few incidentals left to deal with (one being the handle - ok, so that's not exactly an incidental...but...). 

We used to have a hollow core door between the main part of the house and the laundry room/nether regions. 

Our beast (part border collie, part dalmation, part Tasmanian Devil) tore the stuffing out of the door (and since it was hollow core it had no stuffing!) in repeated attempts to get to a certain somebody whenever she wasn't able to get to them. What can I say? She's in love. C'mon, we've all been there.

The faux grunge look (picture ripped up door) didn't exactly fit with our decorating style (picture an eclectic mix of Adams family and Munsters - something like Cobwebs 'n Lace, without the lace) - and anyway, the nether regions aren't insulated too well (so that creepy, cold feeling running up one's spine was usually just a damn draft). A solid wood door was just what we needed.

And there's a long story in it about ordering the door, but I'll spare you. Just let me tell you this - there are lots of measurements you need to know when you order a door - not just ones that immediately spring to mind - go figure!

We got the door, did the necessary (ohmyword, what a pain in the tukkus) deconstruction of what was left of the hollow core door and whatever held it up (did I mention that we got an unmounted door?). And we put up the new (draft curbing) solid wood door - yea! 

But even bigger than all that was the fact that we (Slightly-Brit's idea) painted a wild-cool chalkboard on the dining area (main part of the house) side (as opposed to the side the dog is often on - she's not good with chalk anyway).

What fun it's been - I'm sure that at some point I'll show you some of the (more publishable) notes that find their way onto the door.

Ok, now today's question is: Rush. When did you get your best rush of the year?

That would be the excitement around Barbara Sher's WriteSpeak retreat that I got to attend - in Saluda, NC this November! Ohmy!! That whole experience, my friends, deserves (and will get) many, many future posts. Barbara Sher (through her books) changed my life - and getting to meet her in person - oh! I'll be talking about it forever!!

The Sullied Potholder

 

*New food. You're now in love with Lebanese food and you didn't even know what it was in January of this year.

Even though I did learn (in 2009) to cook the vegan chilli soup pictured above - and even though we all love it around Square-Peg Central - this picture doesn't show the new food I want to tell you about.

I don't have a picture of the roasted asparagus that I've fallen in love with, so you'll have to suffer with the one above -- complete with Slightly-Brit's over buttered toast (ohman, she is not going to be amused) - and the potholder that looks like it's been up someone's butt (all our potholders look like they've been up someone's butt - which I can pretty much swear that they have NOT!).

Asparagus has been a favorite veggie of mine since forever, but it never occurred to me to broil it. Until my pal Teryll suggested it. Complete with olive oil, herbs spices (oh, btw - olive oil is new to me this year -- yea, I know...)

I'd love to learn what YOU're new food of 2009 is, please tell...

*This is today's question in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge - please consider joining in. It's a great way to reflect on the past year - bound to engender loads of gratitude - and you don't have to post on every question - just pick one.

Is This Wrong?

 

So I don't want to skip a day in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge - and if I were going to skip a day it could not be the day that she asks about the best retreat you've gone to in 2009.

Because - ohhhhhhhh, I went to a fantastic retreat! The Barbara Sher WriteSpeak retreat in Saluda. And it would be wrong not to tell people about it.

But today has been a little busy. Today I learned that it's not a good idea to cut my own hair during the holiday (rush - rush - rush) season - even if two of my dearest friends do it all the time - and even if I do have experience (there were the church-mouse-poor years in Bronxville and the experiments once I had kids, i.e.: Bowl Cut 101 and Altered Bowl Cut 201) - and even if Havi recently mentioned cutting her own hair.

And today I also learned that being Suzi Homemaker is better left to a less rush-rush time. I was making vegan chile with really inadequate tools. I could actually bite the veggies into pieces easier and quicker than I can cut them using my sad sack knives, but then I'd have to spit the bitten pieces into the cooking pot - and it's just not worth the shit I'd have to hear about that!

I dropped a bit of green pepper through that damn space between the stove and the counter top - which landed in an inaccessible place - and dropped half a red pepper into dishwater. And cried so hard I couldn't see straight (because of the onion and garlic - and the fact that I couldn't open a window because my hands were full of veggie guck). And then I figured out the futility of the Suzi Homemaker thing during holiday rush times.

But of course it was too late by then. Just like it was "too late" when half my hair was cut and I realized that I had stopped paying attention to what I was doing -- which was following the old cut and trying to just take 1/2" off all over -- and had begun just snipping with no apparent plan.

So it started to look like I wouldn't have a post today. But guess what? I'm saved by a friend! Patty K wrote the most fanstastic #best09 post about the Barbara Sher retreat in Saluda this year and, since I could not possibly do a better job, I'm going to point you to her post, which she titled: Barbara Sher is just like a real person, only shorter.

I do feel a teeny tiny bit guilty though, like it's wrong to let Patty do all the work - sigh - but I'll get over it.

p.s. Patty is worse than potato chips - I bet you can't read just one! So sign up for e-mail updates!!

Is This Progress?

 

I'm not sure if I'm getting older and wiser or just older and weirder.

I was heading out yesterday - trying to hurry. Got dressed (always a good thing), grabbed some yogurt so that I had something in my stomach (that's the way I attempt to keep from impulse-buying 473 candy bars while out and around) - and was almost out the door...

when I turned the yogurt container upside down to check if it was recyclable. This was while I was still eating the yogurt (indeed, had only begun to eat it). And yogurt, in case you don't know, is one of those not-quite-liquid-but-not-solid-either kind of things.

And I did mention that I was dressed, right? I had on my favorite silk scarf (it was cold, my throat was sore and flu germs abound) - which became my favorite yogurt-coated silk scarf (damn and hell).

In the middle of (gently) wiping yogurt off my scarf I remembered a couple similar experiences from my younger years. These were actually "experiments" (in the very lame-ass-iest sense of the word).

The first (I was in high school) involved wondering why it is that we don't often (or I didn't anyway) breath much (or at least exhale) while eating. Mid-bite into a 10x (powdery) sugar-coated pastry (in a nice restaurant) I decided to try exhaling to see if it mattered, if there was any reason we don't breath normally while biting.

It mattered. My lunch-mate got covered in 10x sugar. Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't pretty. There was a mess. Of powdery sugar. And I was embarrassed.

Then (this is one that Slightly-Brit was witness to - she does not hesitate to mention it when I discuss experimenting with something that she thinks is not a good idea) there's the one involving the vacuum cleaner.

When I wondered why it is that we're so (or I was/am anyway) "oooh, careful" with the vacuum -- it's not like a lawn mower, it's not going to chop our feet off. The work would go so much faster if I could just swoosh, swoosh and not keep hopping around and out of the way of the darn thing. So what if it goes over my foot. Big fricking deal - so my sock would get cleaner.

Experiment: run the vacuum over my foot - what happens? Lots of yelling, swearing and jumping up and down. Vital information gained: running attachments (long ant-eater nosed thing to get into corners or cracks in upholstery) over your foot is fine - the part with the beater bar is decidedly not fine!

So here's the thing - those earlier "experiments" were undertaken with some forethought. The yogurt experience took place without first forming a hypothesis - I wasn't investigating anything - just acting.

Now is that progress - or something else?

Mary Had A Little Man

 

I was hunting for an earlier post - it's kind of busy around here and I thought I'd share an oldie-but-goodie.

The one I wanted (which, perhaps I only thought I put up) was about Little Princess' tale of us being chased by two hams. As I remember it, we were looking for a Christmas tree at a local nursery that used to have a few animals (a bit of a tradition, but the place is gone now..sigh) - and LP excitedly told her mom how "two hams chased us" (referring to a couple turkeys that weren't inside the fence with the other birds and did, in fact, run at us).

But I can't find the darn thing - or actually remember it very well. But I did find something else that made me laugh - so - here's my recycled post:

As a kid I loved the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment of the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV Show. Remember those twists on the traditional stories? 

I thought my enjoyment of the stories came from my sense of humor, but I'm rethinking that. I'm pondering the possibility that the pleasure (ohhhhh, way too many "p's" in this sentence!) I felt watching the show came more from a sense of familiarity. I believe my family and I (along with the Bullwinkle crew) have the fracture gene.

We fracture (often unwittingly) nursery rhymes, songs, sayings - in short, anything that gets in our path. I could tell you stories...and I probably will...

During a recent visit Little Princess was heard to sing some shocking words to "Bye Baby Bunting". Daddy did not go "a-hunting" - somehow the word "hump" got in there, which is just NOT a proper nursery rhyme! Not wanting to embarrass LP I didn't correct her, but sang along a number of times and substituted the conventional (though less interesting) wording because there's only so far you can fracture a nursery rhyme before it just isn't OK !!

Little Princess lives in a house with older children, so lately her musical influences have leaned more toward the Britney Spears type, and less toward nursery rhymes or kiddy songs. But I still find it strange that she could forget some of the words to classics like "Mary Had a Little Lamb". It's got to be the fracture gene at work.

One morning during that same visit, as LP sat on my lap snuggling and singing all kinds of things with me (including tidbits from tv commercials that she taught me, which we fractured the daylights out purposely!), we had a discussion about the aforementioned "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

Somehow, in Little Princess' mind, Mary had gone from having a little lamb to having a little man.  Now I'm all for that - I mean, Mary has my blessing. But I thought I ought to at least talk about it with LP, since her future SAT scores might be jeopardized if she didn't know that most folks remember Mary's lamb when they're singing about her - not her little man.

Of course, I'm also guilty of kicking it up a notch when it comes to "Mary Had a Little Lamb". I almost always trip on my tongue when I'm singing that little ditty (which, btw, doesn't occur that often - unless LP is visiting) because the lyrics that come to me first are not the original ones.

My father's fractured version of "Mary" (not unwitting), which is my default version,  went:

Mary had a little lamb,
she also had a bear.
I often saw her little lamb,
but never saw her bear (bare).

Little Princess catches on quickly, so we were able to have many laughs around Mary's little man predicament. Such as: If Mary did, indeed, have a little man - what in the world was "his fleece"? And why did the children laugh and play when they saw him at school? And, for that matter, why did he follow her to school?

We found these all to be great sources of belly laughter. Ah, humor - and singing (music again! - I still say it can save your life) - and snuggling - and bizarre family influences - I'm awash in gratitude!!
 

Happy (Cranky) Thanksgiving

 

I'm not really cranky right now, more like frazzled - and when Manchild was fussing with the wooden hand model (above) - sticking it in and out of his jacket (he's an odd fellow) I pictured it as the supreme simpleminded/sillyass Thanksgiving centerpiece - sort of a testament to my frazzledness.

A person who was less frazzled might have done the idea justice - I just sat it on the buffet, stuck some leaves around it and jammed the ceramic turkey (that Manchild painted when he was Boychild) behind it all.

I wish any and all who celebrate the holiday a Happy Thanksgiving - and many moments of laughter (which I am every-so grateful for). And for those of you not celebrating the holiday, I wish you even more moments of laughter. 

You can start laughing when you think of those of us who are starting very last minute in getting holiday things rolling - and who are frazzled and dopey and dropping things and ready to bite people - oooh, that's me - so maybe I am a little cranky....

DJ Puppet Rock

Little Princess came to visit last week and Manchild, the dutiful uncle, let her play with a small DJ turntable kit he had around.

Little Princess got seriously into it - so much so that we were wondering just how much DJ experience she had. She claimed that she never touched a turntable before and had only ever seen one DJ - Hoho the monkey on Nick Jr's Ni Hao, Kai-Lan show.

So - Manchild and Little Princess were jamming for awhile when LP said she wanted to stop playing music and go do a puppet show. Manchild looked exasperated. Slightly-British Daughter stepped in to explain: "Well she is only six. And her attention span isn't what it used to be."

Manchild let it be known that it wasn't LP's attention span that bothered him - it was the illogicalness of wanting to stop doing music - for anything else! He looked totally bewildered, shaking his head and repeating: "How are puppets better than this?"

But so great is Manchild's love for his wonderful niece (my beloved grand-daughter) that he overcame his horror and confusion and did several puppet shows that evening - ahhhhhh, he's so cute!

Put THAT in Your Leaf Blower

Awhile ago we were out raking leaves - the whole crew: Slightly-Brit, Manchild, Little Princess (who was visiting) and I.

Our side yard looked pretty much like the picture above. No - Wait!! I wish our side yard looked like the picture above - that's a pretty expansive hill to sled down! What I meant was - our side yard had about the same amount of leaves as that picture above - not many, got it?

We were enthusiastic leafers. Even though we didn't have a tremendous number of leaves to work with - and even though the leaves were a teeny bit soggy from recent rain - we had fun. Little Princess rolled in the pile we raked up. 

I started what grew to be a massive pile of small branches, twigs and nasty bits that you wouldn't want to roll in - or mow over. I even cleaned leaves out of one part of the back rain gutter...So we had fun and got some stuff done. Cool.

There weren't as many leaf-oriented things to do as when we have hoards of leaves (like now - I'm looking out at an entire yard of leaves that's maybe three feet deep!) - so Little Princess improvised.

She picked up one of the branches I'd put in my ginormous branch pile and pretended to be a fisherman. She held up her rod, cast her line and apparently caught something. She undid the fish - offered it to Slightly-Brit - and cast again. 

This time she paid attention to her rod, noting that it was unusual. Hers was a rod with 3 jutting limbs. Three curved, jutting limbs - you could have called them "hooks". She sort of did.

Since she'd already given Slightly-B a fish - and since I was out of the leaf "boat" - it was Uncle Manchild's turn to be blessed by our little fisherman. Little Princess geared up, cast with her hooked fishing rod and hollered over to Manchild: "Hey Uncle, I'm gonna get YOU three hookers!"

Whatnow?