Looovely pizza dinner, Gotham scenery

While our pizza crust was a'rising, T water vacuumed the basement (Percy and his damn acting-out pee), and I painted some scenery for tomorrow's fete. Jack will be pleased I think. The black and white images make a panel; J is big into Batman being called with the signal. Fun! And the pizza was a success too. Not only am I really glad we got the pizza stone -you might know how I feel about bread cooked on a grill; sublime- but also I must say that this super-techy/nerdy infrared thermometer that Tom wanted (and I really made fun of initially) is very useful. Tonight's demo is: assessing the temp of the stone.

While enjoying our 'za, we watched a documentary on the Earth Liberation Front. Good film, definitely intense. I was actually anxious at some moments. Very interesting. Off to bed.

Heat-induced snarkiness

Having grown up in the tropics that are SW Louisiana, I'm relatively immune to high temps. No, the past few days of 96-100 degree weather have not been particularly pleasant, but I have that weird Southern, predominantly female ability to handle extreme heat with little to no sweat or major discomfort. This is a definite plus in the attribute column. Others do not deal with inferno-days terribly well, however, and I really think the protracted hot weather is getting to a lot of them. I cannot even tell you the degree of irritability I witnessed all around town today; the cashier at Whole Foods actually shook my kale at me when I said that a) it wasn't red dandelion greens, and b) it wasn't $3.49, as it had rung up. He said "no, it's kale!" I said, "right, and the kale is $2.49". The shaking then commenced, and he said I should go look at the sign because organic is more. I went to the damn sign, pulled it down from the display shelf and casually walked its "Organic Red Kale, $2.49" self back to him. Mr. Cashier fussed and fritzed, called over a colleague, she proceeded to give the flipping bunch to me for $1.49, and he refused to say goodbye. Get a grip, man. In addition, I saw a wreck, some serious other-driver eye-rolling and a number of behaviors that generally suggest folks are not in a great way. It's supposed to be worse tomorrow which is really terrific since Jack's party is an outdoor, old-fashioned games event. Alert DC has issued a warning that the projected temp of 105 is "torrid" and thusly there is an extreme heat-watch in effect.

This is unfortunate news. My house is not of the size to accommodate 14 children beating a piñata, doing sack and egg-on-a-spoon races, and snaking through hula chains inside. The sprinklers are at the ready, and I splurged and had 25 gourmet popsicles delivered today, both perhaps vain attempts to ward off dehydration and heat stroke in children who are not mine. In any case, we'll forge ahead and hope for a brief reprieve from roughly 2:15-3:15p. I need to go paint Gotham City scenes and check on our pizza dough...

Kale salad- dinner entrée extraordinaire, nutso misc

My husband would definitely NOT agree with the idea that in a million years, a kale salad could be an entrée, much less an extraordinary one. But, as he is on a train right now, I'm living the dream of a Kale.Dinner.Salad. Fab! I also might be the slightest bit tipsy because since 3p on, things have been slightly hairy. Jack had his 6 year old well-child exam at the ped's office, and all was great until...dah, dah...The Lab! Anyone within earshot surely thought we were sawing his limbs off slowly and one at a time. In truth, he was having a bit of blood drawn and undergoing the TB prick test. I'm not saying either is fun, but seriously. I had my legs and arms wrapped around his, and not one but 2! lab techs had to assist. Oliver looked askance, as if he were thinking, "WTF, Jack?! I just did this at my 3yo visit and didn't have a cow in the process." In any case, it was finally all over, he delighted in the hearing/sight tests, really thrilled in receiving a Batman sticker and we ambled home. At this point, Oliver started expressing so much flatulence that I could have blown up balloons. Finally he headed off to the pot and Mr. Do It By Myself (bless him but please, know when a job is above your skill-set) insisted he could wipe. Until he couldn't. Truly folks, how that much poop got so many places is beyond me, but I just said, kids- into the bath now! and we started the bedtime routine off early. Mon dieu, it was nasty, and I started looking forward to a glass of wine.

Fast forward to my dinner-time, and I just had to have a kale salad. This is definitely compost salad 2.0. I am all about massaging raw kale with olive oil (great for your hands too!) and tossing it with stuff + a zingy garlic-lemon-salt dressing. Tonight's version is a keeper, and I will share the recipe.

On another, stupid and lame note, is anyone, ANYONE, surprised about TomKat? If no one -not my parents, friends, birth certificate, me- had ever called myself Emí, but then some crazy crush insisted upon doing so (Katie/Kate, peeps), would I marry him? Probs not, especially if he were a Scientologist for the love.

Just for kickers, my auto-correct does not recognize "Scientologist" as a word. It's a little funny.