Patrick and Gina Neely We Are Not

Background: The Boy has religious education class on Tuesday nights.  Oh yes, he's being catechized six ways to Sunday. HA! Anyway, his class is from 5:30 p.m. - 6:45 p.m., so Super Ninja drops him off after ramming a Happy Meal down his throat.  I stay late at work, and pick the Boy up on my way home.  We get home around 7:00 p.m., and I cook dinner for the adults in the house.

Me: We need his and hers kitchens (This is after we bumped into each other three times as I am trying to cook and he is putting away dishes.)  Mine would have an Aga and Ginsu knives.  Yours would have a toaster and hot plate to boil water for hot dogs.

Super Ninja: That sounds about right.

So, interwebs, if you want to get on a kitchen remodel for us, I'd be down with that.  I'm pretty sure Super Ninja's 'kitchen' could be relocated to the deck.  Food for thought. Again: HA!

My Husband, the Encyclopedia of Pop Music

Last night, while watching 'Ringer' (stop judging), a commercial featuring Peter Frampton came on. My husband knows nearly nil about pop music, so I wanted to exploit this fact for my own entertainment...

Me (turning to Super Ninja): Can you name one song by Peter Frampton?

Super Ninja (narrowing his eyes, looking off in the distance): Something... like... Frampton comes alive?

Me: That was the name of the album. Can you name a song?

Super Ninja: Um...

Me: In the world of pop culture, that's like not being able to name an 'Indiana Jones' movie.

Super Ninja: Can you name one of his songs?

Me: 'Baby I Love Your Way'

Super Ninja: Okay, fine, but can you name another one of his songs?

Me: Sure, 'Show Me the Way.'

Super Ninja (trying to deflect to another topic): Who was in in 'The Monkees?' Was that Peter Tosh?

Me (horrified): No! Peter Tosh was a reggae star who was shot to death in his own home. You're thinking of Peter Tork.

Super Ninja: Oh, right. Peter Tork.

Me (beating my head against a coffee table until I pass out.)

Adventures in Plumbing

Super Ninja: You know, this is like every stereotypical '50's sitcom, where the husband insists on fixing the sink, and they end up having to call a plumber when the pipes explode.

Me (from under the sink): How is this like that?

Super Ninja: You, the husband, are fixing the sink, while I, the wife, am watching the children.

Me (still under the sink): Oh, NOW I see what the problem is.

Super Ninja: What?

Me: I'm using a toy truck flashlight instead of a real one.

And...scene.

I Think My In-Laws Are Plotting Something Against Super Ninja

We all have a stack of books we haven't read but fully intend to read, right? At least I hope we do. My self-esteem will take a knock if I find out I'm the only one...

Anyway, my in-laws have given me some fabulous books over the past couple of years. Problem is, since about July 2004 (i.e., the Coming of Child the First, a.k.a. the Boy), I haven't had much time to hunker down over anything more substantial than a petit four. Don't get me wrong -- I haven't fallen out of love with the written word. But I feel like I've gotta give fine works of literature the time they deserve. So, while I've read loads of magazines and short stories and books with pink covers, I haven't read any critical darlings.

That is, I haven't read any 'til now. It's training season at my office, which means that I'm travelling a little. By myself. Cue substantial reading.

So, what have I tackled? The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger (thanks, Playwright!) and The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion (thanks, parents-in-law!). Holy moly, these books stick with you like spackle long after you've read the final words. That's a good thing. I won't spill the beans on the The Time Traveler's Wife, but the title conjures a woman left behind, eh? And The Year of Magical Thinking...well, since the second paragraph of the flap copy reveals that the author's husband suffered a major and fata coronary, you can't accuse me of being a spoiler.

Things don't go well for the husbands in these books. Consequently, life is tough for the wife. The fact that my parents-in-law gave me a book about a widow's grief in the year following her husband's death....well, that's a little odd, don't you think?

Anyway, I'm feeling like I'm plugged back into the world of words. Okay, fine, I'm feeling plugged into the 2004/2005 world of words. If these trends continue...hey, I could be reading a book published this year!

Two Great Tastes

Yesterday was a loooooong day. I was up at 4:30 a.m. and out of the door a half an hour later so that I could catch my train to New York City. (The Pace Picante commercial of yore renders me incapable of saying "New York City" without adding a yokelish twang.) I'll pretty much jump on any opportunity to go to Manhattan. I've been there enough that I feel comfortable navigating the subway, but not so many times that I don't get caught gaping at buildings like I'm some kind of half-human, half-goldfish tourist.

I stepped off the train just after eight, hoofed it to the subway, and clickety-clacked my way to Harlem. The training went fine, and we broke for lunch. I hounded one of the locals for lunch options, and she started naming chain restaurant -- KFC, Wendy's, etc. I furrowed my brow. WHY would you go to a franchise when you could sample some local fare? Intuitive as my teacher compadre was, she came up with another option: Amy Ruth's. And that, Dear Reader, is how I found myself sampling chicken & waffles for the first time (and, by the way, how I came to weigh like seventy-four pounds more than when I climbed aboard Amtrak's Regional Service train that day).

Good Lord, chicken & waffles are delicious. Not the wisest choice when you need to maintain on-pointedness for the afternoon training session, but definitely a wise choice when you are looking for a tasty lunch.

By the time the training broke up, I didn't really have time to gallivant around the city like I would've preferred. I felt kinda guilty about leaving Super Ninja to tend the Boy and the Girl all day -- getting them up, dressed, brushed, out the door, picking them up, going to gymnastics class, then to Chick-fil-A. When he goes to New York, there are three things he likes to do:

1) Visit friends/family;
2) See a show;
3) Eat an authentic New York slice.

Well, there wasn't much I could do about #1 and #2, but I could definitely bring home some pizza. When I sauntered through our front door, you would think that I was carrying the Chachapoyan fertility idol or something. Since it was right around the kiddies' bedtime, Super Ninja hustled them off to dreamland so that he could tear into the slices without sharing with our little mooches.

There's no real point to this post, except to point out that I love living on the East Coast, because it affords me the opportunity to go to New York for a Day and pick up pizza for my husband. How cool is that?

We Picked Up the Raw Material for Our Jack O'Lantern Yesterday, and It's HUGE

Okay, so it wasn't as big as the one depicted above. But it did take all of the weak-limbed, sculpted-by-a-sedentary-lifestyle strength that Super Ninja and I could muster to load it into the Family Truckster. Did we go pumpkin patching for the entertainment of the kiddies? Nope. They were asleep in the car. We were on our way back from a baptism in Pennsylvania, and we saw dozens of gigantic pumpkins lolling on a roadside hill.

Not normally an exciting thing, I know, but Super Ninja hasn't seen pumpkins this size in the patches near our homestead. We stopped so that we could satisfy his iddish feelings about Halloween and its trappings. The bonus is that the strapping two-feet-in-diameter gourd he picked out was pretty cheap, as those things go. The only downside is that I have a tough time tossing out anything useful, so I'm going to be eating pumpkin seeds, soup, and all manner of pumpkiny-ness for about a year.

Time to dust off those pumpkin recipes...