Pink Prickly Pear

You are a good person.

This is hanging on the wall at Blue Genie and I had to take a photo of it.  I love it because I love possums, and doesn't that cigarette cloud kind of look like a partially dehydrated possum doing a headstand?  I also love it because who doesn't like to be reminded that they are a good person?  And also because B. M. Walsh painted it.  Poor, unfortunately named B.M. who I am sure is also a good person.  And funnily enough, I have a friend named Brian P. Walsh who, if he ever decided to sport a rockabilly hairdo, would sort of look like this guy, except I'm pretty sure Brian would not wear a cerulean blue maternity shirt.  I wonder if B.M. is related to B.P and somehow thinks B.P needs to be reminded that he's a good person?

I got to pick up my man from the airport today!  He's been in Tokyo, and at first I was insanely jealous (because Tokyo?  It's up at the tippy top of the List Of Places I'd Better Get To Go To One Day) but then I realized that despite being away from home for 4 days, he was only booked into a hotel for 2 nights.  Which I assume translated to something like Not Enough Sleep.

Sleep is important to me.  

I still want to go to Tokyo, but when I do, I want to be in country longer than it takes me to get there and back.

In which I reveal my lack of ambition...

While the rest of you write a frigging book this month, I've got more realistic goals.  

I know you can't wait.  An entry a day?  Brace yourself for the most titillating details.  

Like today, I gave the boy a really terrible haircut.  If you thought we were keeping his hair long because we thought it was cool, you're wrong.  It's because he won't sit still and I'd rather not poke his lovely eyes out.  Long hair worked well enough when we lived up the windswept bluff from the killer swells, but once we moved to Austin, it became a sweaty, sticky mess, so we plopped the iPhone in his lap, had him turn his laser focus to a youTube video and crafted him a bowl cut.  Except it grew out and I mis-remembered the initial haircut as being easy as pie (frozen crust, canned filling), so this morning, on three hours sleep and without my wingman, I attempted it on my own.  No photo for you.

Three hours sleep?  Because all I've done since moving back to Austin is party like a f**king rock star  Mr. Pear is in Japan, and I thought it would therefore be the perfect time to night wean the boy.  I am being strong, but D'anjou?  He is also strong.  Strong with the strength of ten men.  Or at least the lungs of ten men.  Thankfully the house next door is vacant.

I stumbled through the morning with snarls and apologies.  So tired, I was trembly and weak of tummy. I counted the hours until we could reasonably head back to bed for a nap, but did he nap?  He, who ostensibly got as little sleep as I did?  Of course not!  Well, not right away anyway.  He waited until four o'clock this afternoon, while I was dutifully speed-walking the perimeter of Town lake, working off my Tres Leches birthday cake.  Despite snacks, books, lumps, bumps and dogs and ducks to exclaim over, my boy nodded off in the stroller while I tired myself out even more.  

Shall I save my vitriol against mosquitos for tomorrow?  I might have to, because my girl and I have a date with Maude knows how many pounds of sugar, some eggwhites and a loaned sugar skull mold.

 

 

This *would* be funny...

if I didn't actually have to navigate it later on this morning.

Spaghetti, anyone?

Covert ops!

House hunting isn't a particularly kid-friendly activity, but buying a house isn't something I care to embark upon without extensive research, so house hunt (and neighborhood-stalk) I must!  So how to keep the kids none the wiser happy on my quest?  

Take no trips (with kids) for the sole purpose of house-hunting.  Every Monday is "Try Out A New Playground Day", or, to be more accurate, "Mommy Meanders Through Neighborhoods She's Scouted on Craigslist or ZipRealty". Everybody's happy!

I usually take the "back way" or an "alternate route" to various spots.  At some point I vowed to take a different route every time!  I never would have known about that cool little strip along North Loop if I hadn't gone "the long way" - which actually turned out to be "the short way", and is a quiet and efficient cross-town route I now use several times a week, thus immediately breaking my resolution, but hey, sometimes I just want to get where we're going.

Good music.  As I leave the house, I've been known to call out, "Hey, why don't you pick out a cool CD for us to listen to in the car on our way to..."  Mini-Pear is so happy singing along, that she doesn't notice or care that we left the house 20 minutes early.

Dangle carrots.  Some people call it bribing, I call it "trying a new place for lunch" or "chasing down a most excellent ice-cream truck". 

The old scavenger hunt trick!  Ah...back in the day, I used this at many an art museum or gallery or little shop I wanted to explore with the ever-amenable-to-quiet-indoor-activities Mini-Pear.  I know better than to even try this with D'anjou, but he will accompany me on many a neighborhood walk or bike ride "to look for cats (or dogs, or chickens, or bicycles)" while I scope out the ratio of backyard chicken coops to front yard raised vegetable beds or sagging and mildewed front porch couches to earnest young vegan single-speed cyclists.

I will find it!  The perfect house!  It will be neither too big or too small!  There will be a shaded park within walking distance!   Bus routes!  Marked bike lanes on the major thoroughfares!  My neighbors will tend their yards diligently enough to keep the rodents out of the woodpiles, but not to the degree where I will get the stink eye for the inevitable accumulation of outdoor toys!  I want to be able to walk to useful retail (grocers and indie hardware stores trump wine bars or vintage clothing shops)! 

And when I find it, I will stop with the egregious over-use of exclamation points.

In which we eat like hearty farmers.

Those of you subject to my relentless stream of porcine uploads on Facebook, know that we spend one morning a week at Green Gate Farms in East Austin.  Mini-Pear takes an art class (nestled under the trees, adjacent to the most adorably ramshackle red barn) while her brother and I wander the farm, free to commune with baby piglets, free-range chickens, goats and a very friendly horse.  Their farm stand was on hiatus for the first few weeks we were there, but I did manage to buy the most delicious eggs.

It is really something to arrive at the farm and know that the gorgeous, organic vegetables you are going to take home with you are being picked right now!  

I was going to just get a few things from the farm stand, when Farmer Erin let it slip there were still a couple of CSA shares available.  You know I jumped on that opportunity!

So, Friday's share included:

Okra

Cucumbers

Sweet peppers

Japanese Eggplant

Basil

Garlic

Mizuna

Serrano peppers

Little hot red peppers 

Zucchini

Chez Pear has always been an eggplant-free zone, based purely upon Mr. Pear's unfounded, yet vehement opposition to the poor unsuspecting vegetable.  He has however, always maintained that he will "eat wot he is gived", so I decided to forge ahead and use the eggplants, basil and hot peppers on Friday night in Pud Makua Yow.  I don't think I've ever seen dinner disappear so fast!  Who likes eggplant now?!?!  Who was talking about it the next day?!?!  

Thought so...

On Saturday, I used the cucumbers and a sweet pepper in a cucumber salad we took to a cookout with friends.  Sunday night, the mizuna got tossed in a green salad.  Tonight we'll arrive home from Mini-Pear's theatre class to a hearty vegetable stew waiting in the slow cooker, incorporating the okra, zucchini, garlic, and other local vegetables I picked up at Wheatsville at the end of the week.  I was crazy to only sign up for half a share!

Our new place in Austin has this sweet little dining room with lovely wood frame windows all around, but in a 900 square foot house, every room gets used often and for more than one purpose.  Mid-afternoon, this room gets bathed in dappled sunlight and it's time to throw down a wipe clean tablecloth and break out the watercolors.  

I'm adjusting to this smaller space and finding I really like it.  It's not big enough to get dirty.  It's not even big enough to get untidy.  It's just not big enough to leave out lots of stuff.  

The immediate benefit to living in a small space is getting to spend more time with my family.  The other day I was feeling a little at loose ends because surely there was something I needed to be doing.  And yes, I suppose there's always something that could be done, but the big stuff was taken care of.  So it was nice to be able to lay out our painting supplies and, without a lick of guilt, actually sit at the table and paint with the kids.  D'anjou's painting stamina did not last quite so long, but he was happy to snuggle up in my lap while I read out loud to my girl, who could really spend all day long painting.

Our days here are slower and it feels really, really good.

I've been awake for hours...

Well before dawn.  Hours before dawn.  Why?

This one, to be sure.  

I did not take that picture this morning.  In that picture this one is eating.  And eating is not something this one wants to do lately. 

Frequently, this one decides he's not all that into eating.

Vita-Mix to the rescue!  A generous handful of kale, a generous tablespoon of chia seeds, a generous dollop of full fat organic yogurt with the cream on top mixed with whatever fresh fruit we've got on hand makes a super smoothie packed with enough protein and vitamins to let this mama's mind rest at ease. He will always drink a smoothie!

Except for yesterday afternoon.  And last night.  Oh, and this morning.  He was hungry last night.  Hungry this morning.  But he does not want that smoothie.  Or this one.  Or a banana.  Or some blueberries.  Or Gorilla Munch.  Or grapes.  Or cherry tomatos, or any other orb shaped fruit for that matter!

You know when you haven't eaten, and your mood gets a little...all. over. the. place???????

It's like that.  

I have offered chips.  I have offered ice cream.  I have offered him his yogurt.  I have offered him his sister's yogurt.

In a couple of hours, I am taking him and his sister to the beach to meet up with some friends.  Not so many months ago, he could be counted on to eat sand at the beach.  Perhaps he will have some sand for lunch.  I would not mind.

Eight...

The truck arrives next Tuesday!

I have pared down our belongings considerably.  Yard sale, craigslist, donations to The Book Man, our local library, AMVets pick-ups, and gifts to friends have all helped.  Freecycle has not.  The moderators on our local list will not let my slightly snarky post through.  You cannot humorously suggest that people who are going to "come and take a look", hem and haw, call their significant other from your driveway to debate the finer points of my cast-off belongings and then ask me to determine whether or not it will fit in their vehicle need not bother this busy mother in the throes of packing for a cross country move. Apparently only very dry descriptions of your offer are allowed.  I'm not trying to hate on SoCal, particularly at the very end, but it is my observation that a good sense of humor is well under-appreciated 'round these parts.  Maybe I'm just too mean.  Maybe you can take the girl out of the east coast, but you can't take the east coast out of the girl.

You want it?  Come get it.  You load your own car because I'm too busy making dinner.

I was thinking that I was doing quite well, ruthlessly cutting the chaff, but then last night I stayed up late reading through various minimalist blogs and challenges and I started to feel, comparatively speaking, like a hoarder.  I should have been a monk.

I'm tempted to open sealed boxes and purge further, but suspect this would send Mr. Pear over the edge.  I actually already did this a few weeks ago.  Lightening the load is my new addiction and I like it.

I do think I need to get the boy his own set of measuring spoons though.

In which I am neighborly, but my neighbors are decidedly NOT.

One thing I will not miss is the playground/dog-park combo down the street.  You might think this would be a win-win situation, since I have children and a dog, but it's really not.  My boy needs all of my attention while he attempts to scale new heights at every playground visit, so unless Mr. Pear is with us and available to keep an eye on our dog, we leave her at home.

It would appear that the playground/dog-park combo attracts less families with dogs, and more child-free haters who have nothing better to do than to come to the park every afternoon with their ill behaved, decidedly not under-voice-control dogs, and let them not only crap all over the field, but mark every last vertical space on the playground, despite numerous signs posted requesting they keep their dogs on the field (and, by the way, pick up their crap)..

So yesterday, I'm at the park, and this big old golden retriever takes a massive dump on the grass within about four feet of the sandpit.  I look around.  Is anyone on this dog?  Apparently not.  Some youngish guy who'd been sitting nearby makes a stinkface and gets up and moves away from the massive dump.  He's with some other dog.

No one is paying any attention to Old Golden.  He lumbers over to the play structure and casually lifts his leg.  A surprisingly vigorous stream of piss splatters in the sand, and up a pillar.  I attempt to shoo the dog.  It blinks at me.  Finally, some old man notices and starts walking towards the playground.  I give him a smile and a friendly wave, "Is this your dog?  He left us a little present on the hillside there."

Despite my friendly approach, it all goes downhill from there.

Old Man gumbles at me: I'm moving him!

PPP: Yeah, that's fine.  Hey, the poop's right over there.

Old Man and Old Golden walk off in the other direction.  I give him the benefit of the doubt.  There is a handy little poop sack dispenser on the other side of the field.  But after a few feet, Old Man just stops and stands.  I give him a minute.  

PPP raising my voice a little.  Maybe he's deaf: Are you going to get this?

Old Man glares at me.

PPP, cheerily picking up my barefooted boy:  Do you need a baggie?

I start off across the field, grab a bag from the dispenser.  Old Man glares at me as I walk back across the field, but as soon as it becomes apparent that I am headed straight for him, to give him the bag, he quickly looks away and starts to walk in the opposite direction.

PPP:  Am I really going to have to pick up after your dog myself?

Old Man:  You do whatever you wanna do, lady!

PPP is momentarily speechless and just staring at him.

Old Man looks around:  What the hell are you staring at?

PPP:  Well aren't you neighborly?  

Old Man sort of...hoots?  Barks?:  Whatever.

PPP bent over and scooped Old Golden's nasty turd.  

So nasty, I know.  But if I hadn't, some poor kid would undoubtedly have stepped in it.  You know what's more disturbing than Old Man and his totally anti-social behavior?  The fact that not a single other person stepped in.  Not even the young guy who I know saw the whole thing from beginning to end (and apparently took great delight in watching my whole interaction with Old Man).

This is why I'm convinced the whole playground/dog-park combos attract malicious child-free haters intent on deliberately leaving little presents for the kids to step in.   I've accompanied Tanky to dog parks for several years now, and I have to say that this particular park with the playground has more abandoned turds than any other park I've visited, including the totally illegal impromptu dog park in the woods back in DC.  I mean, if ever there was a place to nonchalantly whistle and look off into the distance and pretend you didn't see your dog take a giant dump, it would be in an undeveloped clearing in the woods, but no way!  If you so much as delayed picking up after your dog while you fumbled in your pocket for a recycled Safeway bag, everyone would be all over you, "Who's on the black lab?!?!" "This little Maltese just dropped a number two!"  You better be standing there, plastic mitt on, hovering over a pile so fresh it's still steaming!

Asshole Old Man is so lucky I had my boy present, and therefore had my Modeling Good Citizenship hat on, because otherwise?  Otherwise, he would have found himself wearing that not quite closed properly bag of poo, and let me tell you, my aim would have been true.

Drive-by. Not even.

I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be packing*, or cleaning my house, or prepping dinner, or anything but tippety-tapping on the computer, but I am tired and bleeding from the crotch and I just drove an hour and half each way to drop off Mini-Pear at sleepaway camp and I am feeling a little verklempt and tired from the journey.  There were windy mountain roads and it was hot and my boy cried ceaselessly until he fell asleep ten minutes from home.

I am pretty sure Mini-Pear is going to have the best time ever, but I am going to miss her!

Who am I kidding?  Back to the grind.  C'mere, packing tape!

^{* We're moving.  Did you miss that?}