Kinda snoozy Saturday

We've been both busy and lazy today: Tae Kwon Do and Ikea alongside lazing about in the yard and watching Myth Busters. I can deal with this mix! From the second I woke up this morning -5am! Thanks a lot you stinking cat!- I knew I had to make muffins. Had to have them. So I browned some butter and made strawberry muffins with just a hint of cardamom. While at Tae Kwon Do, Jack was seized with a yen for salted salmon-stuffed onigiri (Japanese rice balls) so after class we went a got the makings for it. Thank god it's something other than pesto pasta- his study of Japan in school is prompting all kinds of goodness and various interests.

Ol and I enjoyed salads with greens just plucked from our VegTrug, and I spent a nice while in the chaise lounge pretending to read but really just watching cat-on-a-leash pounce around and snapping pictures. I am thrilled that a bird family has made a nest under our deck. It's very shabby-chic, yes?

The past 24 and a risotto

Last night, some middle-aged dude in an Infiniti rear-ended me as we both attempted to exit the miserable parking lot of the Whole Foods on River Road. He hit me hard, really hard, and my neck and shoulders have not been thankful recipients since. My bumper looked fine, so I hope it actually is thus. I just didn't have the energy to deal with another hassle, especially of the automotive type. Hoping another good night of sleep will relax my platysmal muscles and let me forget this irritation. Today was a whirlwind of meetings, phone calls, drop-offs, pick-ups and I built a desk for Ol's room. Until three days ago, he had a retro kitchen in that spot. It was full of pot holders and ingredients, special pans and accouterments; my darling little sous. But then he said, "Mom, I have work to do. I need a desk." And really, what could I say? He's a man with a plan, so today we built a desk.

And then he asked for a rolling chair, and I said "No" because A) it's excessive and B) rolling chairs don't work on carpet, and then we were at a Mom- 5yo impasse, and I gave up for a few hours. Bygones.

T got home, put the boys to bed, and I started in on a risotto idea on which I'd been noodling all day: corn, corn stock, ramps, walnuts and pecorino. It wasn't amazing but it was solid and new; I've been terribly bored lately, just waiting impatiently for the season to actually change so that new ingredients will be at my disposal. I simply must shut the door on certain things for a while -oranges, apples, mushrooms- so that when they inevitably roll around again, I can greet them eagerly, like a long-lost friend.

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!