The Blog With No Name

So I get a call from school – the boy has a rash all over his upper body. Can I come pick him up. I get to school, and the staff is standing around the door to the nurse’s alcove, waving printouts from symptoms.com or some such, about scarlet fever. Yikes! This is when it is quite handy to have a pediatrician in the family. He slipped us in the back door, took a quick strep test, and said NOT TO WORRY. Just a little viral thing, actually a good sign because he usually sees them as viruses are going away. I brought him home for the rest of the day anyway, to be with his not-really-sick-either sister. I can’t take any more sick days. They’re going to school tomorrow even if they have CHICKEN POX!

That’s the only explanation. Sensible people, when ill, take necessary medication to ameliorate their symptoms. NOT MY KIDS! No sir, they’d rather puke on themselves than take cough medicine or decongestant. And it’s not like I’m asking them to swallow horse pills, like my Allegra, either – no, they get FRUIT-FLAVORED, CHEWABLE GOD DAMNED CANDY MEDICINE. Still no dice. I just do not understand.

MRJ correctly identified the object of my not-yet-husband’s affections, as I knew she would. As a consequence, my husband saw my blog here for the first time. He thinks I’m nuts (this is news?). He thinks I say things that are fairly personal. I asked whether he was uncomfortable with anything I had written, and he just shrugged. So I’ll let it stand. I wonder whether he’ll ever look at this site again.

I’ve turned on some comments. Let’s see how long it takes for the SPAM to start arriving. Bastards.

WHY am I the one vacuuming up all the GOD DAMNED DOG HAIR (approx 1 cubic foot today, from the couch! Yuck!) !!!! ???? !!! ??? ??? ???

So ever since we went out to eat at the slab-o-meat restaurant for our anniversary, I’ve been yearning for stuffed mushrooms the way my mom used to make them ::gazes dreamily off into the distance::. Today, while delivering Girl Scout cookies, I actually remembered to ask for the recipe, and was told that it was from “Julia.” D’oh! I’d had the recipe all along – my mom gave me her copies of “Mastering the Art….” Vols I and II months ago, while preparing to move. Lo and behold, there it is, page 512 I think, of the first book. My mom did say, however, that she often omitted the Madeira. Hm.
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I’ve recently become aware that some people believe that SpongeBob Squarepants is gay, and that Nickelodeon and the creators of SB SP are promoting the homosexual agenda, yada yada yada.

For instance:

BBC
random wacko

(And yes, I have watched SBSP, and “gay” is not the first thing that popped into my mind; “mentally-challenged” perhaps, but not “gay.” My children have moved on to different, but equally-annoying, obsessions.)
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Sometimes it hits me just how much of my parents’ behavior rubbed off on me. My dad was the world’s biggest schmoozer. I mean that in a mostly-nice way. He was the guy who’d go snow-blow the whole neighborhood’s sidewalks and driveways after a big snow. He’d meet you and within ten minutes establish either that you were related somehow (esp. if you were local) or that you had this or that person as a common acquaintance, or a common hobby, or something like that. He was relentless. In both neighborhoods where we lived when I was growing up, we knew EVERYBODY on the block, didn’t matter whether they had kids our age, or were older couples with grown children. So I appreciate neighborliness, and wish to be neighborly, and believe that it’s a prop up for the crumbling bastion of civil society and all that. But did I get the schmoozability that Jon B. had? I don’t think so. I am ill-at-ease meeting strangers, poor at idle chit-chat, and would generally rather just read a book (definitely a trait I inherited from my mother, or at least observed with such frequency that it seemed part of the natural order of things). I am not observant – it was days and days before I realized that the little rental property next door had been occupied. I want to be a “good neighbor” but lack the ability to express that concept in ways that don’t make me seem like a fruitbat. Sigh.

I have two Pepsi bottlecaps with codes for free songs. I can’t decide what songs to get. I can’t even pick a decade in which to start narrowing down my choices. HELP ME! Does iTunes sell Indian pop music? Hm….

Today is our twelfth wedding anniversary (luckily, no blizzards in sight, unlike 12 yrs ago). We celebrated last night, by going to dinner at a shockingly-expensive new MEAT restaurant in downtown Moline. We got there early, with no reservations, but they were able to seat us anyway (by the time we left, that wouldn’t have been an option – the place was PACKED). The staff at this place was “tittering on the brink” of obsequiousness (I don’t think I spelled that correctly), but the meat, oh the meat. No, I am not a vegetarian, but I don’t often prepare slabs of meat for us to eat. But every once in a while, particularly if someone else does the cooking, you just can’t beat it. I had a fillet, which was stupendous, presented on the plate all by itself (not contaminated with anything like a sauce, oh the horror). And then also I had some pan-scorched (not really, but sort of) mushrooms. ::sighs of contentedness:: They were as good as the meat. (I must remember to get my mom’s stuffed mushroom recipe – I was strongly reminded of it by these yummy shrooms last night!) So that was a good dinner. Not a place to go every week, or even every year (our final bill was over $100) but definitely a nice treat.

We of course talked about Moscow (that’s where we met), and the embassy, and it was yet again borne in on me how totally random most things are in life. Charles told me, among other things (things I didn’t know!), that he initially was pretty sure I was gay, and crazy (he didn’t say “crazy,” he said, “well, you were from the midwest, but you’d gone to Georgetown, and I assumed you were one of those east coast trendoid wannabe-s,” yah, that’s me…). He had a six-month infatuation with a woman whose name he can’t now remember (she lived at the Ukraine, and was Steve Halitosis’ girlfriend, if that rings bells with anyone, [Melissa, are you there?]) and who as far as I can tell never actually spoke to Charles (whew). I was also not his first choice of companion on the (in)famous trip to Pskov; that was another laborer, name also long forgotten, who backed out at the last minute. Just think, if that laborer had gone on the trip, there might have been no wedding/kids/big stained glass lamps in the dining rooms, any of it!!! How fragile and tenuous it all is.
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