I’d also forgotten about those printable solar panels until my sister reminded me this morning. Pretty amazing printer business. Meanwhile I’m over here just trying to stop my printer from eating paper and then crying about it.
The window between frigid Winter winds and sticky Summer is far too small to be called Spring. Still, it’s a window, and anticipation of the Summer is driving me to leap from it in the vague hope I’ll experience a refreshing breeze on the way down. I figure I’m going to melt into the tarmac this Summer anyway, so I may as well command the situation. A bit morbid, sorry, I might be a bit preoccupied with leaping from buildings after finishing the season 2 finale of BBC’s Sherlock last night. I know, I know, it came out ages ago, but that’s true to form, me being a few years behind the general populace when it comes to certain trends. You’re all still wearing JNCO’s, yeah?
Between the great weather, not doing any of my normal jobs, crepes loaded with Nutella/sweetened condensed milk/whipped cream/diabetes, and Julian only throwing one hissy fit when he was not given permission to fly a stranger’s kite in the park, Mother’s day was great. Word to everyone’s mother.
Unnecessary postscript: Andy took a vast number of portraits of me with Julian and Robin but these were the only two that turned out. And by turned out, I mean I’m exhibiting minimal moon-face. The twenty other photos were fairly horrific ranging from ‘gruesome smile’ to ‘goldfish eyes’ all because I was facing the camer and trying to work with Andy’s direction to ‘smile like a normal person’. Posting them would have just made everyone uncomfortable.
Climbing on everything and climbing down off things
Building block towers and knocking them down
He has the best gurgly laugh ever
He’s quite cuddly – for months now he’ll want to be picked up so he can bury his head in my chest and put his arms around my neck
He loves Julian and wants to do everything Julian does
He likes holding pens and scribbling
He’s took his first steps about a fortnight ago and can walk a little ways now, although he’d rather hold one of your hands if he can
I like the way he presents his feet to you when he sees you holding his socks/shoes
He eats everything. His diet is by far the healthiest in the family
The not good stuff he’s up to:
He wants to do everything Julian does, which means he pesters Julian and shouts when he doesn’t get what Julian does
Shifting from 2 naps a day to one – for the past month.
Chucking things he doesn’t want, as far as he can lob them. This includes hard, pointed objects, like blocks, and I’m somehow always in the crosshairs. I’m open to the possibility that I’m reading the situation wrong and he’s not throwing things he doesn’t want so much as trying to make a point about my parenting.
It’s no Ribena, but it’s trying. Since you win some and lose some, I’ll even out today’s blackcurrant win by mentioning today’s loss, which was stabbing myself under my fingernail with a massive piece of eggshell. I was picking the shell off an overly-boiled egg when a bit of shell made a very pointed effort to jam itself between my fingernail and nailbed, causing me to jump about half a foot (never been super athletic). I’ve cracked a lot of eggs in my life and this has never happened before, but it could happen to anyone, and I think it would be prudent to raise awareness of this peril. Eggshells to the Fingernail is a real thing, and should be taken seriously. I’ll be soliciting sponsors for my Eggshell charity walk next week. We’ll be walking from my house to the shop. To buy more eggs. While Julian and Robin stare at me blankly, like they did this morning, when I dropped the offending egg into the waste disposal, cursing its family tree, and half the period table. I’m aware that the chemical make-up of eggshells doesn’t comprise half the periodic table, but that’s what this is about, educating people.
Moving on swiftly (did I just write a paragraph on eggshells?) I think Summer is just about here. It was 85 today and somewhat humid. Tolerable, compared to the 100+ degree greenhouse this city will be in a matter of weeks. Even when wearing the least amount of clothing publicly acceptable, Summer humidity makes me feel like I’m in a bathhouse being piled on by a posse of woolen jumpers that have just come out of a hot wash, but instead of smelling like Spring Rain, they smell like Hot Trash. I’d say that was a fair estimation of Philadelphia’s Summer weather. We’re looking at a cooler week next week, but I’m regarding it as the eye of the storm. Now I’ve talked about eggshells and the weather, let me adjust my bifocals and ask if you know a three letter word for ‘aged’ so I can get 17 Down in today’s crossword.
Since this blog post has already gone the way of retirees taking ballroom dance and doing Yahoo! searches for cataracts symptoms, I’m going to mention that I bought a pair of trousers from Marks & Spencer’s while I was back home. Yeah. So either Marks & Spencer is getting hip with the kids or I’m mere years away from a twinset and slacks. Probably the latter, but you’d best believe I will work that twinset and slacks (lies, all lies). Since I’m completely derailing any illusions anyone might have had about me being remotely cool,I may as well complain about Ina Garten’s FB page. I ‘liked’ Ina Garten on FB when I realised she was on there, my eyes glazing over at the thought of secret recipes, but then I had to unlike when I realised she wasn’t sharing recipes so much as publicity dates.It was for the best as I have mixed feelings about Ina. Her poundcake and political past draw me to her, and throw in her popped custom shirt collars and twinkly eyes and I’ve been suckered in to watching her mix mirepoix for half an hour, but then I feel slightly dirty watching her pick out expensive imported cheese at the gourmet shop in the Hamptons so she can make Jeffrey a quiche. Point being, if I ever had any edge, I lost it when I started valuing a solid recipe for custard and buying my clothes from M&S.
I’ve rambled enough. Last night I started trying to sort through my draft folder of my email. Most of the drafts are to links I’ve saved. Here’s a short list from a horribly long one for anyone’s perusal:
Someone left a comment on my blog that linked back to a particularly good Tumblr. I liked the title of it, plus the content, so I took a screenshot. I kind of can’t believe The Matrix is so old.
