the cat poacher calls

On Sunday morning the phone rang. I picked it up, but handed it off promptly to the Sober Husband when I learned it was the gabby cat poaching neighbor (who wooed my old, fat tabby, Bob Marley, away years ago). I was in the middle of making a zucchini-basil frittata for lunch with other, non-cat poaching neighbors. (Sidenote for those wondering about the new Aga: I used one of the funky new features for my frittata, the browning mode on the multi-function oven. This mode operates the top heating element only and finishes a frittata off to perfection, providing a more gentle heat than a broiler would).

"You say 'the bushy black cat' is eating over at your place?" the Sober Husband said. He turned to me. "Frowst is eating over at John's."

I was livid. "Tell him not to feed Frowst!" I hissed repeatedly. The Sober Husband ignored me, apart from making "leave-alone-I'm-on-the-phone" faces at me.

After an extended conversation (the catpoaching neighbor is very chatty), the Sober Husband reported. "Frowst figured out a way to go in John's house, and he's eating over there. But he's not friendly or social; he doesn't interact with John."

"He's trying to steal Frowst! My most beautiful cat!"

The Sober Husband defended John. "What's he supposed to do? Frowst is coming in his house. He didn't have to call."

I shouted after him as he descended into the garage. "DON'T DEFEND THE CAT-POACHER AGAINST ME!"

He rolled his eyes. "Sweetie, the cat is going into his house."

God with a bad aim?

"First, I pray for those families who suffered in the San Bruno pipeline blast; this is a tragedy that could've been corrected with the right care being applied beforehand. However, on a more divine level: This blast can be viewed as God's divine judgment upon San Fransicko (sic) for its ultra-leftist and anti-normal way of doing things, and for that sad excuse of a judge who overturned the will of the people in his anti-Proposition 8 ruling. God is speaking, folks. Are you listening?" - Lloyd Marshall Jr., Lockport, NY

This little mash note to my home town, San Francisco, appeared in today's newspaper. I found it rather amusing in its blatant stupidity. First Lloyd Marshall Jr. helpfully notes that the San Bruno disaster could have been prevented by taking more care; then he says it was God's judgment. Which is it?

I really, really hate it when Christians proclaim smugly that disasters are God's judgments upon liberals. Today's paper had a picture of a beautiful twenty year-old girl who died in the explosion. Her lovely, expressive face was so full of life and humor, and now she's dead, so young. Her boyfriend is badly burnt, losing all his fingers, and is undergoing the hell of a burn ward and mourning his lost love. And this is because God is mad at Judge Vaughn Walker? I think an omnipotent God could find Judge Walker (a judge who was incidentally appointed by the first President Bush) if He wanted to and would not strike down a pretty heterosexual girl by mistake.

I also think an all-knowing God knows the difference between San Francisco and San Bruno. They are separated by Daly City, South San Francisco, and Brisbane, after all, and the airport makes a pretty good landmark. I live in the Castro, on the very same street where the Marriage Equality people's headquarters are, and I can safely report that there are no signs of divine wrath here. The weather was beautiful all weekend. The gay bars are opening for business like clockwork; my gay neighbors' contractor is hard at work ruining my morning bellowing at his workers. I'm not going to go so far as to say absolutely all is well here, but it's been a lovely few days.

Aside from the question of whether God would send Judge Walker a signal by blowing up middle class families down the Peninsula, what gives Lloyd Marshall Jr. the right to determine which utility failures are divine vengeance and which poor maintenance? Was the BP oil well disaster due to God judging the aquatic birds and fish of the Gulf?

Anyone who lives in Northern California can tell you that PG&E is a notoriously inept utility. It's infamous. Just before the explosion I read a scathing article about how many more outages per household we suffer here, compared to other American utilities. Somehow the plucky utilities keep the lights on in places where blizzards and ice storms truly bring down the power lines, but here, in our mild and even climate, bumbling PG&E ineptly subjects us to frequent outages. This wasn't the only dramatic explosion we've seen, either (there was a very newsworthy one not long ago, with flames shooting out of manholes in the Financial District and suitclad executives running down the sidewalk).

And finally it's truly pathetic how Christians only think disasters are divine punishment when they strike somewhere the Christians don't like. Notice how hurricanes and blizzards and deathly heat waves are never God's ire at work. Hurricane Hugo killed many more people and did millions of dollars more damage than San Francisco's big quake in the 80's did, and no one ever called for South Carolina to repent.

conversations with my neighbor

Yes, I know I owe you, the readers, reports on my trips to Camp Mather and Burning Man, but what I feel like writing about is what happened today. Actually what I really am dying to write about are some things from the Sober Husband's place of work, but I've discontinued what I used to call "Scenes from the Silicon Valley Soap Opera" because he got too recognizable on here so I have to exercise a higher level of self-censorship. If he and I were more organized, we'd write a book together about Silicon Valley, he generating the material, me doing the writing, together under some adorably clever pen name. But instead you get anecdotes of the children's wackiness or cute cat stories or whatever comes your way:

Part I: This morning my neighbor, B., stopped by, holding a brick in one hand, to ask if I could unlock my side gate so the city inspectors could come through to inspect the side of his house and new foundation. I said it was no problem to let the inspectors in, as I was waiting for my new range. My neighbor, like everyone, was well versed in my epic struggles in getting a new range. "That's amazing! I was down at the Ferry Building the other day, on Monday, and I saw a container ship come in, and I thought, 'Maybe Carole's stove is on that.'"

"And it was!"

B. was carrying a special, sample brick, which he showed me, because he is spending much of his time shopping for the perfect bricks to lay in his yard. His involved and extreme search for the right bricks reminded me of my obsession with researching ranges. Like me and ranges, B. had become a master of arcane information about where bricks come from ("It turns out ALL the bricks in California go through Sacramento"), had dismissed what was easily available as unacceptable ( "All the bricks at Home Depot are just terrible. They're not real bricks; they're made of composite"), and had been making a lot of unsatisfactory field trips ("I've been to Redwood City, I've been to Antioch, I've been so many places..").

My neighbor felt that conducting life's transactions is becoming harder and harder. As well as the bricks, he couldn't get new wheels for his car easily; they have to be special ordered. I said that I thought these problems arise only because B. has climbed to an elite position in consumerism. I pointed out that B. drives a Porsche Boxter convertible, not a Toyota Corolla.

"Are you saying that if I drove a Toyota Corolla, my life would be different?" He scoffed. "I'd be happy with the Home Depot bricks?"

"No, I'm saying that if you drove a Toyota Corolla, you could buy wheels for it! When my ex drove a Porsche, they used to always tell him for everything, 'Oh, we have to send to Stuttgart for the parts.'"

B. began to see my point, but wouldn't cop to being demanding in his tastes. I called him out: "I've heard about you and your coffeemaker." [He has a notoriously expensive coffeemaker].

"That's different! I cannot tolerate drip coffee!"

Part II: Much later, while the appliance installation service was hard at work replacing the aged, broken Magic Chef (which they estimated at 15-20 years of age) with my fresh, pristine Aga, I heard a voice. "Carole? Carole?" It was my neighbor again.

It turned out that the inspectors had uncovered termites, "unusually active" termites. My neighbor, stressed, had efficiently gotten an exterminator on the scene already. "That's what all that noise is, they're drilling. They're drilling and putting that stuff down there, that stuff they use."

We discussed termite treatments, and I brought up the possibility of getting rid of the termites without pesticides, like "The Bug Guy" recommends. My neighbor acted to dismiss any concerns I might have about the exterminators visibly working between our properties. "They're not using poisons, they're putting down stuff that wards the termites off. It scares them away."

"So they run off your property and come onto mine??" I immediately resigned myself to getting our house treated for termites.

To cheer my stressed, termite-plagued neighbor up, I ushered him back towards the kitchen to admire the new Aga, which the appliance repairmen were laboring over. We both felt happier looking at it, and the conversation turned to all the food that would be made on this stove in the future. B. made a reference to meat, and I cut it off. "I'm a vegetarian."

"I thought that was just Iris."

"No, there's no meat in this house."

"Are you serious? You don't ever eat meat?"

I pointed out the rows of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks.

"You can't be a vegetarian! Your food tastes too good! You must hate us, we're always having steaks."

homesick

Iris and I pulled back in to San Francisco this evening, almost exactly to the minute one week after we left. I'll write much more later, but for the meantime, I'll share that we had the most sedate Burning Man experience plausible. No sunburns. No hangovers. Only small injuries (a fiberglass tent pole disintegrated in my hands, and the tent I was putting up ended up stained in many places by my blood). No violations of marital vows. No moving violations (and that was a rarity: Burning Man is considered an annual Festival of Taxing The Freaks Passing Through, and everyone who talked about their drive seemed to have gotten a ticket for $100-600+ for something or another).

I feel so homesick for Burning Man now; I want to be back padding through the dirt in my bare feet, opening a bottle of champagne right off in the morning, admiring the art cars. It is very good indeed to see my darling Lola & the Sober Husband, though.

Frowst has a fragile little mind

Tuesday was a hot day in San Francisco. It broke all records, ending up as the hottest day of any August day here in recorded weather history.

Frowst, an animal with a large mass of thick, long, fluffy black fur, did not handle things well. Normally he is the sort of independent, energetic cat who spends very little time with his owners, but it turns out that if there is a record-breaking hot day, he will stay close by his Drunken Housewife, following her from place to place, sprawling near her on the floor and looking like he'd been shot in the gut.

At night the heat did not break. The children had a rough night, finding their room too hot. Iris in particular was reminded that heat rises, as her top bunk bed was unbearable. I learned the next day that she negotiated with Lola that she get to sleep on Lola's cooler lower bunk, and Lola slept on the floor (which Lola cheerfully reported was cooler than her own bed). They were awake much of the night due to the heat.

Meanwhile I could have slept just fine with the heat, and the Sober Husband got an excellent night's sleep. My problem was with Frowst. Frowst, driven mad by the heat, kept coming upstairs, crying all the way, and then walking onto me, meowing sadly and standing directly on me. I gave up, unable to get back to sleep after he'd woken me up yet one more time, and I went downstairs to read sleeplessly. Once I was out of bed, Frowst's mental breakdown became even more maddening. The cat seemed to feel that if he could just find the right spot, he'd be comfortable, and he wanted a high level of service in finding that spot. I let him out the front door. I let him back in. I let him out the back door. I let him back in. I let him in and out of the front door several more times. He tried crying to be let into the garage, which frankly I thought was a winning idea given how dark and cool it is down there, but he soon cried to come back up. Eventually, in the wee hours, I got sleepy enough to go back to bed, rather than pass my time letting the cat in and out.

After I fell asleep again, the cycle began anew with Frowst crying and walking on me periodically. After a few times, I couldn't get back to sleep again, and I went back downstairs for some reading punctuated by opening doors for the cat. It seemed to me that his mind had been deranged by the heat. Meanwhile Henry passed the time by spreading out as much as possible on the floor, and poor, skeletal Al, our odd cat, loved the heat, purring happily.

I told the Sober Husband the night's sorry tale the next day. He was filled with self-congratulation. "I have so successfully trained these animals not to expect anything from me! It really pays off!" he crowed.

it all truly began 11 years ago today

Eleven years ago today I became a Drunken Housewife (although I didn't have a drop of alcohol that day). Before that I was a drunken litigator. But back in 1999 on this day, our Iris uber Alles was born, and I began what was supposed to be a year off from work but which has turned into a never-ending life as a doting but lazy stay-at-home mother.

Happy birthday, Iris! May your reign of terror never end.

latest comment of the week and first comment of the month

Our latest Comment O'The Week winner is NonymousGoatsePants, for "You learn lots of interesting things eating meat! See what you're missing?" This former all purpose troll, now vegetarian-baiter has now won Comment O'The Week twice, making him the man to beat (carnivore to beat?) for Comment O'The Month.

Astute readers may have noticed that I don't exactly run the Comment O'The Week on a clockwork schedule. I get to it when I get to it, and the same will be true of Comment O'The Month. If anyone says something particularly witty before I go to Burning Man, that person will be the dark horse winner of Comment O'The Month. Otherwise, it will go to NonymousGoatsePants, and on my return from Burning Man, I'll send out a fabulous prize (unless the winner is too stalker-averse to give out a mailing address, which makes it a win-win for me as I won't have to wrap up and mail the fabulous prize, ha).

tyranny of the stove

It's been over three months since we had a working stove, and my decision to replace our broken piece o'crap with a high quality, double oven range has given us a lot of trouble. Today should be a busy, hectic day: we just got back from a week in the mountains at Camp Mather, and I want to go to Burning Man in just a few days. I should be driving to Home Depot and Bev Mo; I should be doing no end of errands related to Iris uber Alles's birthday tomorrow as well as Burning Man. Maybe I could even take my ankle to see a doctor (recovering from a very severe sprain which had me on crutches, I twisted my ankle again at Camp Mather when my bicycle skidded in some deep gravel, and then the day we came home, my ankle broke out in a burning rash. There is now a bright red rash speckled right over the visibly swollen outer part of my left ankle, so harmonically hurting on the inside and outside simultaneously). Instead I'm home while an electrician rewires our kitchen (to the tune of a thousand dollars --- one! thousand! dollars! just to be able to plug in a new gas range!).

This morning we also had the kitchen inspected; the place which sold us our European range won't run the risk of sending it to us without making sure we can get it into the kitchen. This hurdle was one which was hard to get over. Previously I spent an entire day at home waiting for this inspector, while Iris uber Alles bitched at me nonstop that she wanted to go to the aquarium, wanted to go to the aquarium, wanted to go to the aquarium. At the last minute the inspector called to inform us that he needed another four hour block of time, which conflicted with me picking up Lola at circus camp and taking her to some wretched other obligation, and so I refused to wait those extra four hours, leaving our kitchen woefully uninspected. A bitter Iris has subsequently complained for months since that dark day of infamy that "I had to spend a whole day at home when I was supposed to go to the aquarium", despite the fact that I took her to that same damn aquarium and out to lunch the very next day. Then there was the false alarm day where I thought the electrician was coming to give us a quote, and then the actual day where the electrician came and gave a quote. After that there was the day when I thought the electrician was coming to do the work, so I couldn't make plans, but I did leave the house in the afternoon after coming to the conclusion that any electrician who didn't call, email, or drop by before noon was most likely not rewiring my kitchen that day.

We had trouble rescheduling the inspection, and there was some fear that we wouldn't be able to get it done before the planned delivery of the range, which would mean extra delays. Aside from that, the Sober Husband was nervous about this inspection. Evidently our cabinets are about an inch lower than recommended over the range, and he was concerned that we'd be compelled by the appliance dictators to rip them out. Yesterday we tore out the little cabinet and countertop which will be used by the new, larger range, and the poor old Sober Husband looked nervously up at the overhead cabinets, no doubt imagining ripping those out with his prybar. In fear that our failure to get the rewiring done before the inspection would doom us, the Sober Husband made a sign bearing cryptic electric wiring instructions which he posted on the wall where the little cabinet used to be, to, as he explained, give the impression that we knew what we were doing and that when it was delivered, the range could get plugged in. In the event, the inspector didn't even measure the space between the cabinets and the range. He didn't ask about the wiring other than to look at me penetratingly (and given that he was cross-eyed, keeping eye contact was challenging) and, unblinkingly, inquire if my electrician would be done on time. "I'm sure," I said somewhat doubtfully. "They said it was an easy, fun job." (Is it good or bad if your contractor tells you your project " is a fun job"?)

The main issue the inspector had was measuring our doorways. I gather that a common San Francisco problem is that people buy stoves which they cannot wedge into their homes. Our doorways passed muster, though, and he didn't give a damn about those potentially troubling cabinets. "I'll see you on the thirtieth!" he said as a parting shot.

"Wait! I thought it was coming on the twenty-fourth!" I called after him. It's pencilled in on our calendar that I'm meant to spend the twenty-fourth at home waiting for the new range, which was supposed to be the worst case scenario delivery date for this damn range being shipped all the way from Bordeaux, but this fellow felt he would bring it by on the thirtieth, a day I planned to spend at Burning Man, not hanging around the house for yet another day of stove business. Sigh.

man vs. food

We spent last week at rustic Camp Mather in the Sierras, and on our way home, we stopped at Shorty's in Escalon for a late lunch. This was an extravagance on my part, as for the first time I refused to take the bag lunches you can get from Camp Mather for the trip home to San Francisco. I always hate those sandwiches and have bad luck with the fruit and chips, always ending up with a banana and plain potato chips while the children refuse to trade for their barbecue flavored chips and tasty apples.

A group of middle aged male motorcyclists, two of them trailed by young sons, came in and sat near us. I admired their rides, which were all Harleys save for one Indian. One of these fellows regaled the others at top volume. He bragged of creating an event: "It's called 'Man Vs. Food.'" Evidently the participants are dared to eat certain extreme foods. The loudmouth's creation was "a burger, but you know how a burger has a bun? For the bottom part, I use a grilled cheese sandwich, and for the dome, I used a ham and cheese. And in between I have four patties. And roasted vegetables." Mayonnaise figured into this monster as well; Iris thought he said he used an entire pound of mayo on each of these things.

The fellow beamed all around, looking for admiration and awe. Not enough seemed to come, so he went on. A colleague of his created another sandwich for the Man vs. Food boondoggle. This other sandwich was modest in its proportions, but "he puts in a serrano chili, a habanero chili, and a ghost chili." Pause. "A serrano chili has about 50 more scovilles than a regular jalapano pepper, you know, scovilles is the measure of heat. A habanero has about 150 scovilles. The ghost pepper has over a million and a half scovilles! In India they use it to keep elephants away from their crops. They rub it on the fenceposts. He had to send away for it, and when it came, before he opened it, he put on gloves and took some plastic wrap. He put plastic wrap on his face and his arms and on everything the pepper might touch. Then he cut open the package. We put a whole one of those in the sandwich. We have to get them to sign a legal release before they can eat it." At this point his iPhone rang, and we settled our bill.

In the car, the Sober Husband asked me, "Do you believe in that ghost pepper thing?"

"I don't believe anything has over a million scovilles," I said. Back in the day, when fancy hot peppers were all the rage, I subscribed to "Chile Pepper" magazine and took up salsa making, even taking a pilgrimage to a particular restaurant in New Mexico owned by a salsa guru I admired.

"That guy was a loudmouth!" said Iris uber Alles.

Back at home I looked it up, and sad to say the loudmouth knows more about peppers than I do. There is such a thing as a ghost pepper, and at least once a laboratory rated this Indian pepper at just over one million scovilles, although it is more often considered to be nearer 800,000 scovilles. I find it depressing to be reminded of how out-of-date my knowledge is by a random braggart in the middle of nowhere.

the half eaten bag of tortilla chips and the low fat biscotti

Iris and I are in the throes of planning our trip to Burning Man. Burning Man used to be, if not my life, a large part of it. I went to the Man back when things were wild and loose, back when we used to not only take guns but even drive around shooting them off at things. I soon went from being a wide-eyed spectator to being the legal counsel and a member of the board, spending much of my time and effort in the unglamorous behind-the-scenes work (as I used to say, I took my passion and turned it into a crappy full-time job, replete with far too much office politics). Now Burning Man is very different, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the young people burn the Man these days.

But while we're looking forward, I can't help but remember how it was, and in particular, I recently had occasion to remember the curious incident of the half eaten bag of tortilla chips and the low fat biscotti.

The year was 1996, and my first husband and I were planning our trip to Burning Man. We invited a friend of ours and his housemate (who later wrote a big article published in a German newspaper about me and my huge transformation from downtown lawyer to arts festival femme fatale and very suspiciously refused to give me a copy after I shared that my husband could read German). My ex mentioned casually that he'd invited Lesley, a coworker of his whom I had learned to hate. He tried to make it out that this was my idea, but as I rebutted, I would sooner have sawed an arm off than invite Lesley on my vacation. When I'd first met my husband's colleagues from that job, I'd described Lesley as "the girl who doesn't have an affect", and my husband agreed. But then the affectless coworker tended to come up more and more, and then the next thing I knew I was no longer welcome to accompany him to the office on the weekends (both workaholics back then, we had at one time a policy that if we were going to spend weekends working in the office, we'd do it together). After I realized that when he was out of town he was calling Lesley and not me (and the excuse that they were coworkers went only so far, given that they were in different groups and given that the calls seemed, at least sometimes, to be about what bands were playing on the upcoming weekend), I gave him an ultimatum that he got more than enough of Lesley at work and she was no longer welcome to socialize with us out of the office. So, imagine my surprise to be told that I'd invited Lesley to go on our vacation to Burning Man! I quickly invited a close girlfriend to have a female ally close at hand.

At a get-together to plan the trip, my erstwhile husband and I, the only ones who'd been before, laid out our expectations. I was known for always cooking, but I spelled it out: "This is my vacation, so don't expect me to cook for you. You're all on your own." I slowly panned from face to face, fixing everyone with a strong glare to drill that point home. On our way home, my husband sweetly shared how cute it was that Lesley's list of things to bring consisted only of "things to set on fire." Aww!

When the time came to drive out to the desert, Lesley chose to sit behind my husband, who was driving, and whisper into his ear, the ear on the far side away from me. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but hours of having her murmur in his ear worked my last nerve. We made a pitstop in Sparks, Nevada, to get fresh produce at the last minute. My husband annoyingly chose to "keep an eye on the truck", rather than help me shop, and Lesley insisted she was all set and didn't need anything. Instead of going in to buy groceries, she leaned back on my Jeep, putting one foot up like she was starring in a soda commercial, and looked deep into my husband's eyes. I was angry, but I charitably assumed she must have enough food along. I took over the driver's seat to put an end to those whispered tetes-a-tete, and as I observed later, Lesley spent hours whispering into the driver's ear when it was my ex driving, but not one word was whispered during my hours of driving.

But then as mealtimes came and went, it slowly emerged that Lesley had brought no water, no booze, and no food other than an open, half eaten bag of tortilla chips and a bag of low fat biscotti. She hadn't brought anything to share, other than those stupid biscotti. Oddly the one thing she had brought along was a copy of the Berkeley phone book, which at one point she carried off into the desert, later returning without it. Although I wondered what the hell she'd done with the phone book, I didn't ask. I was too filled with rage.

At every mealtime, I would cook a fabulous meal, assisted by my friend, and the two of us would eat it (my friend carrying on, for Lesley's benefit, in a loud voice about how great the food was). Lesley would stare at me, begging in body language for table scraps, but I wouldn't offer her food, and she didn't ask for it. My ex would pace around eating, angry at me for not feeding the obviously hungry Lesley, and refused to sit down with my friend and I to eat a civilized meal. With Lesley begging like a dog for food with her eyes and my husband fuming over my inhospitality towards her, the tension was high at our camp. Our friend Mark and his housemate brought a variety of dried camping food, and they gave Lesley their scraps at each meal after they had eaten their fill. I often ranted about how dare she come with nothing but half a bag of tortilla chips and some biscotti, we stopped at a grocery store for God's sake, and the lazy $*@&! stood in the parking lot hitting on my husband while I bought food she expected me to cook for her.

Lesley came to life at other times, though. She was separated from our group as we were exploring one night, and when she found us, she ran up and grabbed my husband's ass... right in front of me. I was livid. My friend was shocked and kept saying over and over again, "I can't believe she did that! She grabbed him!" Lesley looked at me for my reaction. My ex later completely denied it. "Oh, she was just reaching for something in my pocket."

Tension built. I went for a walk with my husband and informed him that he was free to sleep with Lesley, and then I would file for a divorce the day we got back. He freaked out at the mention of divorce and instantly changed his attitude. For the rest of Burning Man, he stayed by my side, and we had a wonderful time together. Lesley's spirits visibly sunk, and she slunk around gloomily for the rest of the trip. I felt as though I had squashed her like a bug, and, magnanimous in my triumph, I gave her some of the pasta puttanesca I made.

My ex and I were happy, so very happy then. We ran about hand-in-hand, seeing everything there was to see. I have a picture of myself taken then with my friend Mark, which appeared in a coffeetable book about Burning Man, and I'm clearly in my element, proud and confident and beautiful and happy, savoring my victory over the forces of evil and low fat biscotti.

[Four months later I filed for a divorce, and my husband and Lesley went public with their relationship (although he always did claim that nothing happened before our divorce and that "Lesley would be very shocked if she were to hear that you thought she'd ever done anything inappropriate")].

Limpy, Gimpy, and Cabin Fever

From the moment the crutches came into the house, Iris fell in love with them. Sure, Iris was completely able-bodied, and yes, they were meant for her mother with the nasty sprain, but that wouldn't keep Iris from continually hijacking them.

We arrived at a crabby compromise that she could have one and I would have one, and she was forbidden to take mine and adjust it to her own height. I wanted the freedom to gimp around on my one crutch whenever I felt like it.

Looking at Iris getting around the house with her crutch, I said, "We should be called 'Gimpy' and 'Limpy.' I'm Gimpy. No, wait, you can be 'Gimpy.'"

"And I'm 'Cabin Fever!'" shouted Lola.

So Gimpy, Limpy, and Cabin Fever have been getting through a dull part of summer vacation, with our usual routine upset by my temporary status as a crippled person. Gimpy and Cabin Fever need to help out more than normal, and I complain more than normal (my ankle really hurts a lot).

Yesterday I, Limpy, decided to try getting around without my crutch. I can now walk slowly and painfully without it. Gimpy used this chance to claim the other crutch and has been enthusiastically getting around on crutches. Going downstairs last night on crutches, Gimpy fell and bruised all the toes on one foot. This brought forth hours of complaint and a renewed commitment to using those crutches at all times.

comment of the week

This was not posted on my blog, but rather on another blog, about me.

need to slap a woman (I'm a skinny woman..who's never slapped anyone..or anything..)..but my GAWD ..the very TITLE of her blog..offends the not easily offended (ME...freedom of speech..sarcastic as hell..to the point where've I've hurt many people with my caustic tongue)...no..this Carole takes the cake. - Halsey

Ol' Halsey thinks she's "sarcastic as hell", possessed of a "caustic tongue", and a firm supporter of freedom of speech, but the very title of this blog offends her into frothing, foaming ellipses. Congrats, Halsey, that's the Comment O' The Week!

the fall

Tuesday morning I had an optometrist appointment, and it took considerable effort to get the children up and fed and ready to leave for the day (I planned to take them out to lunch after my appointment and then to their afternoon art camp). I had the brainwave of donating a little artist's model of a cat to Becky, the children's art teacher, to use in her many classes devoted to drawing cute animals (Becky, who knows how to appeal to a small child, sometimes teaches a course called "Drawing Cute Animals" and sometimes one called "Fashion Girls And Their Pets"). We never use this model, and the Sober Husband and I want to declutter our house. Giving it to Becky made a lot of sense to me. I pitched this idea to the children, explaining that they could use the model at Becky's classes and how happy she would be to get it.

As we went out the door, Lola stopped dead in her tracks in front of me, clutching the wooden cat model. "I want to keep Kitty at home," she said in a voice which promised a full onslaught of fussiness. I nearly ran into Lola and tried to step around her. My foot landed on the edge of a thick coir mat by the front door, my ankle buckled, and I went down. Although I fell full length on the hard tiles on the top of the steps, I wasn't aware of any pain anywhere other than in my ankle, which hurt so much that I lost my vision briefly. After I could see again, I uttered some obscenities. Lola shouted, "MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY" in a frightened voice over and over again. "I'm okay, Lola," I said, trying to get her to calm down. "Mommy's okay."

I lay there for some time (I was vaguely aware that the day laborers used by my next door neighbor's contractor were unwillingly approaching, drawn by a sense of duty and Lola's hysteria) and then I asked Iris to help me to my feet. My ankle hurt a lot, but I could put some weight on it, and I could rotate my foot. "It's just a sprain," I told the girls. "I can put weight on it, so that means nothing's broken." I decided to keep going. "This isn't my driving foot, thank God," I said. We drove to the Stonestown mall, where I slowly limped to the optometrist and to the Chevy's, which the children adore. My ankle hurt more and more. I limped back to the car by putting an arm around Iris and leaning on her.

At this point, I decided I couldn't take the girls to the playground or their art class. I needed to get off my foot. We went home (where I discovered that I'd never locked the door after my big fall) and called the Sober Husband, who came home a couple of hours later. He drove the girls to their class, which was half over for the day, but some art is better than none. I elevated my foot and read "Sworn to Silence" by Linda Castillo. By night time, my ankle was much worse. Getting me to the bathroom was a major ordeal. Hopping on one foot seemed the way to go, but the reverberations were agonizing. We ended up bringing an old rolling chair downstairs to use as a sort of wheelchair.

I slept on the couch intermittently, my ankle hurting a lot. In the morning I felt panicky. Just touching the bottom of my foot was agonizing beyond belief. I turned into a drama queen, insisting that I needed to see a doctor, this was obviously worse than a sprain, but I couldn't imagine how I could get there without crutches. The Sober Husband called a medical supply store, which wasn't open yet. "Call Walgreen's," I said. Then his cellphone rang. The medical supply store owner was calling back. The Sober Husband arranged to meet him shortly to buy crutches. He reported incredulously to me, "The store doesn't open for hours, and the message says that, but the guy calls you back if you leave a hang up call to see what you want."

The crutches didn't make me feel much more mobile. The sidewalk is so sleeply canted where we live, on the side of a very steep hill, and the differential in height between the two crutches made me feel panicky. We got me to the doctor's office, where it was soon determined that I just have a severe sprain, although the doctor cautioned that "sprains like this take four to six weeks to heal." I felt like an idiot for having gone to the doctor at all and for having been dramatic at home that morning. The doctor gave me some tips on how to use crutches better and suggested I try just one. After some coaching, I more confidently crutched back out to the waiting room to be taken back home.

At home Iris fell in love with my crutches. She kept confiscating them and adjusting them for her own height, limping around the house on them. Finally I lost my temper a bit. "I am the crippled person here, and I need at least one crutch set for my height." I managed to get one back from her, but all night long she meticulously limped and used the other crutch. Around midnight she finally decided to go up to bed. "So you're all better now?" I asked. She paused. "Yes, but I'll be sick again tomorrow and need the crutch."

Three days after the injury, I'm still in a lot of pain. I feel like I'm living in a bad slapstick comedy, where my clumsy, painfilled locomotion must be hilarious to the onlooker. The Sober Husband's vicious green parrot is trying to take advantage of my weakness, and crutching past her cage is dangerous. The children are quite squabbly, despite my attempts to declare the living room "A Place Of Calm And Healing." I haven't been upstairs since Tuesday morning, and despite my continual requests, no one has cleaned the litterboxes since then, either. No laundry is occurring. On the bright side, my feral kittens really love having me sleep on the couch, and I had a breakthrough with the shyer, black-and-white one. I am going to share with my feral kitten rescue my accidental discovery that sleeping in the same room as a hitherto despaired-of feral kitten can have powerful taming effects.

Squirrels and pigeons

This is Iris guest blogging.


I call myself the squirrel/pigeon whisperer. Because that is what I am. In GG park, there is a really big playground. And in that playground, there is a squirrel. I named him Squabble. I visit him every time we go to the playground there, which is often. He is very friendly with me. One time he walked up to me and stared at my foot. I was kind of freaked out because I thought he would bite me, but I didn't run away. Then he sniffed my foot. Then he walked away. But he is pretty freaked out by everyone else, especially Lucy, who has tried to become friends with him as well.
At the playground there also lots of pigeons. They are also friends with me. Particularly 6 who I have even named.

Raymond (a chumum)
Gaymond (also a chumum)
Tauro (because he has black and white spots,)
Henrietta (because she looks like a chicken)
Clementine (because she's orange like the character in those books)
Gimpy (because he has a broken leg and can fly very well,).

One time I was feeding pigeons while Lucy was playing and I was sitting with Momdude. And they all loved the food. Then I saw gimpy and felt bad for him because he couldn't run over to the food like the other ones, and I threw some food at him. And then he caught it in the air!!! It was awesome. Then a couple days later Momdude was sitting on a bench throwing pretzels at the birds and they all just stared at the pretzels, not even realizing they were food. Then I took the same pretzels and tried feeding them, and they went crazy over the food. This is not a coincidence! They know me, and now that I would not throw stuff at them unless it was food.
Then yesterday we were walking back to the car from the playground and I had some extra food and I saw a squirrel and some birds looking for food so I threw some at them, then they went crazy an started flying at me and before I knew it there was a herd of birds running after me on the ground.



-Iris

no child of mine

Part I:

I was flipping through the radio channels as I drove the children to their art class, and I landed on "Once In A Lifetime" by the Talking Heads. I turned it up and sang along, and Iris joined in. "This is not my beautiful house!" When we got where we were going, I kept the radio on until the song was over.

"I don't like that song," said critical Lola.

"Lola! I will disown you. You are no child of mine," I said. In the 80's, the Talking Heads were my favorite band, to the point where people were always telling me that if "Burning Down the House" came on the radio, they suddenly had the urge to call me.

Lola leaned forward and put her arms around me. "I am always your child."

"I can't believe you don't like that song, though. You are required to like that song!"

Part II:

Iris's school supply list included a scientific calculator. This was a meaningful moment for the Sober Husband, a man who can remember every calculator he has ever owned. Instead of buying Iris "the inferior brands on the list, those Texas Instruments really aren't any good", he presented Iris with a scientific calculator he owned himself. He presented it to her reverentially and started extolling its virtues. "You'll want to play around with this," he said.

Iris cut him off. "Yeah, yeah," she said, putting it down on the coffeetable without even glancing at it.

The Sober Husband was aghast. "I can't believe you don't want to try it out! You are not my child!"

a parent's nightmare: they are comparing notes

Today we were driving with a little friend of Lola's in the car, and Lola and her friend fell into deep conversation, ignoring Iris and me. Lola's friend shared that she'd gotten her mom to make a "really big brownie", a giant mutant brownie. Lola wanted to know how that was possible, and her friend started to explain. "She made the brownie mix, I don't know how, and then put it all in a big pan.."

Lola interrupted. "No! How did you get her to do it?"

"Oh! I kept asking her, and I said, 'You never bake anything, and you can't make a good cake, and I don't really like cake, and we never have anything baked, and I really need something.' And I wouldn't leave her alone, and I kept asking. I would never leave her alone, not even when she was trying to nap, especially when she was trying to nap." She carried on like that at length, Lola listening attentively, no doubt storing up this child's wisdom.

the morning

Although Iris and I had stayed up after midnight for no good reason, I got up early this morning to get Lola ready for her morning dance camp. Upon awakening I went into the upstairs bathroom, where we are keeping our hardcase feral kittens, to see that they had tipped over the clean sheets and towels onto the floor and scattered the contents of their litterbox about. This was a hideous mess which couldn't wait until after I'd had my coffee, and I started on it immediately. One of the kittens escaped while I was working on this, but I trapped her in the study and left her for later. The other one cried over being left alone. All the while my baby parrot was shrieking like a crow, jangling my uncaffeinated nerves.

Once I got the bathroom reasonably hygienic and fed the kitten in the bathroom, I went down to pack Lola's lunch, and I asked the Sober Husband if he could make Lola get up and get dressed. He didn't see the problem. After all, Lola had slept in the same clothes she wore yesterday to dance camp, so by the Sober Husband's reasoning, she was all ready to go back. I pointed out that she was supposed to dress by theme every day and today's theme was international travel and sent him upstairs. As well as cleaning up after the kittens, I'd dug around in my closet until I found an old scarf of mine with a beautiful print of a map of Africa on it.

While I was still making lunch, the Sober Husband came downstairs. "Lola can't find anything to wear." I went up. Virtually all of the children's clothing was on the floor in a pile. Lola, in her underpants, was hopping around on top of piles of clothing. I enlisted big sister Iris, who pointed out, "Lucy, around the world, everyone wears pants. Just put some pants on." Lola halfheartedly started poking her foot at a pair of pants which were both inside out and backwards. "Lola," I said, "I want to take you back and get a piece of paper that says you are profoundly retarded, to keep with the piece of paper I have that says you are profoundly gifted." The children laughed uproariously at their horrible old mother. I turned the pants right side out.

After Lola refused other suggestions for shirts, I found a "Carnevale di Venezia" t-shirt the Sober Husband was given as a gift from some nuns who were selling clothes on a sidewalk in Venice years ago. I presented this to Lola, who regarded it with suspicion. "Does it have chest hair in it?"

"First off, it is clean. And secondly, if you haven't noticed, your father has very little chest hair."

"Does it have underarm hair in it?" Lola made a face.

"PUT THE SHIRT ON!"

After a lot of back-and-forth with Lola over getting her to hold her hair out of the way, I tied the African map scarf jauntily around her neck. By the time she got downstairs, the Sober Husband thought it was time to leave. "Wait! She needs breakfast! She can be a few minutes late to eat breakfast!" Iris and Lola were eager to inform their father of their mother's potentially traumatizing speech: "Momdude said she wants a piece of paper saying Lola is profoundly retarded to keep with the one that says Lola is gifted!"

"Profoundly gifted," I corrected. The Sober Husband gave me a look but spared me any commentary.

"Oh no, she still has face paint on from yesterday," I said as I spotted a little painting of a kitten on Lola's forehead. The Sober Husband got a good grasp on Lola and went after the paint. "Don't get it in my third eye! Be careful of my third eye!" shouted Lola.

"I'm rubbing it right into your chakra," said the Sober Husband as he ground off the old facepaint.

"Ow! My third eye!" mourned Lola.

Lola turned her nose up at cereal and claimed to have developed a fear of toast. Somehow we got her out the door, with Iris helpfully spotting that Lola had left her lunch behind. We caught the errant kitten.

The Sober Husband returned from dropping off Lola, only to accidentally release the same kitten that got out before and to complain that Iris was watching "crappy television." I took a steadying sip of coffee. It was only nine a.m.

Henry's fears

Lola regarded Henry, our three year old tabby. "Henry is afraid of two things: rollerskates and brooms. I caused both fears", she said gravely. After further reflection, Lola added, "Henry is also afraid of being intense. I caused that, too."

hardcases

Last week I turned in my perfect kittens, my beautiful gray and white darlings, to go up for adoption. When we got those kittens, they didn't want anything to do with people, but they immediately saw the point of living in a house. They had been trapped from a feral cat colony in the city by an intrepid former military man who is that rarest of creatures, a crazy cat man who devotes much of his retirement to kitten rescue. Since these kittens grew very, very slowly (I think they are going to be small cats as adults), we had them for two months, which is really too long because it leads to excessive attachment. Lola and I cried over returning them, and everyone except the Sober Husband wanted to keep one of them (a tricolored tabby called variously "Adventuroso", "Clarice Bean", and "Clementine", the latter two names coming from children's fiction of the spunky little girl genre). By the time they went up for adoption, they were beautiful, sweet kittens who would be a joy in any home.

Then we were asked, as a special favor, to take some difficult kittens. Iris was pushing hard for me to take very small kittens, bottlefeeding kittens, due to their excessive cuteness (of course, bottlefeeding kittens is a ton of work, work which would fall exclusively on poor old Mommy). Instead, we were suckered into taking the hardcases. These kittens are old enough and large enough to be adopted out, but they aren't tame enough.

When Iris and I took a day long class on fostering feral kittens, our instructor was firm. Over and over again she stressed, "When you have these kittens, you need to mark a date on your calendar and keep it. If they aren't tame by then, you have to release them. You can't let that go by." Someone broke that rule, and now these kittens are broken. They are now too soft, from living too long indoors with people, to be returned to their feral colony (where they wouldn't be remembered after months of captivity), but they can't pass the behavioral test to be adopted out as pets.

We're supposed to try to work our magic on them for a week and then return them, at which point supposedly the local SPCA may take them on as a project. It's been no fun whatsoever, just stress and depressing work. First they acted catatonic. They didn't eat for a day and a half after I brought them home and set them up in our upstairs bathroom. They just cowered in a corner, shivering from fear, and staring. After a couple of days of catatonia (if we picked them up, they remained in that catatonic state), they managed to make a break for it due to a child forgetting to close the bathroom door. Thus they were able to spend a day loose in the house. We found them in the traditional hiding place of the feral kitten (and where Ray Charles, RIP, used to hide during Lola's rowdier playdates), in the guts of our dishwasher. Iris's lithe little arm was used to pull them out, which, as always, led to Iris complaining of strained muscles in the neck and shoulder.

After this adventure, they became livelier and took to biting me and the children when we tried to hold them. Iris and I tried a trick from our feral cat seminar, wrapping them up firmly like burritos in towels and holding them down, and in that position, one of them managed to bite my upper arm. On the bright side, they were playing with each other and eating, and they do use a litterbox. Sometimes you can pick them up and they will submit to being held for a while, but after a bit, they thrash violently until they can escape. Yesterday Lola had a friend over, and they were careless, resulting in two kitten escapes. I can't imagine it does anything for these kittens' socialization to have me poke them out from behind the washer and dryer with a broom or have the entire family attempt to dredge them out from under a couch.

Last night Iris and I slept in the big bedroom together with the feral kittens. At times they would climb up and cross the bed, which seemed like progress, tiny progress.

It's been a lousy week. I felt slightly ill for half the week, not sick enough to be able to stay in bed and not do anything, but too lousy to enjoy myself, and these damn kittens have been nothing but stress and work. Given how unrewarding these kittens are to be around, the children aren't particularly interested in helping with them, and I've had to threaten to quit kitten rescue altogether to get any assistance out of Iris and Lola. At the same time, Iris is overly aware of these cats' precarious position, and she keeps haranguing me with difficult and depressing questions. "What will happen to them? No one will want to adopt them, will they? What about the black one? What's going to happen to him? Are they going to be put to sleep? They hate me. Why do they hate me?" There's nothing like holding a struggling, biting feral kitten and being peppered with worrying questions by a concerned ten year-old to make a person with a severe headache and nausea feel comfortable and relaxed.

"Next time I'll give you really cute little ones," promised the head of my rescue.

comment of the week

Our second Comment of the Week winner is Marketeer, for "Actually, Cupy is alive and well and running a coffee shop in Virginia, although he had to change his name slightly." Congrats and thanks for the news on Cupy!

sensitivity to holidays

Yesterday Lola and I were walking down the hill where we live, and Lola showed me a section of sidewalk which frightens her. She explained. "Before I fell on leaves here. I hate those leaves! I really hate them." Lola expounded on the evil leaves at length, denouncing them and the tree from which they fall quite thoroughly. Then she paused. "Of course, I wouldn't say that on Earth Day."

poignant post-its

This evening I ran across a morbid reminder of the departed Cupy family. Whoever cruelly disposed of the Cupy family while I was in the hospital stacked up the little Post-it notes Lola had attached to them, reading "Cupy", "Cupy Family" (with little flowers drawn all around), "Cupy Jr.", and so on, and left those behind in a corner of the sideboard. It reminded me of the horrible artifacts the Nazis saved, the shorn-off hair and gold fillings.

Why would someone throw away Cupy and his family but preserve the labels? In fear of bringing sentimental Lola to tears, I did not mention this grisly find.

food or friend?

I took Iris uber Alles down to the Aquarium of the Bay the other day. We had the misfortune of being there at the same time as an exceptionally loud little boy of about nine years old, who was not only exceptional in decibels but also in monotony. Over and frigging over again, with no change in his sense of wonder, this little monomaniac kept shouting, "I WANT TO BARBECUE THAT FISH THERE! WHAT IF WE BARBECUED ALL THESE FISH? SEE THAT FISH? I WANT TO BARBECUE THAT FISH!"

This went on, louder and louder, for half an hour, as Iris and I marveled at all sorts, shapes, and sizes of fish. "My God, Iris, will he ever stop?" I complained. Iris laughed. We agreed that this young fellow seemed rather simple, as he bellowed out his one thought over and over and over again, and his mother made no effort to get him to either lower his voice or change up his conversation.

By the time we got to the sharks, a European tourist snapped and very loudly told this boy off. "FEESH ARE FRIENDS, NOT FOOD!" she lectured. The boy's mother was just as passive in the face of this Euro-activism as she was with all that shouting about barbecuing. Iris and I choked back our giggles.

Although Iris had held her vegetarian stridency in during all that time we'd spent enduring the "I WANT TO BARBECUE ALL THESE FISH" shouting, she let loose on her mother when we walked to the car. "You eat fish!" she said accusingly.

"I do not!"

"I saw you eat a tuna when we were in Panama!"

"That wasn't a tuna, and that was YEARS ago. Why are you nagging me? Why don't you nag your father? God only knows what he eats! He had three hundred dollars worth of sushi a couple weeks ago!" (It always drives me crazy that Iris uber Alles nags me incessantly about my less-than-satisfactory level of vegetarianness and lets her meat-eating father off the hook).

Iris uber Alles was silent for a moment, knocked off stride. "Wait -- that wasn't vegetarian sushi?"

"Iris," I said wearily, "they don't charge hundreds of dollars for cucumber sushi."

Iris took a moment to take that in. Soon restored to her customary aplomb, she resumed her digging at me. "You eat crab!"

the aquarium.

i just wanted to say this because I thought it was very odd:

The Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco now has chinchillas and hedgehogs.

what will humanity think of next?

-Iris

The animal songs

Today, I was bored. And I was staring at kittens, because they have dominated our house. And all of a sudden I started singing, because, as you know, human intelligence fails per proximity to a cat. Anyways, the song kept going on and on and eventually I decided it was very good and I would write it down:

Kittens Are Small
by Iris

You are kittens you are small
You know kittens are not tall
If you were tall you'd be 6 feet,
and that would not go with the beat.

You are kittens you are small
when you stand up you are tall
but only at the shopping mall,
which is not always fun for all.

Kittens, kittens, are so small,
I wish sometimes that you were all
a bit less short and more a quart.
Because, Because, Because,

You are kittens you are small!

Then I asked Momdude if she had a song for Pigwidgeon, our pet parrot who is supposed to be very smart, yet can not speak. It turns out Momdude did have a song. It went like this;

"You are a bird, you can't say a word, you poor dumb bird."

There was a silence. Then Momdude remarked that her song is the blues. Then I said, "My song is upbeat. Yours is the blues."

-Iris

Lola Answers Your Questions

Hughman asked, "1. Are you planning on learning to cook like your dear mother once you get the new stove?"

"No, not really. I don't really enjoy cooking, but I like baking cookies."

"2. are you looking forward to one day going to summer camp?"

"Soooort of, but, you know. Yeah."

"3. It sounds like you enjoy acting from your performances at school. would you want to be an actor when you're older? what actors do you like? "

"YES YES YES! [directs mother to type in capitals] I like Angelina Jolie! And Johnny Depp!"

NonymousGoatsePants asked, "If Mom-dude was a shape (Circle, triangle, square, duo-decahedron, etc.), which shape would she be and why? Same question for Dad."

"I think circle because I imagine a circle being nice. And Daddude would be a triangle because triangles look smartsy. I mean square. Yeah."

Christy asked, 1. If you had to eat the same thing every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?

"CANDY! But my second choice would be pizza."

"2.What is your favorite book?"

"I have a lot of favorite books, but a lot and a lot more of books I hate. My favorites are any Octonauts books, Clarice Bean books, yeah. I hate and I say hate, so many I can't remember. I really dislike.... Can you really write down what I'm saying?"

"I AM writing down what you're saying."

"But not like 'uh.'"

"Go back to the books!"

"Uhhhhhhhh..... (giggles) uhhh....... I really dislike, um, uh, I have a question."

"What is it?"

"Tough question!"

"What is your tough question?"

"NO! I was saying to the person, 'that was a tough question'!"

"Let's go on to the next one."

Carroll: "What do you like best about living in San Francisco?"

"Probably [long, thoughtful pause], I don't know. There are no chinchillas around here, you know. I mean, also, have you ever seen a chinchilla before? Not in San Francisco at least."

"But what do you like about it?"

"Well, I like the, uh, good building things?"

"Do you have anything else to add, Lola?"

"There's good cookies."

announcing Comment of the Week and Ask The Lola

For ages I've meant to introduce a "Comment of the Week" feature, since often there are some comments here which are pretty damn amusing (sadly the comments can outshine the content, but I'm not afraid to give credit where it is due). The first Comment of the Week goes to AnonymousGoatsePants, who started out here as a troll sniping at the other commenters and the poor old Drunken Housewife herself. Now he's the alpha troll!

And, upon much pressure, I need to bring back "Ask The Lola." Lola has deigned (insisted) on entertaining your questions once again. Please leave your questions here, and I'll pass them on to her. Why she wants to do this given that she doesn't read the blog, I don't know. Recently I asked her, in a moment of parental caring, whether I'd written anything which bothered her here, and she looked at me blankly. "I don't read it." Then, kindly, Lola reached over and patted my arm consolingly, murmuring, "I almost never check my own blog, either." She's in a helpful mood, though, so come on with your toughest questions!

fading quietly into the background, yer Drunken Housewife

dumb arguments I have had with the love of my life

There have been so many, oh so very many, abysmally stupid arguments I have fallen into with the man I consider the love of my life, the father of my children. Herewith, for your amusement, the two stupidest arguments we've had recently:

I. The Fishnets Argument: A ten year-old we know wore a micro-miniskirt and fishnet stockings to an event we attended. The Sober Husband and I argued over whether a micro-miniskirt (the shortness of this skirt cannot be exaggerated) and fishnets are sexy clothing.

Sample dialogue:

Sober Husband (snidely): Maybe it's just you with the dirty mind, who is reading into it.

Me (heatedly): I'd be happy to drive you down to the Tenderloin and show you a ton of whores wearing that same outfit on the job!

Sober Husband (loftily): What if I could tell you that dressing like that was the very best way of defying authority? Don't you want children to question authority?

Me (becoming incoherent): As a feminist, I'm really troubled by a prepubescent wearing sexualized clothing [raising my voice to drown out repeated accusation that it is only me, with my dirty mind, who sees a micro mini over fishnets as sexual] which is likely to put a little girl in situations she's not prepared to handle!

This argument droned on and on, with neither combatant willing to back down. I am still incredulous that an intelligent man, a man with a Ph.D for God's sakes, would argue so hard that fishnets and a crotchskimmer are fine, admirable clothing for a ten year-old, particularly since he's arguing with the woman who doles out the fellatio and the food, but there you have it. Outcome: Unsettled.

II. The Relative Intelligence of Parrots: An evergreen, this one never dies completely. Whose parrot is smarter: the Sober Husband's, the crabby twelve year-old Amazon parrot, or mine, the sweet, little one year-old African Grey? Sample dialogue:

Sober Husband (snidely): Your bird is dumb. Mine can talk.

Me (in a feisty manner): Yeah, well, my bird can find her way upstairs! Your bird can't go upstairs alone!

Iris uber Alles (siding with her mother): That's because his bird is too fat! It's too fat to get up the stairs!

Sidenote: As I was composing this piece, I asked the Sober Husband if he could give me some examples of stupid arguments we have, and he said, "How to load the dishwasher." I gave him a look. "That's not a stupid argument; you just won't do it right!" Readers, I submit to you: the man won't follow the simple directives that Tupperware always goes on the top rack, and the non-stick pans are hand-wash only. That's not an argument worth debating; it's someone who refuses to remember two simple rules and damages valuable dishes in his carelessness.

On the brighter side, during the one millionth and one iteration of the Your Parrot Is Dumber argument, the Sober Husband recently had a generous moment and allowed, "Maybe they're both dumb. Maybe my parrot is dumb, too." Outcome: a temporary tie.

the farewell

Yesterday ten year-old Iris uber Alles set off for sleepaway camp, for the first time. She has never been away from her family so long. Iris did go on a 3 day, two night field trip at the end of fourth grade, with no homesickness at all, but that time, she was with her entire class and all her teachers.

Iris didn't show any signs of reluctance until it was time to say goodbye to her father (who didn't drive down to San Jose to say goodbye, as he had work obligations). It was very hard for her to part from him for a week.

The camp itself is run by the Girl Scouts, and it's in a scenic, secluded spot half a mile from the road. The girls take a 3 hour bus ride from a gathering point in San Jose and then walk the last half mile. Their duffle bags and sleeping bags were shlepped in for them in a sherpa system, which offended the Sober Husband. "They should have to carry that stuff. Toughen them up."

"Iris can't carry that much for that long."

"There'd be even less of her left if she did," cackled the Sober Husband with odd enjoyment. "They'd all get whittled down."

I had trouble trying to find the bus stop. My computer-generated driving directions were useless. We got lost once, but I finally found some likely looking buses, although in a spot which was, based on the numbers, seven blocks from where it should be. "Wait here", I instructed the children, and I hopped out to investigate. The domineering mother of Iris's off-and-on friend who is attending the same camp charged over, "We finally found you!" I braced myself and turned back to the car. "Everyone out! This is it!"

The take-charge mother kept issuing instructions to me, instructions I didn't need. I did ask "where is the check-in desk?", but this prompted a flow of "That is where you take your health form, and you get your bus pass for Iris", which I found maddening. The other mother even somewhat spoiled a surprise I had for Iris, as I was being very secretive about some bulky envelopes I had managed to successfully hide for days, which I was clandestinely dropping off (mail delivery to this camp-in-the middle-of-nowhere is erratic and so the camp offers the feature that you can deliver all your letters ahead of time to be doled out to your beloved child), but the other mother's loud "You DID drop off your packages, right? Like I told you?" tipped Iris off that there were packages in her future.

Lola and I hugged Iris good-bye (Lola's hugs coming over Iris's protests), and we stood so we could wave to her repeatedly. We did a lot of waving, because the buses left fifteen minutes late, due to an epic case of reluctance. One little girl, who looked to be no more than eight, did not want to go to camp. Her mother had no empathy with her, refused to talk to her, did not get down on her daughter's level, but instead indulged in a physical battle with her (the mother keeping an icy smile in place, no doubt for the benefit of the onlookers). The little girl kept taking off her bus pass and daypack, refusing to submit to the yoke of the oppressor, and trying to make a break for it. The mother was physically dragging and fighting with the girl. At one point the mother tried to enlist a couple of counselors, I think hoping they would be like bouncers or asylum attendants and carry off the little girl, but clearly they weren't comfortable with that. They tried speaking to the little girl (which the mother wasn't doing), but they weren't about to grab her.

I was really close by, since Iris was in the back row of the first bus and this little girl's mother was trying to strong-arm her on to the second bus, and I felt sick watching this. I had told Iris that if she changed her mind, she could stay home. I couldn't imagine why it was so important for such a small child to go away from home for a week. Finally the mother managed to physically deposit the child on the bus steps, and then she actually ran away, without saying goodbye, just sprinting out of there. The little girls' feet protruded from the bus. The counselors spent some time talking to her, and eventually the little girl pulled her feet in and gave up. Then the buses were free to leave.

Lola and I walked alongside Iris's bus, waving and waving, until it was gone. We drove home. I felt terrible for that unknown little girl, who fought so hard not to go to sleepaway camp.

Lola vs. The Tiny Art Director

Yesterday we stopped at a bookstore, and I ran across a highly charming book, "The Tiny Art Director: A Toddler And Her Vision" by Bill Zeman. Zeman is a highly accomplished artist, and he has a very demanding little girl for whom he draws. She tells him she wants a picture of a crocodile or something, and he goes off and creates a fantastic painting and comes back, and she shouts at him something like "I hate it! You are so dumb!". Zeman has recorded all these interactions deadpan in his book, listing "The Commission", "The Critique", and the outcome, Accepted or Rejected in forms next to the beautiful, funky art in question. (I found last night that there is a blog about the Tiny Art Director, but the book is much better, as much of the charm is in the large, beautiful pictures and the mock-professional forms recording the Tiny Art Director's commissions and comments, as though these were real submissions to advertising agencies or magazines).

I showed this book to Iris and Lola, who roared and roared. "This is the funniest book I have ever seen!" said Iris. They particular loved one of the Tiny Art Director's critiques, where she said, "You are dumb! Why don't you grow up, Daddy?" The three of us thumbed through the book in perfect harmony, laughing and laughing.

What I liked about it was the bloodthirstiness of the Tiny Art Director (one drawing was rejected because it didn't show enough blood. "Can't you draw blood?"). I've come under some criticism for recording the darker side of Iris and Lola here on my blog. Sometimes Iris and Lola, sweet little pretty girls that they are, do things like pretending they are vampires drinking blood from goblets, toasting "to the death of a human! To the death of a human!" Also, much has been said over the years about Lola's desire to murder her older sister. This sort of thing has led to people asking me, with only helpfulness and good wishes, why I don't have these children in psychotherapy. Next to the Tiny Art Director, Lola and Iris are straight out of the Osmond clan (the Osmond clan of yore, before Marie struggled with post-partum depression and Donny attempted to go hard rock).

On the way home the children squabbled over who should get "The Tiny Art Director" book for her birthday. Then a more vicious fight broke out: who is funnier, Lola or the Tiny Art Director? This one led to tears, as Lola is accustomed to the title of Funniest Person Anyone In the Family Knows In Person, and Iris was strongly contending that the Tiny Art Director is infinitely funny. No moment of happiness lasts for long enough.

haphazard hospitality

Iris and Lola were enjoying Otter pops yesterday in Golden Gate Park, and like Proust's madeleine, Iris's Otter pop brought back memories.

"I remember," she reminisced happily, "how once Momdude was shouting because there was no food in the house, and she was having a dinner party and people were coming in like five minutes and she wanted a big dinner and there was NO FOOD in the house. So me and Daddude went to the store, and he said, 'We're just here for the fundamentals; we're just gonna get what Mommy needs for dinner. Oh, and Otter pops.'"

(I assure you all that whenever I have a dinner party, I plan the menu the day ahead, and I start cooking well ahead of time).

we are not special snowflakes

After the Sober Husband airily and maddeningly announced, in a complete turnaround, that we shouldn't order a new range but instead buy some secondhand piece of crap off Craigslist or eBay, a certain chill descended over the land. Few words were spoken. Couches were slept upon, in an oddly festive way (Lola, seeing her silent, crabby mother bed down on a couch, was thrilled and claimed the other couch, and it was a little living room slumber party).

Then the Sober Husband said contritely that he had looked on Craigslist and eBay and of course there were no 44 inch, dual-fuel, double oven ranges and that he was ready to just order one and be done with it. His cold, mean wife informed him that he should take his time, spend more time looking, but he demurred politely. He ordered an Aga Legacy, which must be shipped from Europe and will arrive in two months. (By then, we'll have been without a stove for going on five months).

In the end, the choice of the Aga was automatic. It was the winelist paradigm. If the stoves were alcoholic beverages, they'd appear on a menu something like this:

LaCanche - the grapes will be lovingly gathered when they have reached optimal ripeness, crushed, then bottled with a label of your personal design. Price upon request.

LaCornue Cornufe - French, magnificent, striking, it's like getting a really great Chateau Margaux. $$$$

Aga Legacy - Toss the winelist aside and order a manhattan, because that's what the Rat Pack drank, dammit. Retro sensibility paired with impressive function (you'll be drunk fast and look cool getting there). $$$

Heartland Paragon - the (formerly) Canadian option. It's the two buck Chuck of dual fuel, double oven ranges. $$

Virtually everyone (except our friend Bob S., a Scottish maverick) orders the next-to-the-cheapest wine off the list whenever they are dining out. When I reached legal drinking age, it didn't take me long to develop that strategy, and I was shamed when as a middle-aged person, I read somewhere that everyone does that all the time. It's so predictable that savvy restaurant owners always stick whatever they want to unload in that price point on the menu. Before we found the Heartland Paragon, we were agonizing over whether to get the Aga or the LaCornue, but once we found the cheapest alternative, the decision was clear in our predictable, typical brains. It was the Aga, the next-to-the-cheapest on the list.

When I was young and headstrong, I fancied myself special, unique, with my own inimitable way of looking at the world. As I aged, I came to realize how utterly predictable and ordinary I truly am. As Chuck Palahniuk has told us all, we are not special snowflakes, we are not unique and beautiful. We're walking meat.

the story of my life: jerked around by the moody genius

Most people who know us regard me as a hot-blooded, temperamental woman, a veritable shrew, married to a calm, rational man full of brains and equanimity. Oh God, are they all so wrong, so very fucking wrong. If you were to live with us day in and day out, you would come to realize that the cranky, headstrong woman is consistent and reliable, given to strong opinions but living by them in a fairly predictable way, whereas our calm, capable genius is a drama king whose moods and opinions change erratically from moment to moment.

After a decadent night of consuming over $400 worth of sake and sushi on a blind bro-date with a fellow geek, the Sober Husband felt generous towards me. For over a day, he said with kindness and largesse, "You should order whatever stove you want. Get the one of your dreams. You deserve it."

But then, after I decided to take him up on this and not even order the more expensive of my choices but instead get the significantly cheaper range with less powerful burners, he turned on me. He had a bad day at work, leading to some testy email exchanges in the evening, and he was not in a generous or happy frame of mind. The man actually informed me that I should buy something off Craigslist or eBay. I felt like pulling handfuls of my hair out. I reminded him of our very odd space and how only a few European manufacturers made ranges to fit that size and how thoroughly I had googled those ranges. "But there must be someone somewhere who bought one of those stoves and didn't keep it," he said airily.

This is so like him. He's not consistent; he won't stick to a decision. It can be maddening. It reminds me of when we were discussing marriage, and it was clear we were about to become engaged and married, but then he went to visit his Drunken Housewife-loathing mother, who yammered at him day and night about how he shouldn't marry a divorcee (despite the fact that her own husband had been divorced TWICE before she met him), asking him over and over again, "So why do you want to get married?" and barely listening to the response before she let out an "I don't think THAT is a reason to get married." And then there was the time he drove me into a deep hole of depression over financial worries sparked by an impending property tax deadline, only to have him look at me like I was an idiot a week or so later, when I said something pessimistic about money, and say blithely that he'd just written a check for the property tax, we had plenty of money, what was I talking about, silly Drunken Housewife.

In this state, with our lofty genius preoccupied with work matters and our Drunken Housewife seething over her almost-ordered-but-snatched-out-from-under-her range, we had our Big Fat Important Meeting with an orthodontist to review a proposal for putting braces on Iris. I was under the impression that, after research and a second opinion, we were prepared to get braces for Iris, but the Sober Husband was not. "Can you explain to me again the point of this?" he asked the patient orthodontist. "Why are we doing this? It's not aesthetic, is it?"

He's going to drive me to an early, stove-less grave with this will-o-the-wisp behavior.

coitus interruptus of the gas stove

It's been over a month since my wretched Magic Chef died. Everyone, including me, is so ready for me to stop researching gas stoves, stop nonstop yammering about them, and just frigging buy one for the love of God. Ten year-old Iris uber Alles laments pointedly, "It has been forever since I've had cookies! I need cookies!" Seven year-old Lola bitches, "Just buy the French one! It's obvious!"

Yesterday I drove to the East Bay to see a gourmet appliance outlet which specializes in floor models and expensive appliances which have been slightly damaged and refurbished. There I didn't find anything that worked for me and the limited space in my kitchen, but I did get quoted a price on the Aga Legacy which was $1,600 less than the San Francisco distributor had given me. I asked the salesman to double check that. He went off and made a phone call and came back, assuring me that was the price.

Gloating I drove home, feeling like a victorious bargain hunter. The time was right to buy: the Sober Husband had been complaining for a while, "I don't understand how you cooked all these years on a 30 inch stove and now you need a 44 inch one" and "How can it cost so much when we bought a $200 oven before?" Then on Sunday night he went out on a blind bromance date, set up by a mutual acquaintance, with the chief scientist of one of the internet's most famous companies. The two geeks hit it off so well on this blind bro-date that they closed out a sushi restaurant and consumed $400 worth of sushi and sake, the Sober Husband wandering home after midnight on a work night mumbling, "You know, he's a real regular there at this place, so at closing, after everyone else left, we got this special sake where they had polished all the grains of rice before making it. We'd had two bottles of sake before, but even so, I could tell it was special." After this massive indulgence, somehow the Sober Husband felt generous, and the next morning he said, "You should get the oven you want. The best one."

Thrilled with both this cooperative attitude and the great price on the Aga, I decided to buy. While I was cooking my (in)famous "pasta in the style of the glutton", with slow-cooked carrots on the side, the Sober Husband called the salesman I'd met the day before and told him we wanted the Aga, after telling me again I could get the more expensive French range if I wanted. I felt happy and calm as I sipped my champagne and sauted my potatoes, garlic, and chives. Then the salesman called back. He'd made a $1,600 mistake. He couldn't sell the Aga for any less than the San Francisco distributor could.

"This puts us back at square zero," I fretted. We ate dinner, nothing settled.

the solar system game/reenactment

In Momdude's earlier post, she mentioned the Solar system reenactment game. However, she did not describe it thoroughly enough, which is not okay,--and I am sure that Lucy would agree with me-- because it was hilarious and she herself laughed out loud at it. Here is how it works:

One person (either me or Lucy) is the sun. They stand still and flail their arms in a peaceful fashion (representing the sun's rays. The other person is a planet (any planet, but the game does depend on which planet is chosen.). Then the planet spins around and "orbits" the sun, pretending to be that planet. It ends up being hilarious.

-Iris

P.S. I am working on a video of the reenactment on my computer, and it will appear here shortly.

middle school awards and the cynical middle-aged

One of my favorite commenters here teaches middle school on the East Coast. At her school, the faculty give out a modest number of awards at the end of the school year, awards which are intended to reward students who really were outstanding. This year they were made to give an award to a severely handicapped student, and our heroine had mixed feelings.

Over at our school, I recently went to the end-of-year assembly for the upper school for the first time, and I was bemused to see that a number of awards are given out for greatness of human spirit, but not a one for academic excellence. Silly me, I had no idea we'd enrolled our children in an academy of the human spirit. If I'd been looking for one, I might have placed the children at an ashram instead.

while the Drunken Housewife is away

On Father's Day, we went off to "Sunday Streets", where major streets are closed to cars for five hours, to get some exercise and fresh air. We took a break from following speeding Lola, who darted through the crowds of bicyclists on her little Razor scooter, "Scooty", for some sustenance. At lunch, I urged the children to think of reasons the Sober Husband is a great father.

One of Lola's reasons was "he lets me eat sugar paper." I didn't get it.

"When you were at class, Lola ate sugar paper!" Iris said.

"You were out at your art class," the Sober Husband began.

Lola interrupted. "I said I would eat anything, even paper, so Daddy got me sugar paper. We put a lot of sugar on top of a piece of paper, and I ate it! I proved I would eat a piece of paper!" She beamed proudly.

They all fondly remembered that moment. "So that's the kind of thing you get up to when my back is turned, eh?" I said.

a temporary area of expertise

Ever since my wretched Magic Chef gas range expired, I have been spending the vast majority of my time researching stoves. Yesterday we drove down an hour down the peninsula, over the children's vociferous protests, to go to a large appliance store, because online I read that this store had the 44" Aga and La Cornue. It turned out that they did not have the promised ranges, but instead had a mislabeled larger, much more expensive La Cornue and the smaller La Cornues and Agas.

Rather than waste the trip, I pulled the Sober Husband over to the huge La Cornue and told him to investigate it thoroughly. "Poke around in it. Look under the burners. Pull on the doors. Do whatever you need to do." I signed up on the waiting sheet for a salesperson (evidently this particular store is the place to go for stoves in the South Bay; it was hopping with stove shoppers). The bored children invented a game where they acted out the solar system.

Finally I got a superior acting salesman. I briefed him on my way over to the Sober Husband, who was removing and examining whatever could be removed from the La Cornue floor model. "We're looking for a double oven, five or six burner gas or dual fuel range. We don't need a large oven because I'm a vegetarian and I don't cook turkeys. I've narrowed it down to the La Cornue Cornufe or the Aga Legacy, and what I want from you is to tell us if there is something I'm missing, something cheaper." He rolled his eyes at me and said, "I think you will find there is a lot out there. And the Cornufe doesn't have a double oven; it only has a single oven."

I picked up the La Cornue literature in front of me (well-thumbed copies of which I had already at home) and showed him the Cornufe 110's double ovens. "And it has to be under 45 inches, which rules out all the Wolf and Vikings," I said.

The man visibly crumpled under the weight of my superior knowledge. "I didn't know the Cornufe had two ovens. In all my years I've only sold the single oven La Cornue." He went off to consult with the most knowledgeable staff member and returned to say that no, they didn't think there was anything I was missing. The only other options wouldn't be good enough; they would just have one huge oven for turkeys-on-steroids and a little warming drawer oven.

After some quality time with the La Cornue, we walked around all the other ranges, all of which were completely unsuitable. Then the Sober Husband pointed to a stainless steel range. "What's wrong with that one?" I looked at it. It was a Heartland Paragon which looked a lot like the Aga Legacy. "I didn't know this existed. I know Aga bought Heartland." We looked at it very closely. It was obviously the Aga Legacy's cheaper cousin. It was thousands of dollars less, but it had the same double oven and five burners. "It's just flimsier," said the Sober Husband. "Feel the doors." I pointed out that the burners weren't copper.

"So why didn't the guy tell us about this? This is exactly what we're here for," he kvetched.

"It's gotta be from that same factory," I said (I'd learned earlier in my research that my two favorite ranges, one British and one French, are actually made at the very same factory). "After Aga bought Heartland from GE, they must have started this one up at a lower price point, under a different label." We stared at the cheaper, shinier stove. "I guess I just want anything from that factory. It's all about the factory."

At home, I learned that the Heartland Paragon range is only made in stainless steel and that no one distributes it in San Francisco. The Sober Husband, thoroughly sick of the subject, elusively slipped out of the room over and over again as I researched the Heartland and attempted to plan a trip to Oakland to a distributor. "Just buy the French one!" Lola shouted. "It's obvious! Don't make me go anywhere! Just buy the French one! In magenta!"

"Did you notice how I knew more about stoves than the salesman did?" I bragged. The beleaguered Sober Husband succeeded finally in leaving the room, abandoning me to my monomania.

remembrance of psychos past

Not long ago we invited some of our neighbors over for a barbecue. After we'd had several rounds of drinks and plenty of food, somehow the conversation turned to the the new ultra-modern house on the block, its owner, and the highly annoying contractor who built it last year. The man who bought this highly priced, glass modern monstrosity is a bit of an enigma in the neighborhood. I've exchanged waves with him but that's been it. The Sober Husband claims to have spoken to him once, but no one else seems to have managed to meet him.

"He's straight", my next-door neighbor (who like virtually everyone on this block is himself gay)said, for no apparent reason, about the new neighbor.

"No way!" I said. "That is such a gay house. I can't believe that guy is straight."

"He is!" insisted my neighbor. "I think he even had a girlfriend at one point. And he has cats."

Soon we ran out of material on this new neighbor, whose name no one could remember, and we went on to reminisce about the contractor who built that house. (My conflicts with that hot-tempered builder were well-chronicled here). "I thought he was going to attack me," I said. "He tried to sabotage my car, the little psycho, and my husband didn't believe me."

"I believe you," said my across-the-street neighbor, who'd had some unpleasant run-ins with the contractor. "I believe you."

But both my next door neighbor and my across-the-street neighbor took issue with my description of the contractor as "a little psycho."

"He was short!" I insisted.

"He was six feet tall," argued my next-door neighbor.

"No way!" I tried to muster up some drunken evidence to back my contention that the horrible man in question was diminutive. "All the time it was going on, I wrote about him on my blog, and I wrote he was short."

"I'm five ten, and he was taller than me. He was at least six feet," my neighbor said firmly. My across-the-street neighbor concurred.

"I really thought he was short. He didn't seem any taller than me, and I'm five six and a half."

Aga Legacy and La Cornu Cornufe

If you have any information to report regarding either the Aga Legacy or the La Cornu Cornufe range, please, speak now before yer old Drunken Housewife spends far more money than she has on one of them.

yet another odd thing I found myself saying

"I don't care if Lucy 'indirectly called you a pair of shoes!'"

tattling

"Mommy! Lola just did that thing that bothers you!" Iris said insistently.

"But if I didn't see it, it didn't bother me," I argued. Iris was unaffected by this reasoning.

"But Mommy, she did that thing that bothers you," she said with her chin stuck out stubbornly.

fancy stoves and crappy stoves

I have always hated the stove in my house, for the full seven and a half years I've lived here. Why do I hate that wretched range from hell? Well, to begin with, the door doesn't seat well on the actual stove, which is irritating and probably why the front of the oven is significantly cooler than the back. This means whenever I'm baking anything, I need to rotate it, or it will burn on one side and not be done on the other. And the covers for the burners are ill-fitting, and they often slide around or out when I'm using the burners. This has caused me to burn my hands on many, many occasions, a problem I've never had with any other stove I've ever used.

The crappy metal burner covers aren't the only problem with the burners. It is not possible to keep them ignited at very low levels, so I can't simmer a sauce on low. They won't go very high, either. You can't do a stir-fry on that stove.

The broiler is ridiculously shallow as well, rendering it useless. The actual oven doesn't heat up enough to broil, sigh. Additionally, the thermometer broke years ago, so there is no way of knowing how hot the oven actually is. You have to guess whether it's fully preheated or not.

In short, it's a piece of crap, a profoundly frustrating thing, but I've lived with it rather than replace it out of thrift. Then the oven part failed a couple of weeks ago, right as I was in the act of cooking dinner. The Sober Husband thought at first he could repair it himself, by replacing the thermostat, but that proved not to be the case. After he spent a lot of time and bought some parts, he gave up, and I declared that rather than pay to repair this hellhound of an appliance, I'd rather get another one. Since then we've been limited to using the burners only, which has required some creativity on my part when I held dinner parties with no oven.

I only once bought a stove. At my old house, I lived for a couple of years with a wretched all-electric stove I hated (again from thrift), but when I was fixing up the house to sell, I got a cheap gas stove from Sears. Oh, how I loved that $200 stove. It was infinitely better than the electric stove preceding it (and infinitely better than the crappy Magic Chef I unwillingly cohabit with now). I so much regretted not having swapped stoves years earlier. You'd think I'd have learned from that experience, but evidently the call of thrift is strong. I am from New England, after all.

So now the question we must confront is: do we seize the moment and get a double oven gas stove? Or do we act with financial responsibility and get another $200 Sears stove?

I'm a passionate cook. When I have a dinner party, it's difficult for me to get everything done with only four burners and one oven. If I had a double oven, I would actually use both ovens simultaneously from time to time... unlike everyone I know who actually owns a six burner, double oven range but who doesn't cook.

So I have a new hobby these days: learning about stoves. I will sum my new-found knowledge up for you: there are a wide variety of high end ranges which cost about $8,000 each, and I loathe each and every one of those which I have seen. Evidently the typical range-buyer has one and only one thing on her mind: how is she going to cram a massive, steroidal turkey into her oven and what can she do to get this giant corpse cooked faster. I, on the other hand, am a vegetarian. I do not cook turkeys, crown ribs, or big roasts. I do not need a large oven or a convection oven (which blows air about and is meant to cook meat through faster while keeping it bloody). I cook shorter, denser things like gratins and cakes, which are not going to cook as well in a convection oven.

A high end range sold to Americans is typically 48 inches wide, in large part because it has a big grill on the top. As best as I can determine, the only reason you would need a grill that size is for making two or more pounds of bacon at once. Again, I am a vegetarian. I do not need a huge griddle to strew bacon all over.

Reading websites and stumbling through showrooms, I felt despair. I sincerely hated every Viking, Wolf, or Thermador I saw. I was ready to give up and declare that my tastes in stoves, like so many other things, were hopelessly out of the norm and unsatisfiable. Then I met the Europeans, the Agas and the La Cornues. Both Aga and La Cornue have what seems to me to be just the right sized ranges: both 36 inch and 44 inch ranges. The Aga Legacy does have a terribly shallow broiler which would not be much of an improvement over the deceased stove's broiler, but its side oven can be set to have only heat radiating from the top, which would work well for me. The La Cornue has the best burners I've seen, triple rings of fire in brass settings, a powerful virtue, but its website proclaims "This young *La Cornue* line, born under an especially lucky star, is both valiant and impatient to prove its ability to serve you magnificently and faithfully over a long period of time", which does not inspire my confidence.

Reading reviews, I learned that the Aga 6:4 series sparks a lot of complaints, primarily from British people, but the Legacy, the one I like so much, is well-regarded. The one problem Americans seem to have is not being able to cram in their oversized turkeys. "Tell me how you make an 22 pound turkey in this," one woman lamented. "Please tell me." Aga Legacy, you are now my dream stove.

the only ones

Seven year-old Lola came over to me and looked me in the eye. "The problem is that Holland and I are THE ONLY ONES who don't have American Girls."

"Oh, so you need an American Girl doll?"

"No, I don't NEED one. I'm just complaining."