Sons, a pug, a salad

Friends, it's been a week. A lot has transpired in a mere seven days, and so when my trainer had to cancel our session this morning, I admit to feeling the heat of thrill. I'd been carrying a weight in my heart, noodling on it, working it out, letting it run its course, and awoke today with a lightness of being that felt awfully good. Once the cancellation was confirmed, I took my lightness to the couch for a magnificent thing called Reading the Paper. It's a remarkable event to quietly read two full sections, was it three??, in one sitting. I kept looking around furtively, as if I had forgotten a child somewhere, had the day wrong, was being caught on Candid Camera in "the mom who only thought she suddenly had an open morning" episode. As it turned out, none of these foreboding thoughts were true, and after reading the paper, I called my sister for our scheduled phone date. Afterwards, I decided to rake the yard because the flood of Biblical proportion that besieged us for the past two days finally got out of town late last night, leaving a serious trail of debris strewn all around.

I'm waiting for a call so took my phone outside with me. From across the yard I heard a bing so scampered over to check. It was an email from Oliver's teachers, subject line: Bathroom Behavior Alert.

"This cannot be awesome," I thought to myself, opening it with the slightest bit of trepidation. It turns out that my little Shamrock (such a fortuitous birthday for this kid; seriously, I've known that there was meaning in Ol coming two weeks early to be born on St. Patty's Day, since he was oh, about 8 days old) and two buddies were caught in the gymnasium bathroom pantsing each other and laughing hysterically. Can you even imagine the hilarity involved in discovering three five year olds exposing each other's goods [tiny] in front of childsize toilet stalls?

The coach who discovered this mayhem is awesome, and I swear to you he had to work hard not to laugh. The teachers, too, could not have handled this "teachable moment" more sanguinely. Obviously each of these tykes will receive a talking-to tonight and I am confident this will not happen again.

Say it with me, friends: "It's always something!"

Because the sun is finally out, I then suggested to Percy that we go for a walk. By the time we reached the backyard gate, he was panting to beat sixty. You'd have thought I'd just picked him up at the finish line of the Iraqi Iditarod. Good god, Percy! He spent half of our walk being pulled through slick grass on his back and finally plopped down in a puddle to relax-and-slurp.

At least there was this marvelously calm salad to enjoy for lunch! Hah!

Oliver wins a coloring contest...in Carlsbad, CA

Two nights ago, after a satisfying dinner and wine with my hubs, I was sitting at the computer -probably blogging to y'all about said dinner and wine- and the phone rang. A) I didn't recognize the area code, and B) who calls at 9p (I'm getting so old, I recognize this), so I let it go to voice mail. Once I was safely off the hook, I listened to the message and heard the very enthusiastic manager, Jill, of Ruby's Diner in Carlsbad, CA, congratulating me on Oliver's having won the Easter Coloring Contest which he and Jack entered over spring break when T and I had outlet shopped until the kids couldn't take it anymore and we bribed them with chocolate milkshakes and french fries at Ruby's.

If anyone was going to win this contest, I'd have thought it'd be Jack because he added clever, and might I add well-drawn, jesters hiding throughout the picture. They managed to look both sweet and mischievous, as if they wanted to steal the eggs.

But Jill was awestruck by Oliver's ability to color inside the lines of his Easter eggs because "most five year olds just can't" and told me so in a seriously jovial way. I mean, by the time we hung up, I thought Oliver deserved to be gilded.

Jill told me Ol had won a free meal at Ruby's Carlsbad and asked if we lived nearby. Wearing a lunatic smile that I was sure she could hear, I told her "No, we actually live in D.C." to which she replied, "Well, will you be back in Carlsbad before the end of June?"

I wish, Jill, I wish.

Still wearing the insane smile, I said that sadly, we would not be returning quite so soon but that one of my best friends lives just north of Carlsbad and could she share the win with her and her children instead? Jill responded "please just let me know if you're in Carlsbad before end of June, and isn't it just great to be proud of our kids????"

I hung up and relayed the story to Tom who chuckled heartily. For some reason, this story gets funnier with each go round. I don't know why because it's really no story at all but whatever.

Five minutes later, the phone rang again. I recognized the number. It was Jill. "You know, it is Oliver's drawing that won and so it is his free meal coupon and so I think he'd like to give it to your friend and so I will send it to her if you share her address." Absolutely, Jill.

Bless her heart, she is so impassioned about her job. I mean, really, who has ever taken a coloring contest more sincerely and dearly. You've got to hand it to her.

The next morning, I congratulated Ol. Jack nearly fell out laughing and said, "Great job, Ol, you did color those eggs nicely. I thought I would have won but maybe my jesters were too much." Then I started laughing my ass off again because why is this tale so amusing? I told Jack how proud I was of his incredibly gracious response toward Oliver, and Oliver beamed and said he was happy that Amy's kids got to have the coupon, and then Jack started doing the math on how many milkshakes could they get for $10 and finally I dropped them off at school and called Amy to tell her about the prize coming her way.

She and I laughed again.

Scallion pesto, olive oil cake

I remain thrilled that I made that olive oil cake yesterday. It is riDONKulously awesome. Indeed, I just ate my third slice of the day. What's a girl to do. I also made Jack yet another batch of the turkey-chickpea-walnut meatballs (this is his fourth since I invented these) and some scallion pesto crusted chicken, a recipe in contention for community pick status in this week's Food 52 Your Best Scallions contest. It was easy as pie and made a simple, lovely meal!

T is watching a bit on how many people (27%) still believe vaccines cause autism and thus aren't vaccinating their kids. This is terrible. Measles is on the rise, as is whooping cough. Who wants horrid diseases to return??? Please vaccinate, not least to keep other children safe!