A comedy of horrors

Round about 6:12pm this fine evening, I posted on Facebook, "How is it only 6:12pm?"

The reasons for this included the fact that since I picked the boys up at 3:15 it felt as if 95 hours had passed, and two, just out of the bath, they were wearing underpants and hoodies -and Jack an epic butt-cut- and posing in extremely suggestive ways.

If anyone wearing Star Wars underpants and an Ash Ketchum-inspired hoodie can be suggestive. Or should be.

Jack: "I'm the hottest guy in town!"
Oliver: "What's that mean?"
Jack: "I'm the sexiest guy in town!"
Oliver: "What's that mean?"
Jack: "PRETTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And then Oliver pulled his pants down. Duh.

I said, "Boys, I am going to sit on the couch and do my crossword puzzle. You can A) go upstairs and be loud, or B) stay down here and play more quietly."

Obviously they chose B and then acted upon A. I poured more wine and hid my crossword from prying Jack eyes because, and actually I am proud of this, I do NOT share my crossword with ANYONE until I've had at least 13 go-rounds with it. Even then I only gift "you should know this even though I don't" softballs. Invariably, Tom doesn't know and Jack does, and I'm irritated and impressed, respectively.

Tom does, however, ALWAYS and immediately understand the freaking pun theme. I rarely do and don't care. Because I'm that kind of SAT-vocab girl.

Anyway, we finally(!) made it upstairs and found that Guppy (my favorite fish) was seizing on the bottom of the tank. Shit. So inopportune, Gup. I love you, but you choose bedtime to die?

I was SO thankful I had two glasses of wine in me because I haven't been this sad about a pet death since my childhood cats (except for Scarlet, who always wanted to suck my fingers.) I made a very brief speech about not letting animals suffer (brief because I wanted to get that poor fish to the toilet), and we came to an agreement that euthanasia was the right course of action.

Jack: "It is Earth Day and now he'll back in the cycle." or something deep like that. I concurred effusively.

Oliver: "Mom, you put him in ve net, and I'll carry him to ve potty."

So we did this, and as he lay mercifully still at the base of the bowl, we each said something nice and the boys shed tears.

Jack was itching to depress the flush lever. I could feel and not stop his impulse. Oliver, who is completely stunned by even the smallest of decisions, could not fathom depressing said lever. As I watched Jack's arm reach out to crank that baby away, it was as if in slo-mo that can't be stopped. Away went Guppy and down rained Ol's always-ready, abundant tears.

Shit again. 

Before I could do anything, Oliver slapped the crap out of Jack. Jack's tears began to flow, rivaling Ol's. Both boys flew to their rooms, each pleading with me to COME SNUGGLE WITH ME NOW.

Mother effer, where is my wine?

I went to Ol because really, to have your friend flushed away before you're ready would be the pits. After multiple consolation attempts, I decided to just get real.

"Ol, it is so sad about Gup. I totally understand how you feel. I remember the first beloved pet I lost. It was one of our cats, and El and I made a cross out of wood and painted it and planted it over the cat's grave. And then one day, a fat man named Junior mowed the cross down."

He laughed so hard I thought he might fart again, a result infinitely more likely than any other. From the other room I heard Jack ask, "WHAT? What was his name? And he mowed down the cross?"

Those boys snort-laughed to beat sixty. Junior! A handmade cross turned into wood chips! Where's that cat body now?

Guppy was gone, but not forgotten. Until Oliver remembered and cried again, and so on Friday we're getting Gup #2. He was my favorite.

Happy Earth Day

I had every intention of heading home immediately after the gym this morning to wash my grease-mess hair. Once home, however, the sun was shining just so, the breeze was blowing in just the right way and, I remembered, it's Earth Day.

To my garden I went, tout de suite!

My tulips have put on less and less of a show over the past few years, and I've been meaning to dig up the bulbs, give the ones the squirrels haven't gnawed at a serious Bulb Tone bath, and replant. I assumed I'd be twenty minutes, thirty max. Because my hair. It's truly disgusting.

Once in, well, you know what happened. I gently tilled up every leaves-only tulip I saw, all the while throwing away every grub I encountered and making small, appreciative talk with each worm. I'm certain that if anyone was listening, they thought me slightly off. I was just thanking those worms left and right. Whatever.

It occurred to me, once I had the bulbs soaking in their restorative pool, that now would be the time to add new perennials, something else I've been meaning to do.

To the nursery I went, immédiatement.

Oh, the nursery. It's my happy place until I run into the happy, corpulent jester-wannabe whose jokes I just can't learn to love. Bygones. I did not encounter said person and left with a tray of beautiful plants and a few veggies. 

Two hours later, things look better than ever. More worm-talk, more grubs in the trash, the soil so nicely aerated and happy, the tended tulips back home. 

I have decided not to spend today listening to any climate change-denying foolishness but rather to enjoy my little patch, toss my compost pile, clean and recycle old plastic bags and be grateful for all those working for the health our Earth. If you'd like to learn a bit more about Earth Day's history, activism on its behalf, why we need environmental regulation and so forth, read my Earth Day 2014 post.

On the way in, I picked some fresh mint from a pot on my deck. I've been eyeing some spring pea tortellini that I'd stashed in the freezer a couple weeks ago and thought a mint-lemon-butter sauce would make them sing.

spring pea tortellini with mint-lemon butter

Indeed. Delicious and so very pretty. 

Dinner last night was darn good too: halibut with mango salsa, roasted asparagus and homemade yeast rolls. 

yeast roll dough

buttered moons ready to bake

voila

Hilarious and compelling results of persuasive writing study in school

For the past few weeks, Jack's third grade class has been studying persuasive writing. I am thrilled about this for several reasons, the primary one being that Mr. J tends to think, "You should do X because I like it." is a sufficiently compelling argument for anything. 

I have suggested that it's not, but as all parents know, your own children often do not hear you in the same ways they hear other trusted adults, like teachers. Reason #981 that I have zero interest in home-schooling the boys.

That Mrs. B and Mrs. T have said persuasive writing is cool and useful has made it so, and I have enjoyed recent examples of this work directed just to me.

Exhibit A:
I received this email from Jack last night around 7. He typed it while I was in the room but instructed me to avert my eyes until he'd finished writing and closed his desktop.

dear mom,

I want to know our iTunes password. Most people in my class know there families. I promise to tell you before I buy anything and won't buy anything inappropriate. So please, I want to know it before 5th grade.

    love, your responsible son, Jack

My favorite things about this note are the generous amount of time I have to accommodate his request and his earnest statements about how he'll interact with our iTunes account. Unfortunately, as we over the weekend received a call from a for-profit university specializing in Gaming because Jack had given them all our family information whilst online ("But Mom, I thought they would just share some information with  me."), I do not yet think he's ready for iTunes access.

You should have heard the caller's voice when I said that Jack was but 8½. "Oh, I see. Yes ma'am, we'll take him off our call list right now."

It took Tom and me an hour to stop laughing.

Exhibit B:
This note, tightly-wrapped around some Legos for heft (the kid is a good engineer), was thrown down the stairs to me last night after a slight, shall we say, tantrum after my suggesting that because he'd already had two dinners, he really didn't need another. 

This note is less skillfully composed, but he got the damn baguette -plus dipping oil!- so I guess it worked. 

I spent another hour laughing about this treasure which I intend to save forever along with the other thrown-down-the-stairs notes (his preferred tactic of reaching out because we have a rule that once we have done the final tuck-in, he's not allowed back downstairs).

Kids.