Fluid Pudding : Page 71 of 123 : It's the old small talk!

My clipper skills are TERRIBLE, but my legs are like velvet and I’m a good mom!

I have received some of the nicest comments and e-mails about my most recent post. Thanks to every one of you for being so kind. As goofy as it might sound, I’ll be returning to those comments whenever I need a bit of a lift.

I decided to treat myself to a pedicure yesterday, and the woman in charge told me that my fingers are terrible. She also told me that I should NEVER use clippers because I’m clearly terrible with them. (She didn’t speak English very well, and Terrible was one of her more common words. I didn’t mind this at all. I AM terrible with clippers, and I’m glad someone finally put me in my place about it.) She also told me that she loves how smooth my legs are, and she thinks I’m a good mom for staying home with my kids when they were babies. (Apparently, her daughter hires a babysitter to come in while she’s at work. According to the woman at the nail place, “Stay at home? Good. Don’t stay at home? Terrible!”)

Me: Be careful there, Sister. Those are Mommy War words! Don’t you watch the TODAY show?!

Speaking of today, today I had lunch with someone I haven’t seen in 25 years, and it was delightful. I do love getting older and being more comfortable in my (terrible!) skin and being able to talk to people without staring at the floor. I also love that a half century of life has taken place (25 years for her, 25 years for me) since we saw each other, and there we sat eating black beans and rice (me) and a BLT (her) and talking as if high school was yesterday.

This weekend is my annual Yarn and Sushi Hajj. My shopping list holds one word: Fiber. I’ve been spinning on my wheel a LOT lately, and as a result, I’m all calm and happy and not losing sleep over the fact that our laundry is sort of stinking and our kitchen faucet is on the fritz.

Last week I plied this:

It was a pain to spin (very nubby, lots of vegetation that needed to be picked out), but in the end it became 360 yards of Beautiful Swan.

Tomorrow morning is my 26 minute run. (The program is slowly increasing my time until I reach 30 minutes.) I’ve decided to start shaking up my running locations, mainly because running circles around the same track every other day is starting to wear on me. Instead of driving 15 minutes west, I’m going to drive 15 minutes north.

This means instead of seeing this:

I’ll see this:

Although it will add a half mile to my morning, I’m pretty sure I’m making the right choice. (My very first 5K is in less than two weeks. After I get through it, I’ll be able to say, “I run” without making silly air quotes and rolling my eyes into the back of my head like I’m more of a Pretender than a Runner. With that said, I’ll be keeping the sticker.)

School starts on August 15th. I’m not ready. The summer has been a good one, and I’m not quite sure I can wait nine months for another. This has nothing to do with that, but: Have any of you ever purchased a Groupon thing for housecleaning services? Was it terrible? Because I’m doing my thing again, and something needs to happen. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Hippopotamus pencil pouches and two packages of disappearing purple glue for a dollar. That’s how we roll.*

When I was a kid, I used to spend a lot of time wondering if everyone saw orange the way *I* see orange. I can look at orange and call it orange, but is my orange your orange? (You call it orange, also, because that’s all you’ve ever known as orange, but what if your brain processes it differently than mine?) ((I promise I’m not high right now.)) Similarly, I associate green and red with Christmas. You might, too. BUT, you might see green and red the way *I* see blue and yellow.

I have spent many hours thinking about the moment when the discovery is made that everyone’s orange is not the same. “What?! Your orange is my BLUE, and your blue is my RED?! We can’t unsee it that way, so we just have to keep on trucking knowing that we’re seeing things completely differently!”

(I married a man who is color blind. His green is my red. He makes all of the time spent thinking about colors 100% worthwhile. “You honestly see those Christmas lights as green?! Oh my God, I feel like we’re in on the secret! Babies! Let’s have them!”)

I probably spend a little too much time on Facebook, and I handle my “wall” the same way I would handle a wall in my house. If you hang a Soundgarden poster in my family room, I’m probably going to take it down. I won’t think less of you for liking Soundgarden, but I don’t necessarily want Soundgarden to take up space on my wall. Similarly, if you hang up a poster that says something to the effect of “I don’t think your gay friends should be able to get married!”, I will quickly remove that poster for two reasons. 1. I disagree with you 100%. 2. My kids like you, but they’re still too young to figure out that you can love a person yet despise their notions. I don’t want them to 1. Not like you because they disagree with you, or worse, 2. Decide to blindly agree with you without thinking it through just because they DO like you.

Oh. You’re using the Bible to back up your claim that it’s NOT okay to help those in need? And YOU get to decide who is worthy of charity and who is not?

I love you like crazy, but your green is not my green.

Wait. You HATE President Obama and you say he HATES America (fists banging on the table!) and you’re really PISSED about this whole healthcare thing and you’re going to put up silly little posters about how you DID build your company and RAWR!!! CHIK-FIL-A APPRECIATION DAY!!!

You look really pretty today, but your orange is not my orange.

With this being an election year, my friends and family are being very vocal about what they believe. Some are vocal by using their actual voices. Some are more passively vocal and choose to hang posters on my wall. (Figuratively! No one has actually shown up at my door with thumbtacks. (I have a No Solicitors sign on my door. With that said, this woman once came to my door and told me that she’s NOT a solicitor. She’s a CANDIDATE! I still laugh and laugh about that. I WILL say that I’ll probably vote for her because I tend to agree with most of her ideas, but I ALSO like the fact that her opponent walked up to my front door and then walked away after reading the sign.))

I’m not saying that my orange is Orange or that my green is Green. I look silly when I fold my arms across my chest and get all scowly. (Most people do, don’t you think?)

This is what I know: If I see you standing out in the rain, I will offer you an umbrella. I don’t care if you’re rich or poor or black or white or straight or gay or old or young. I used to have three umbrellas in my car. I’m now down to one. (I have several public bus stops near my house. Sometimes it rains.)

This is what I know: If, during a friendly conversation, you tell me that you will disown your child if she “says she’s gay”, I will offer you an umbrella if you’re caught out in the rain, but I will definitely not nod my head and agree with you. AND, I will actually choose your child OVER you if she needs a friend someday.

This is what I know: I attend church regularly. It’s a church that builds homes for the homeless and makes sandwiches for the hungry and sends mosquito nets to areas where people are suffering from malaria. It’s a church that welcomes everyone. Everyone. EVERYONE. It’s a church that doesn’t suggest you vote a certain way. It’s a church that encourages you to think and engage in dialogue and love your neighbor. (This is sometimes hard for me, being that I live next door to one of the top ten crabbiest women in America. (I am not making this up.)) It might not be like your church, but its Orange walls are my Orange walls. (It doesn’t have orange walls. I think you know what I’m saying over here.)

I’m 880 words in, and I just want you to know that I think you’re the tops regardless of who you vote for or who you love. With that said, I’ll be trucking along over here in the corner supporting my gay friends and my president and eating eggplant fries and drinking sweet tea and trying like hell to love my crabby neighbor.

*Meredith just came up and asked what I’m writing about. I answered with, “I’m not really sure. I just feel like I need to get some stuff off of my chest, so I’m giving myself 30 minutes to puke words.” Her answer? “Well, then you should probably name it Hippopotamus pencil pouches and two packages of disappearing purple glue for a dollar. That’s how we roll.” I probably should, and I probably did. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

No hug for you.

To celebrate the first day of school, I always make graham cracker sandwiches with chocolate icing for the girls.

To celebrate the final day of school, we tend to go out for frozen yogurt.

On Christmas morning, I get up at 5:00, make coffee, and watch the yule log on television until everyone else wakes up.

(Confession: I just watched that video for ten minutes or so, and my blood pressure went from 120/80 to 80/60.)

I’m one of those people who needs rituals and celebrations and plans (and a spinning wheel). I don’t like having things sprung on me. (Oh, have I got a story for you that I really can’t go into right now, but please know that something has happened that led me to slam my hand (in disgust!) onto a table and then drown my sorrows in church potluck brownies! Oceans of obscurity! (As Fluid Pudding, I share only 17% of my life.)) As much as I think I want someone to throw a surprise birthday party for me at some point, deep down I know that it will probably make me more angry than smiley.

Here’s the scoop. For the first time in 42 years, according to my Ease into 5K application, I was supposed to run for 20 minutes (in a row!) this morning. (Up to this point, my longest run has been nine minutes.) I decided to prepare for the 20 minutes by purchasing the soundtrack to Moonrise Kingdom and setting it to begin playing as I start running. I decided to dress up for this monumental run by wearing my black running skirt, my gray wicking t-shirt, my new sports bra, and my favorite running socks. (Get a load of me, will you?) Finally, I planned to celebrate my success (burning with optimism’s flames!) by walking however many laps it takes to finish out the soundtrack. My twenty minute run (plus ten minute warm up/cool down) plus laps for Moonrise Kingdom was going to take about 75 minutes. Add that to the time it takes to drive to and from the track, and we come up with a 90-minute plan. I normally leave the house at 5:30. This puts me back home at 7:00. Jeff leaves for work between 7:30 and 8:00. Excellent.

And then Henry started having butt problems, and the only open vet appointment required us to leave the house right at 7:30. I cannot shower, eat breakfast, and get ready in thirty minutes. (One of many tragic flaws. Even with no hair (we’ll talk about that later), my showers go for about 15 minutes, it takes seven minutes to choose clothes and pull them on, and then we arrive at my face, which is really suffering right now due to stress/not enough water/church potluck brownies/hormones/et cetera. I don’t wear much makeup, but it takes me some time to strategize and execute a semi-natural looking finish. And then I have to choose earrings.) Hhhhhhhh. I had to cancel this morning’s twenty minute run.

Tomorrow is another day, my friend. A day that will NOT find me spending $125 at the vet on steroids, new fish-based food and treats, and anal gland expression. (Teaching Moment: Facial expressions are signals of specific emotions that are recognized universally. I don’t know anything about my OWN anal glands, but I do know that smelling HENRY’S anal gland expression motivates MY face to showcase the universal signs for Fear and Disgust. Enjoy your lunch!) Do you remember when Henry was an itchy puppy? (I dare you to follow that link and not melt at the sight of Henry as a puppy. I can barely look at that photo without pushing my lips way out and saying, “Oh, sweet puppy.” Oh, sweet puppy.) Anyway, Henry is itchy again and the allergy is all up in his butt and I just stepped away from the computer to give him a hug. (I would also hug you if someone you don’t know very well stuck his fingers into your butt this morning. If you were a dog. Which you are not. So, really, no hug for you.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Tomorrow I will conquer the world. Today? Cookies. Napping.

I tend to wince when I hear people puking out garbage about needing to take a vacation after their vacation. Similarly, if you ever tell me that you don’t do Mondays, we can still be friends, but we will never be Friends. Don’t ever say anything to me about a fish needing a bicycle. We’re done with that. I could go on. I won’t go on.

This photo was taken on Thursday morning, less than five minutes after we left our cabin for the long drive home. Our original plan was to get back into St. Louis on Friday night, but we tweaked the plan a bit for many reasons. (We missed Scout and Henry. We were done spending money. I had plans to spend the weekend with a group of friends.)

After driving forever (eight hours is not actually forever, but sometimes it smells like it), we got home at around 8:00 on Thursday night. I unpacked, went to bed, picked up the dogs on Friday morning, went for a quick run, started getting things ready for my second adventure, fell asleep, woke up with a hormonal headache if you know what I’m saying, ate a bunch of cherries and bananas (I don’t know), fell asleep again, and morphed into one of those people who needs a vacation after their vacation. Like a fish who needs a bicycle on a Monday that isn’t done.

All of this to say: I used to be able to begin an adventure immediately after ending an adventure. (I used to be able to wear black eyeliner without looking completely ridiculous.) I now have wrinkly skin under my eyes, and many of my friends from high school are enjoying themselves four hours away from where I’m sitting right now. (I’ve taken two naps today.)

If Rebecca Cable had been born 100 years later, I think she and I could hang out.

Pigeon Forge is filled with neon signs and weird shops and miniature golf and water rides and tattoo parlors and upside down funhouses and huge rafts for sale and airbrushed t-shirts and tacky hotels and pancake dumps and cigarette smoke and beef jerky outlets. After spending three days making our way through the craziness, we spent our final day exploring old churches and cabins and mills at Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Perfect ending. Perfect week. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Smoky Mountain Puddings!

At approximately 8:30 in the morning on Friday, July 13th, I ended a 42 year run of being able to say, “No! I’ve never been stung by a hornet!” I was outside watering my tomatoes and roses and when I went to return the hose to its rightful place, I felt something on my left hand. When I looked down, THERE WAS A HORNET SITTING THERE LOOKING AT ME IN ALL CAPS!!! I did what anyone who is not experienced with venomous insects would do. I freaked out, the bee inserted his/her stinger halfway between my thumb and wrist, and I screamed. (I can’t remember the last time I screamed. Wait. Yes I do. It was four years ago when this happened in the parking lot at Starbucks.) I’ve been through an appendectomy, two c-sections, oral surgery during which six teeth were removed, a tattoo, a nose piercing, and several car accidents and break-ups. Nothing compares to The Sting of The Hornet. Let’s shorten the story. I took a bunch of pills, and I iced the sting all day. Every time the ice bag would melt, the pain returned.

At 7:30 on Friday night, I went to the urgent care shoebox hospital place, where the doctor: 1. Yelled at me for waiting so long to come in. 2. Was all concerned about the black spots around the sting until I laughed and said, “Oh! Those are Oreo crumbs!” and brushed them away. 3. Prescribed a steroid, an antihistamine, Naproxen, and VICODIN. (I threw away the Vicodin prescription, because I’m afraid I might like Vicodin a little too much.) On Friday night, I slept with a huge ice pack on my hand. By Saturday morning, the pain was gone.

SO, we packed up the car and drove to the mountains.

This is the view from our cabin. The week is going to be perfect for many reasons, including the fact that we found someone to watch our house and our dogs. All is well here, and all is well back home. This means I can eat my cereal (with almond milk!) on the front porch with a ripped-up Vicodin prescription and absolutely no need for Xanax.

This morning I woke up at 4:45 and heard something walking around on our porch. I looked out the window, but I didn’t see anything. I read in bed for a bit (Catching Fire!), and about every 15 minutes or so, I heard the noise. When Jeff got up at 7:00, he found a dead and mangled mouse right outside our front door. I know this is probably the work of a cat or a raccoon (or hopefully, a sweet baby bear!), but my mind wants to believe that we’re going to have our own Boo Radley during our stay in the mountains. Please keep your fingers crossed that tomorrow will find us holding some fresh hand-carved wooden dolls at 7:00 in the morning. (I’ve pinned a note to the rocking chair that says, “We prefer craftiness to carnage.” Here’s hoping Boo is able to read and respect.)

Because Kris Allen told me to live like we’re dying, this morning I went to a spinnery, spun some wool on a Sidekick, and purchased eight ounces of merino/tussah.

It’s going to be a good week. I hope yours is the same. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Just a few things you might want to know:

If I’m singing a song about clipper burn, don’t start tossing in lines about anal gland expression.

Don’t ever ask me if I want that bagel for free. Of course I want that bagel for free. Free bagel!

If my nose is infected again, I’m not just going to tell you that it’s infected. I’m going to take a photo of it, and then I’m going to edit the crap out of that photo until it looks like it was taken in 1976, and all of a sudden you can’t tell that my nose is infected. It just looks like I’m tossing up a photo of myself taken during the year I turned six years old. Really. Look! Amateur photo editing can be a ridiculous waste of time, especially when I’m the amateur. (There’s a morning sun in the kitchen, and there’s always a bird when you listen.)

My hair is growing out. I have a strategy! AND, although I’m getting dangerously close to the intersection of Emo Philips and Andy Warhol in the Venn Diagram of Hair Growth, please know that when December comes, everything is going to be all worked out on the outside of my head, which will free me up to tackle the inside!

We cannot have Doritos in the house. Especially if I find out that they’re vegan. Because, to me, vegan equals healthy, regardless of the ingredients.

For the past few evenings, I’ve been taking these:

And combining them to make this:

Clipper burn! Not anal sac!! Clipper burn!!!

(I used to sit on my bedroom floor and listen to this album for hours. I always loved the captain.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Iron Maiden is on my running mix. And you think I’m kidding.

Although I’m a bit disappointed in myself for turning Fluid Pudding into a weekly thing, I believe it’s fair to blame my silence on the uneventful summer. The writing on yesterday’s calendar space says “library, store, piano, knives.” Today is “coffee/knitting, root beer.” Tomorrow? “Henry Express Groom! FroYo?” (Actually, that one is pretty exciting. Because Henry has anxiety issues and this is his first grooming, I paid eleven dollars extra to have three groomers work on him at the same time. This means he will not be put in a crate at any time during his grooming, and we’ll hopefully have him back home less than three hours after his appointment begins.)

I’m failing the summer reading program at the library, and I don’t really mind, because I’m splitting my time between knitting a sweater, spinning, freelancing, and reading. I did finish Juliet, Naked last week, and this week I started both Pride and Prejudice and Catching Fire. I’ve already read more this summer than I’ve read in several months, so I refuse to beat myself up over the fact that my reading card will not be entered into any drawings to win free roast beef sandwiches or a tote bag covered in embroidered quotes. (Meredith and Harper have already finished the summer reading program, and have filled out several “extra” sheets for raffles. Last week Meredith won a pair of tickets to a St. Louis Blues Hockey game in October. She has already packed four books into her vacation suitcase. In it to win it.)

How is the running going, I’m pretending you asked? Yesterday morning I completed Week Five, Day One of the Ease into 5K program, and it nearly killed me. Run five minutes, walk two minutes, run four minutes, walk two minutes, run for five again! Walk for two! RUN FOR FOUR! I did the whole thing after spending the night tossing and turning and Mr. Darcy-ing and Katniss-ing. Tomorrow I will try W5D1 again, as I refuse to move on until I’ve completed the workout without feeling venom bubbling up in my legs. I was a galloping hate cow yesterday morning, and that will not do. The scary thing? (For me. Not you. Unless you scare easily.) In five short weeks, I’ll be running my very first 5K with my sister. And it’s not just any 5K. Because I need to be kneedeep in the hoopla, we’ve signed on for this:

Confession: I cannot watch that video without crying. (I now have medication.) I’ve warned my sister that I might drop to my knees and sob as soon as I cross the finish line. I may go all tribal and start beating on my chest and howling. I may simply walk up to someone and punch them in the jaw with my colorful fist or French kiss them with my multi-colored tongue. There’s a good chance that I’ll rip off my clothes and streak with the hope that people will continue to throw powdered color at me. (I’ll then roll naked across a white sheet and auction it off to anyone who might be interested in a powdered state-of-nature painting.)

I’ll start the bidding at $4. In the meantime, I really need to stomp out the remaining four weeks of training. Let me know if you need anything. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Tell me what you know about nutty buddies.

The day is only half over, and the following things have happened:

1. I was trapped in my garage when a stranger’s truck broke down in my driveway.
2. I met a friend for coffee and knitting.
3. We got a pool for the puppies!
4. Harper said, “I think the middle finger is the longest because it’s the most helpful.” Darwinism!
5. The dead man in our front yard was not so dead after all! Good news! (Believe me, with our house history, the odds are against us having a dead person in the front yard. Talk to my neighbor. (The cranky one.) She’ll tell you why.)

Next up? I’m going to do a few decreases on my sweater sleeve, I’m meeting a friend for a dinner that will include fig marmalade, and I’ll be returning to a house full of fresh fruits and vegetables from the co-op. (Today is making up for yesterday. We lost power for about four and a half hours yesterday, and although it wasn’t terrible, it DID prevent me from making zucchini bread. Also, the outside temperature was 100 degrees, which is 37.7 degrees Celsius. I didn’t smile very much yesterday.)

Bonus: I just ate a salad full of dried cranberries and walnuts, and I’m currently enjoying a bowl of grapes while the girls snack on Bomb Pops! Bomb Pops!

I would like this shirt.

Also, this shirt.

Happy 3rd of July. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

My hair is still growing, and I have a strategy!

I’m sitting in the kitchen drinking tea and waiting for a guy to show up to talk to me about a thing.

After he leaves, the girls and I will be taking Scout and Henry to meet a new friend who just might watch them the next time we leave town. (After the bad boarding experience we had in the spring, I have become the jerk who refuses to leave town ever again unless I’m absolutely sure the dogs will be treated with respect. This afternoon I will decide if my suitcase comes upstairs or stays in the basement.)

When we return to the house, another guy is going to show up to take some money and talk a little more about another thing.

I don’t have much to report, because most of the past week has been spent stomping around in the mundanities. I bought what I think is a cute dress for an October wedding, and it’s too small. I need to lose two inches from around my rib cage for the zipper to zip. I have three months to make this happen, so I’m not terribly stressed out. I’m still doing the running thing, but I’m reluctant to sing about that too much. Just know that week four begins tomorrow morning at six, and I’m not feeling very confident. (Week Four suggests that I run four minutes, walk two minutes, run six minutes, walk three minutes, and then run four minutes again. Yesterday morning I reached the point where I could run three minutes without feeling like my heart was going to explode. The “run six minutes” thing will be tomorrow’s Eleanor Roosevelt “Do one thing every day that scares you” event.)

Tomorrow evening I’ll be eating fancy food and then watching a movie about a stripper. Eleanor Roosevelt!

This is what I did last night:

I don’t spin nearly as much as I should. When I’m downstairs spinning, I achieve a pretty amazing level of relaxation. My shoulders drop down from their normal location (they spend most of the day reaching for my ears), I lose track of time, and suddenly I have a bobbin filling up with yarn. I’m fully convinced that everyone needs something like this.

This evening I’ll be preparing a silk/merino blend for the Tour de Fleece. (It runs parallel with the Tour de France. Everyone spins their wheels. I’m not an official participant, but I do need to start spinning more regularly.)

I’ve been baking zucchini bread and reading Nick Hornby and listening to Fiona Apple and putting the first sleeve on my Acer. I’ve been thinking about taking a writing class or joining a writing group or just simply writing. You can’t be a baker unless you bake. You can’t be a runner unless you run. And so forth. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Koalas will not do.

It has been exactly one week since I’ve had coffee in the morning. Part of me wants to say something about getting control of my life and wanting to be the boss of caffeine rather than allowing it to be MY boss. Part of me wants to sing empowering folk songs about deciding to do something and then just DOING it instead of dancing around and whining and making lame/tired jokes about how I NEED coffee. (Those ridiculous cartoons of women sitting around in robes with screwed up hair and tired swollen eyes mumbling something about coffee IVs and calling themselves Mommy even though there are no kids in the room? I can’t even think about it without wanting to punch the wall.)

The truth is, I bought a gigantic container of coffee creamer eight days ago, and it’s horrible. I feel guilty about throwing it out, yet I refuse to use it. (I know what you’re thinking. “Toss it out and go buy your normal brand of coffee creamer!” Nope. Tossing it out right now feels so wasteful. Instead, I’m going to wait until it expires on September 4th. (Expiration dates give me that feeling of perceived permission to pour things down the drain.) Please don’t try to heal me. (I’m still saving all of my positive pregnancy tests (dated with Sharpies!) as well as my kids’ belly button stumps.) I am beautiful in every single way. Words can’t bring me down.)

Anyway, I no longer drink black coffee (it’s ACID to my MUCOSA!!!), so I feel like I have no options. It’s just that easy.

(My plan for going full-on vegan is to fill my refrigerator with rancid butter, moldy cheese, and blood-soaked eggs. That should do it.)

Jeff is out of town again. (I wish you could hear the tone I’m assigning to the word Again.) The girls and I will be going on a drive-thru doughnut run sometime today. We will then split up so they can play/read/practice the piano while I stomp out some freelance. Later this afternoon, we’ll be making vegan cherry almond cookies. (Please know that although it’s not credited, the recipe is from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Moskowitz/Romero.)

A few moments ago, Meredith proved that she is my biological child.

Meredith: There’s only one thing in life that I want to do today.

Me: Go on.

Meredith: I want to stock up on tiny containers of hand sanitizer, and I need at least two of them to have panda bears on the label.

(We’ll be heading out within the hour to do just that.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>