I enjoyed making this doll for Chas, who was referring to it as “Dee Dee” before dismissing it to the floor and moving on to deconstructing an old Blackberry device. Ford has since grown attached to it. I myself have been carrying it around the house also, and when I’m least aware I find myself twirling the little cap between my fingers and daydreaming about making more for the new babies in 2006 (what do you think, Elisa? A sophisticated pink velour for Claire? 🙂

If you ask Ford what he wants to be when he grows up, these days he will enthusiastically tell you that he wants to be “a daddy.” If you could see him escorting Chas through the line at the burrito shop, or sharing his cereal with him in the back seat of the car, or hear him translate Chas’ babble when I’m most desperately trying to understand what he’s saying, his choice would make perfect sense. Ford is very sensitive to human expressions and needs, and he loves to help and to understand how people work. I think he’ll be an outstanding dad someday. If I could only get him to remember to feed the Betta. Too late! Bird died yesterday, but it wasn’t starvation. I was tending to that. He had some sort of growth that prompted me to warn Ford (yesterday! whew) that the fish may not live the rest of the week. Bye, Bird. Thanks for contributing 4 months of exotic flare to our dining room, and for freaking out about the Le Creuset Flameware (it was just a pot!) We will miss you.

Today I was loaded with anxiety, but my soul was too weary, so what happened was that I stood there in the middle of the house while my head ran around the living room without me. It was really weird. I remember going to the refrigerator several times to meet a wasted, irritable odor. But I didn’t have the discipline to clean it, desperate as my fridge was for a good cleaning. Instead, I concerned myself with keeping Chas out of the kitchen and hoping that Ford wouldn’t look back into his childhood, later on, to discover that his first memory was peeking into a rancid icebox. I thought of solutions to the problem, and none of them were to clean the fridge. The best idea I had was to ignore it another day.

Chas likes Harry Potter, not snuggling up in bed to read a copy of the book but sitting on the edge of the bed watching the movie on Ford’s laptop. If I deny his first request, he will continue bobbing up and down uttering “Pottah?” Pottah? Pottah?” until either I give in or he breaks down in a holy shitfit. I blame Ford, who is entirely too influential. Chas will sit, transfixed before the screen, for ten minutes at a time. It’s creepy. I know it’s not porn, but this bothers me fundamentally. Books have a lot of competition for his attention. At the same time, I can’t help chuckle; “BOMBAZAH!” is a very interesting first phrase.

Where I lack the inspiration to wipe diluted bleach solution onto refrigerator shelves, I certainly haven’t lacked it in the creative department. And I have Ford as my witness; I found myself telling him earlier this week that 2006 was the year I would be rejected by a lot of publishing companies, but that I’d have dummy (picture) books flying in all different directions, nonetheless. Experience has shown that nothing is final until I’ve confessed it to Ford. Of course, I had to explain the definition of a “dummy book” to Ford, a rather simple process made difficult and I don’t think he ever got over the derogatory connotation.

Today I was loaded with anxiety, but my soul was too weary, so what happened was that I stood there in the middle of the house while my head ran around the living room without me. It was really weird. I remember going to the refrigerator several times to meet a wasted, irritable odor. But I didn’t have the discipline to clean it, desperate as my fridge was for a good cleaning. Instead, I concerned myself with keeping Chas out of the kitchen and hoping that Ford wouldn’t look back into his childhood, later on, to discover that his first memory was peeking into a rancid icebox. I thought of solutions to the problem, and none of them were to clean the fridge. The best idea I had was to ignore it another day.

Chas likes Harry Potter, not snuggling up in bed to read a copy of the book but sitting on the edge of the bed watching the movie on Ford’s laptop. If I deny his first request, he will continue bobbing up and down uttering “Pottah?” Pottah? Pottah?” until either I give in or he breaks down in a holy shitfit. I blame Ford, who is entirely too influential. Chas will sit, transfixed before the screen, for ten minutes at a time. It’s creepy. I know it’s not porn, but this bothers me fundamentally. Books have a lot of competition for his attention. At the same time, I can’t help chuckle; “BOMBAZAH!” is a very interesting first phrase.

Where I lack the inspiration to wipe diluted bleach solution onto refrigerator shelves, I certainly haven’t lacked it in the creative department. And I have Ford as my witness; I found myself telling him earlier this week that 2006 was the year I would be rejected by a lot of publishing companies, but that I’d have dummy (picture) books flying in all different directions, nonetheless. Experience has shown that nothing is final until I’ve confessed it to Ford. Of course, I had to explain the definition of a “dummy book” to Ford, a rather simple process made difficult and I don’t think he ever got over the derogatory connotation.

Today I was loaded with anxiety, but my soul was too weary, so what happened was that I stood there in the middle of the house while my head ran around the living room without me. It was really weird. I remember going to the refrigerator several times to meet a wasted, irritable odor. But I didn’t have the discipline to clean it, desperate as my fridge was for a good cleaning. Instead, I concerned myself with keeping Chas out of the kitchen and hoping that Ford wouldn’t look back into his childhood, later on, to discover that his first memory was peeking into a rancid icebox. I thought of solutions to the problem, and none of them were to clean the fridge. The best idea I had was to ignore it another day.

Chas likes Harry Potter, not snuggling up in bed to read a copy of the book but sitting on the edge of the bed watching the movie on Ford’s laptop. If I deny his first request, he will continue bobbing up and down uttering “Pottah?” Pottah? Pottah?” until either I give in or he breaks down in a holy shitfit. I blame Ford, who is entirely too influential. Chas will sit, transfixed before the screen, for ten minutes at a time. It’s creepy. I know it’s not porn, but this bothers me fundamentally. Books have a lot of competition for his attention. At the same time, I can’t help chuckle; “BOMBAZAH!” is a very interesting first phrase.

Where I lack the inspiration to wipe diluted bleach solution onto refrigerator shelves, I certainly haven’t lacked it in the creative department. And I have Ford as my witness; I found myself telling him earlier this week that 2006 was the year I would be rejected by a lot of publishing companies, but that I’d have dummy (picture) books flying in all different directions, nonetheless. Experience has shown that nothing is final until I’ve confessed it to Ford. Of course, I had to explain the definition of a “dummy book” to Ford, a rather simple process made difficult and I don’t think he ever got over the derogatory connotation.

I just walked downstairs and caught Ford dipping his grubby little fingers into the cake batter. Notice that he doesn’t look spooked or guilty. He’s not trying to hide a thing.

I’m stuck in a Saturday sandwich, between competing layers of Close Encounters (with commentary from Damon) upstairs and Ira Glass downstairs, under the leaden weight of a sleeping Chas on my lap and the beaming sun on my shoulders. There are pressing obsessions on my laptop: a map of museums and our morning itenerary that’s now past due. But the house is now clean, and the smell of freshly sliced limes is creeping across the kitchen countertop.

I cut my finger pruning today, I was so eagerly (and glovelessly!) trimming the garden in the front yard and it was especially dangerous with Chas underfoot. Nothing serious, just a battle scar, a merit badge for my work. It felt invigorating to trim the seeded grasses and the long, thin dead stalks off the perennials; not unlike the liberation I feel whenever I have a thorough haircut and bound out of the salon, leaving piles of medium blonde locks on the floor behind me staring up at the ceiling like fish beached after a red tide.

I was surprised to find tiny green veins thriving inside much of last summer’s dried stalks. Seeing this as I explored each plant gave me all the hope I needed to dream of starting another garden this Spring with the kids. I thought of the new book I bought myself for Christmas, still waiting for me to put it to use: Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy. Not for lack of inspiration, I bought the book to validate my eccentric enthusiasm about growing gnome-infested theme gardens and cultivating what land we’ve got to best use. Thinking of ideas, I took all the clippings and reduced them further, sprinkling them over the soil like little golden confetti.

While I dream of having another vegetable garden, we don’t have the means to create a large plot. We haven’t enough graded, sunshine-filled yard or protection from the deer and we sure don’t have the backhoe we’d need to cultivate a righteous bed atop the kaliche. But we have the perfect woods for little surprises, and a corridor between the house and the forest for a fragrant moonlight garden path (we had a resident bat last year). There’s room for a teepee, and I already purchased the heavenly blue morning glories for the tarp, and Mexican Sunflowers to play off the blue and create a haven for swallowtails. In fact, I am thinking of planting the entire meadow beside the driveway in a swath of yellows and white, a sort of homecoming parade.

As far as our land goes (where we are building, down the road), I still have to research rainwater harvesting, although I’ve been putting this off knowing full well that I’ll need a couple thousand to build a cistern, irrigation system and fence. Thinking ahead to another long hot summer, shopping for new fridge easily trumps those plans.