Farm Gone Wild

Since Mary Ann died, her house has been in some upheaval. Her sons and grandchildren are sharing the responsibility of her dogs, goats, chickens, peacocks and cats, though I'm not sure what that means exactly. Meaning, the dogs haven't been seen in a week, half the chickens are missing, the goats are lonely and the cats are starving. Not that they aren't taking care of the animals, (I assume they are) but they are inconsistent, and certainly not giving the level of attention these animals were used to. When we're out here on the weekends, I've taken to letting the goats out in the morning, feeding them, and then putting them back in their pen at night... just in case. This morning I took a bowl of milk and dog food to the cats, and left it out in the yard even though one of her son's was home... just in case.

The sons are in talks now about what will happen with the property and we are all holding our breathe that things stay the way they are for the most part. We've often tried to convince the boys to transfer their agricultural tax exemption to a wildlife exception like we have. That was they wouldn't have to run the animals and could sell them, and instead do what we are doing. Feeding the deer. Making sure they have a water source. Doing the censuses. The Hub's brother is really in charge of all that and loves it. He has various trail cameras and catalogs and names the animals. He only shoots the deer that our wildlife liaison thinks need to be culled (barring every couple of years bagging a trophy buck, but that is very rare). Anyway, as much as I hate the hunting, at least the small amount of it that gets done around here is responsible and done in conjunction with the state wildlife people. (Our guys even told us last week that we'll get wildlife points for killing the chow dog... as they are a nuisance and were probably eating jack rabbit babies and roadrunners and fawn.)

But I'm getting distracted. The point is, the farm is not the same without Mary Ann around. Her house has been bachlorized, meaning it is slowly becoming icky. There are eggs about the yard, whereas Mary Ann used to make the rounds and collect everyday. And who knows what they will end up doing with the property. The Bub and I have started taking a walk over every week to her house and taking pictures and savoring it's German chaos and wonder. All too soon, it may be gone the way of the Lorax.

Black Gold Texas Tea

The dirt is in. The seeds have arrived. The irrigation system has been purchased. Just waiting for the last winter frost and we're golden. But considering it's been 90 degrees two days in a row, and it's supposed to drop to 35 this weekend, who knows when this schizophrenic Texas weather will level out.

Two things.

I have a new favorite person, and I don't even know her name. Previously, she and her son were in our Music Together ~ Mommy and Me class way back when, and her son was always a favorite... even at two, he'd stand in front and belt out the words to every song at the top of his lungs. She's also in my parenting class, and though she and her husband don't always make it (he even less and usually in scrubs straight from the hospital), their stories are interesting. The best part is that she knits... during the class... which is awesome, no? So, I ran into her at the gym yesterday and asked why she hadn't been in the parenting class the night before, and apparently HER FAVORITE CHICKEN DIED. WHA? I wanted to scream oh my god, that's so awesome!!! Where do you live? Did you have chickens in the city? How many eggs do you get? But once I saw how distraught she was, (she'd been up all night tending it before it passed away at 3am) I held back and instead gave her a hug and a pat on the back. Note to self: must stalk awesome mommy with chickens.

And, tonight is the Bub's school fundraiser. I didn't have anything to wear, so after three days of shopping in vain, I dropped $1.29 on a box of black Rit dye and soaked new life into my favorite sun dress of last summer. Life's too short to spend a few hundred bucks on one night of fun. It's bad enough the tickets were $75 a piece. (All in school spirit mind you. I'm more than happy to shell out $150 and some volunteer time to the Bub's most happiest of places to keep it afloat!) But as for fancy dress money, I'd rather spend it on wine or a new sports bra or a handmade cat collar for Winky or our summer pool membership (one of the items in the silent auction tonight... I'll be shadowing it in hopes of getting some money off the insanely expensive family membership cost) or lip stick or flowers for the dining room or pistachios or summer sandals for the Bub or Spanish lessons or our vacation or a new handbag or art supplies or books and books and books and more books. Yes, I will be slumming it tonight, hoping the black dye doesn't rub off on my sweater or the club furniture, all the while getting loaded on free booze, schmoozing my future BFF (the awesome knitting chicken mommy) and thinking about all that new Melbac I'm gonna try with the dough I saved. Wish me luck.

Weeknight

Surprise, surprise... we're at the farm on a weeknight. We are getting $300 worth of soil delivered around noon tomorrow, so the Hub's taken a half day to get everything ready. Building a wild/foraging/animal-proof garden is a pisser. If it's not the deer or the birds, it's the raccoons or the goats or those big fat green caterpillars that eat everything. We are forging ahead on this money-pit of a plot and crossing our fingers that all our green thumbs aline. And just what sort of plants will this garden be sporting when it's done you ask? Well, seeing as the herb garden is already established in barrels on the front of the house, this 16 X 8 space will be housing snap peas, squash, cucumbers, bell peppers, green beans, carrots, zinnias and 15... yes... FIFTEEN tomato plants because really, you never can have enough, can you?

Everybody Wants To Be a Cat

Sometime yesterday afternoon between detailing my car and leaving the front door open and the Bub going in and out to spin his scooter around the driveway, our dear Winky Spot escaped. I use the word escaped because, you must remember, for the first few months of this cat's life he was feral for the most part... living under a farm house, subsisting off scraps and foraged chicken eggs. He was so riddled with round worms and ringworms and fleas that he had a hard time moving (save scratching) due to the utter pain of it all. This was most assuredly not a house cat. He was wild for sure. So, most of his kitten days spent here were in the laundry room, locked up and convalescing on various forms of antibiotic and antifungal. And though his last few months have been snuggle-soaked and carefree, he is still a wild cat at heart, only letting me touch him in the most peaceful of circumstances. Needless to say, I've been very careful not to leave the door open in his presence... but then, I got lazy see.

Sometimes when the Bub and I are crafting or sunning on the porch, I would allow Winky to come out and get some sun for himself, but he never ventured farther than the top step. So, I was quite surprised Sunday around five while Febreezing the back of my car, that the bub came up and informed me that Winky Spot was in the garden. The boy quickly helped me corral him back in the house and I made a mental note not to leave the door open again... a mental note that my brain obviously didn’t write down. A sucker for the Oscars since childhood, it wasn't until just before the best actress award that the Hub mentioned he hadn't seen Winky, and I immediately knew he was outside and had been for several hours. An non-neutered wild cat in his prime... prowling the hood, either looking for a brawl or chasing the muff around. I was sure we'd never see him again. During commercial breaks, I circled the block and called his name, flashing my blinding headlights into our neighbor's yards over and over again hoping to catch a glimpse of white or black slinking into the bushes. Alas, no.

Toward midnight, we did hear cries out our window, but every time I got outside with a flashlight, no cat was to be seen. Awoke this morning to more calling and looking and jiggling of the cat food bag. No good. It wasn't until the Bub and I arrived home from the gym this morning at around 11 that I saw our neighbor's bobtailed psycho kitty sniffing around the corner of the house, then moving into pounce position and disappearing under the siding. Sure enough, by the time we got down there with flashlight, the rumble was in full swing, and the only thing I could do to get "bad cat" off my Winkle was to hurl rocks at it. We finally got the bad cat out from under the house, but then came the 45 minutes of coaxing to get Wink-a-Dink to show his face. The shaking of the cat food bowl, the waiting and finally the desperate snatch that left my wrist riddled with claw marks. Finally, Winkster was back home. After a warm bath to wash away the filth of a cold, cold night under house, he found a nice sunny spot on the couch and passed out for the rest of the day.

This evening, he is a changed feline. Any remaining skittishness he might have had seems to have evaporated as at last I think he understands all he has to be thankful for. No more cold nights under Mary Ann's house. No more disease carrying rodents for dinner. No more scratchy sores. Today, I think he's gratefully accepted his fate of cushy house cat. He's lounged on the bed all evening, purring and even submissing to the Bub's snuggling in the Bub's less-than-gentle way. He's been broken, the bastard. Thomas O'Malley the Alley Cat has succumbed to his masters. At last, he is ours.

Heartsong

We are at the farm. The Bub woke up last night around two and crawled into bed with us crying. I hugged him tight and felt his heart beating rapidly. I placed my hand directly on it, and the intensity scared me for a minute, and I had to pull away. It made me think back to when he was still in the womb. When he was so small that the only contact he had with the outside world was the swish of his heart through the sonogram. That was probably the last time I thought about his actual heart, and yet here it was last night, practically beating in my hand. And it totally freaked me. The thought of his organ in there. The engine for his life, thumping away, terrified from a sound or a dream, all muscle and blood keeping him alive. I decided right then and there I wouldn't think about it too much. A promise not kept, obviously.

When I think about the phases, the turning points in life. The places and points when you learn pivotal things about the world, that only those older than you understand... Is that what middle age is? Coming to terms with your mortality? Constantly thinking about death? I know that I've touched on it before, but more and more I feel like I am on the cusp of an answer. An answer to this nagging non-question that had been riddling me for months now. I feel like sometime last year, I stepped in line. Like I'm queued up and ready. Ready for what? Who knows.

That said, the family woke up early. The Hub was back at work in the garden, the Bub and I took to the woods on a treasure hunt. Lots of metal and string. An old tin can. A strip of washed out negatives. Sugar and Spanky flushed a doe out from the bushes ahead. She practically ran right into us before stopping dead... and there was that heartbeat again. Rapid, surrounded in silence. She looked as us once, eye-to-eye, then took off again. We laughed, and looked for perch in the stock tank. We walked home.

Whatever line I'm now in, whatever it is I am waiting on, I do know this. I carry that boy's heart in my heart. And that heart I heard beating last night was my own. Loud. Unstoppable. Terrifying. For isn't that what love is after all?

Everybody's Gotta Live

The rain is finally falling here in Texas. Last week, we actually had a hail storm and as the Hub and I stood on the front porch and watched the ice balls fall after hours... a space ship might as well have been landing on the lawn. That's how foreign thunder and lightning and raindrops seemed at the time. A good rain storm is probably up there in the top three of my favorite things about being alive, EVER. Really, nothing beats it for me.

It's Oxford American music issue time around these parts, and as the Hub took the bus this morning and left his Volvo parked in front of my Subaru in the driveway, the Bub and I spent all morning jamming to the free CD set that comes with the magazine that was in his CD player... in particular, this song, that the Bub requested to hear over and over and over again...



And as we did our errands, driving through a soft rain and loving the ritual of suburban life for a moment, we couldn't help but listen to this song and contemplate... "Everybody's gotta live... and everybody's gonna die... everybody's gonna live... before you know the reason why."

BUB: Momma, Mary Ann's chickens are all gonna die.
ME: That's right.
BUB: I'm not gonna die.
ME: At least not today baby. You're gonna live a long, long time.
BUB: I like being alive.
ME: Me too, Bub. Me too.

Working for the Coffee Cup

Another President's Day passes with no nap. These school-free days seems longer and longer, particularly when butted up against the weekend. Oh well. I was just lamenting the loss of my Starbucks money, pretty hard... to go from a nice, cushy full-time job to making five figures-a-year doing freelance work to four figures-a-year selling used children's books/writing freelance and now to potentially earning zero doing nothing (except writing my book that will never get finished and raising my adorable if complicated Bub). I lament... when in fact another door has opened up, and we'll see what walks in. Tonight I had drinks with a friend who may or may not be able to help fund my trips to the bookstore and the coffee shop and maybe even more. I'm not betting the farm just yet, but it's fun to muse on the prospects none-the-less. Stay tuned.

How does your garden grow?

Get the Lead Out

I am only here ranting again because somehow I got the Bub to nap today. I am beginning to be sickened by the world on the whole. I'm really trying to be more conscious of what I buy... or rather how much of something I buy, knowing every plastic toy and styrofoam box and sandwich bag has to go somewhere.

I remember when I was little thinking how horrible trash was in general and that maybe if we were all responsible for our own refuse... as in had to keep it and house it and carry it around with us until death do us part... that we would consciously make less of it. Now don't get me wrong, I am a savvy, pseudo-intellectual housewife and I see the allure of a Target store, but now when I walk the aisle I can't help but contemplate the amount of crap that goes in and out of that place on a daily basis and get a little sick to my stomach. Whenever the Bub wants to buy some small plastic thing, I remind him about that Ranger Rick article and tell him how it will eventually end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

I've been a real advocate for buying from thrift shops... when the Bub needs a new place to store his crayons, I buy a used basket from Goodwill rather than a plastic tub from Target. Obviously, it is rare for me to buy a new book, and more and more I am finding that thrift store toys can be just as much fun for the Bub as a new one. These are small things, but at least I am trying. As far as toys, you will never ever ever ever see me buy something like this or some crap like this. And now the bastards are giving morons even more reason to buy plastic nonsense for their kids by telling people that junk (ie vintage kids' books and toys) is deadly. That handmade toys and knitted baby caps are deadly. What is the point, really? Why don't we all just curl up, scarf down some McDonalds and die waiting for the end of the world.

I'm thinking of chopping up a few of my son's old vintage books and serving them to him for dinner tonight. I'd rather he die of lead poisoning from a previously-loved children's book than slowly cease to exist of a broken heart. He'll be the one who has to watch the world become even more horrible than it already is.

PSS: I will not actually be feeding my son lead ink this evening, rather it was a sarcastic protest at how ridiculous and disposable modern society has become.

The Death of Vintage Kids' Books

It with a heavy heart and a very confused soul that I write this post today. So, on February 10, the "Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act" went into effect in America, making it illegal for consumer products intended for children under 12 to have more than 600 parts per million of lead in any accessible part. This is great as it will supposedly help keep creepy China-made evil toys out of the hands of our children. However, this also means that makers of handmade toys and children's clothes (like the Moms and Dads who create things out of their homes to sell on Etsy) will no longer be able to sell their products without spending thousands of dollars on product testing. This much I had known.

But, apparently, all vintage children's products fall under the rule as well. As far as vintage books go, any book printed before 1985 when America's anti-lead laws went into effect... is deemed suspect until tested, therefore unless it undergoes testing to prove it cootie-free, it will become illegal and suspect and must be DESTROYED. Because of complaints, a one year "Stay of Enforcement of Certain Testing and Certification Requirements of CPSIA" was enacted — which means that they are proposing a 1 year suspension of the burden of lead testing and certification while they take more time to review the rules and plan enforcement. All this means is that booksellers wouldn't have to pay to do the certification and testing for another year, but they would still liable if their vintage products are found to have lead.

So it seems smaller, independent booksellers who know the value of these books are boxing their pre-85 product and holding on to them in storage until this madness blows over. Other larger thrift store chains like Goodwill are pulling the books and just dumping them in the garbage. I am sick about the whole thing.

Apparently, there is some exemption for "collectible children's books" that would be for adult collectors and not children, but we all know that is BS. There has not been one case ever of a children's book giving a child lead poisoning, so all this kinda got dumped into the same category.... sadly... I won't even go into how this will effect libraries, but just imagine your neighborhood library... over half of its children's section disappearing overnight... all of its out-of-print titles, vanishing into the dumpster out back.

Question 17: Can I sell vintage children’s books and other children’s products that are collectibles?

Yes. Used vintage children’s books and other children’s products sold as collector’s items would not be primarily intended for children. Because of their value and age, they would not be expected to be used by children. Therefore, they do not fall into the definition of children’s product and do not need to comply with the lead limits.

That said, my Vintage Kids' Books My Kid Loves blog and ultimately my Etsy store were a super fun hobby for me, but until there is some resolution on this heartbreaking witch hunt, as of Saturday ~ Feb. 21, I will be pulling all pre-85 books from the shelves... and since Etsy only allows sales of books 20 years or older... that will just be a token really.... books printed between '85 and '89.

I will be posting some of my immediate surplus tomorrow, and selling all books with a flat rate shipping of $3 for all orders in the Continental US... with the knowledge that you guys are all adults who collect treasures and know what's best for yourselves and your kids. Saturday morning, all the books unsold with a pre-85 date will go back into my son's collection.

Apparently, you are not allowed to giveaway these books either ("these books" meaning the books your mother and your grandmother and even you were raised on), I will no longer be giving away books on Mondays, at least pre-85 books. I will still try and giveaway reprints and the like when I find them... but let's just say the fun is over for now.

So... a bag of plastic "MADE IN CHINA" animals from Walmart is good and your mother's favorite book from childhood is toxic until proven innocent. If you want to help stop this insanity, check out the Handmade Toy Alliance and contact your congressman.

As for me, I will continue buying, collecting and giving vintage kids' books to my child. I will continue writing about them here every day. And as I sit and watch my son mouth a rubber frog from China that is filled with who knows what, I can't help but think the world has gone slightly mad this week.

Green Rodeo

The Rodeo is here once again, and although a large part of it is carny cheese sprinkled with ten gallon cowboys and bedazzled big hair ladies, we spent a great Valentine's Day on the fairgrounds.

The Bub watched the pig races, awed over a Brahma bull, ogled the turkeys, learned the coral snake jingle (red and yella, kill a fella), planted a pansy, and ate the frosting off three cupcakes, a footlong corndog, a milk shake and a vanilla ice cream cone. The Hub and I learned about composting and square foot gardening, were shocked at how small the aquariums they kept all the poisonous Texas snakes in were, were impressed with the shiny new tractors, and inspired by the FFA kids (again) with their big belt buckles and prize-winning sheep, and finally bought a few of the official rodeo tomato plants.

For me now, the rodeo is all about seeing the stock show animals and going into the "Texas Experience" which is a trade show of sorts about energy efficiency, organic gardening, native plants and animals and other things that I hope the Bub won't be bored to tears by in the years to come. He was super disappointed that the "Birds of Prey" area was not there this year, but hey, hopefully I'll be able to get them out to the farm for the Bub's birthday party in May.

Tomorrow, we build the raised bed garden I've been talking about for a year. Bring on the tomatoes friends.

Happy Valentine's Day

The Heart

The dough hearts are finished and wrapped and ready to roll tomorrow. We ended up making about 50 of them total for various friends and family, and the Bub has been walking around with red enamel in his hair for a week. On a side note, today is Grandparent's Day at school, and I warned his teacher that "Paw Paw" is 90 years old next month. She was definitely shocked. Gonna be looking like Great Grandparent's Day in the Bub's corner. The old man's feisty 70-ish girlfriend is chaperoning, so hopefully he'll get through the experience with his hip bone intact. He wanted to drive himself to the school, but the Hub insisted the girlfriend chauffeur for fear that he end up plowing down some preschoolers. Not an unreasonable request by any means. That said. Viva la grandparents... and Meemser, if you are reading this now, know that you are there in spirit and will be there tomorrow in heart. WE LOVE YOU!

Chow chow ate my baby

***PETA MEMBERS & CHOW LOVERS NEED NOT READ FURTHER***

It's been a super duper Texas weekend out here at the farm. Deer sausage from our friend George was eaten. Our nightly nature spotlighting journey rustled up five deer and a feral cat, the latter of which the boy was over the moon about... "A wild cat! Can we bring it home to live with Winky?"

But, most excitingly (and I say that in the stressful, heart-thumping sense of the word) is that for the past two weeks or so, the farm has been terrorized by chows. Three wild, black chows to be exact. Chicken carcasses lay askew throughout the farmyard... not eaten, just disemboweled for the sheer fun of it. The goats are terrified. Mary Ann's own dogs have gone astray and disappeared. Seriously, the woman is rolling in her grave over the chaos.

Predictably, Mary Ann's youngest son put out the call... SHOOT CHOWS ON SIGHT. Now, normally the act of killing dogs would be something I'd rather leave to the city pound as they are quite good at it. But the lead dog is a giant monster, more than capable of killing our sweet Sugar and Spanky, not to mention dragging our dear Bub off into the woods. Therefore, I've condoned the dog-hunting on a certain level. It seems like every cousin and friend is out here itching at the chance to use their otherwise useless assault weapons on the foamy-mouthed devils.

ME: Was that uncle Charlie headed into the woods with what looks like a machine gun?
HUB: Uh, yea. It's new.

That's America for you. Soooo, last weekend, the Bub begged me to let him go out "dog-hunting" with Charlie, and I only said yes on the condition that the Hub take a minute to let the Bub hold his only-used-twice (once on a wild pig and once of a pair of rattlesnakes) 410 shotgun and give him the big GUNS BAD lecture. Just so when he goes off on a play date to another house, he will know the difference between one of their toy guns and the real thing. I also made the Hub promise that should they actually find the dogs... he would hide the Bub on the floorboard of the car and shield his eyes and ears from the whole ordeal. (I can just see the Bub at school... "Miss Jill! Daddy shot a DOG!" Awesome.)

As you can imagine, I was glad when we got the phone call towards the end of the week, that Mary Ann's son had shot the biggest one, but it had run off... then even more happy when they eventually found the body, proving that the reign of horror was over and that the Bub would not be there to see the climax. However, the boys left it in the woods near our house, so it only took about six hours for Sugar and Spanky to find the body and roll on it and in it... and to return back to the farm house last night wreaking of decomposing chow dog. This morning, the hub dutifully dispatched the tractor, scooped up the offending carcass and hauled it off to a land far, far away.

The surviving two chows have been spotted and chased several times over the weekend, but with their strength of numbers diminished and the alpha dog clearly out of the way, the two seem more like stray dogs than a trio of evil sent from the pits of hell. Now I know, they are dogs... and dog killing is awful and wrong, but un-socialized, chicken-killing chows running wild in a pack is just about the creepiest thing in the canine family, and I wasn't about to star in a TV movie... "Chow chow ate my baby!" So god forgive me and help me should all dogs truly go to heaven. I'd hate to be the focus of a revenge plot in the afterlife.

Green Saturday

Oh yea. I am currently bleeding pink hearts, purple glitter and red ribbon... The dough hearts are all cooked, shellaced, painted and dried and hanging. The envelops are all decorated and labeled... The bub worked his butt off getting them all dolled up today. He's the man.

In the downward dog arena, after my old office in NYC shrank by some 100 employees, my ex-employer here in San Antonio just laid off 12 people and cut the pay of the workers left standing. Yuck. I suppose this financial f*ck is real now. Just lucky I don't have a job to lose and that the hub seems to be pretty happy and stable in his line of work... knock wood. (See how the hub/bub spent this lazy Saturday afternoon, mugging for the green screen in the Weather Report Simulator at the local natural history museum.) I feel pretty lucky that my only worries are if I can get the bub to sign an "A" to all 26 of his school valentines...

Picnic of the Heart

Taking back my life a bit from play dates for a while. (I say this as we had a friend over for three hours this morning and are leaving in an hour to afternoon with another friend till dinner time. How full of crap am I?) But at least I have recognized that I might overextend our social time. That said... I was able to gets the bub and his BFF to set out their own picnic this am as well as help me make the bub's valentines... which brings me to the story of the day.

The other day on Facebook I got sent a message by a person I did not recognize. Since she had mutual friends from high school, I figured she must be a Christchurch Schooler... and then once I saw her picture, it came back to me. She was two years younger than me in school, but wanted to remind me of the dough hearts I made with my mom for all my friends in high school (a tradition my family had kept since elementary school)... Once she mentioned it, I remembered... and also remembered that this girl has been so complementary of them that she asked for one and I obliged. Apparently, she held onto the heart for a number of years... and now, nearly 20 years later... makes them every Valentine's day with her three boys for their friends. It was a really sweet and thoughtful thing to do... sending me that note and being such a doll.... not to mention passing that tradition down to her own kids.

So today, I had the bub and his BFF cutting out dough hearts and reliving the magic of my formative years. No finished pictures yet. They are currently dehydrating in the oven, and there is still the painting and shellacing and the ribboning to do, but I promise a picture when the time comes. I am so excited to see how they turn out.

At the bub's school on Monday, the teacher handed out Valentine "starter kits" in an attempt to keep parents from going to Wal-Mart and picking out a 20-pack of Dora the Explorer landfill filler. She even went so far as to insist that if the children are capable, they must sign their own name and NO CANDY. It is a bit presumptuous on her part, but I'm all for it. After having received many a Spiderman valentine without anyone even bothering to fill the name in... I can see why she is closely snuggled up with her wits end. It doesn't take any effort or time to help your child sit down and make something cool. For me, these times hold the real joys of motherhood. Not the whining and the errands and the dragging around, but the moments when you can get your hands dirty with your kid and bask in their creative youth.

I will admit, however, being the daughter of someone who made us hand-make our Valentines, there is something seductive about an unopened box of prefab Valentines. That forbidden fruit of commercialism that my mother managed to keep at bay... But you know, I don't imagine I'll be sending a note to anyone on Facebook noting how special their third grade Strawberry Shortcake valentines were either.

I Love Charlie

Oh man.... now I'm crying on play dates. After my son was rude to a younger play date yesterday, then cried because he didn't want to share his swing at a play date this morning... then called a couple of kids "stupid" because they locked him behind a gate.... I just want to give up socialising forever. I know myself, and I know I am probably overreacting, but I just feel so self-conscious whenever the bub misbehaves in the slightest? Is that normal? Do you other mom's have that problem? I feel like it is a reflection on me and no matter how or how often I try and control the bub's behavior, it just seems to feed it.

I have all my fingers and toes crossed that this is just a phase he will grow out of. That he'll turn back into my sweet little caring sharing darling soon. I hope. In the meantime, I am going to scale his social calendar way way way back, so that we can have time to enjoy being little together... That said, when I expressed some of my concerns to his teacher today... "Please tell me if you see the bub bossing or saying words like stupid/dumb"... she laughed and said she just loved the bub and told me a story about a field trip they went on last week.

TEACHER: I drove the bub and two girls and the three were in the back talking. One girl said ‘I love Dora’ and then the other girl said ‘I love Dora too.’ And the bub said ‘I HATE Dora.’

ME: Oh, no.

TEACHER: I said, ‘No, no, no bub, we don’t use words like that… let’s try and find a better word. What is something you like bub?’

To which the bub replied…. ‘Charlie likes to shoot deer and eat them, and I LOOOOOVE Charlie.’”

Charlie is his uncle. The hunter. Oh me. Oh my. Enough said.

High-Heeled Girls

Man, I'm dragging today. Outside is what must be the most beautiful day ever, and all I wanna do is get in the hammock and die. Wow... who knew staying out past midnight and drinking endless amounts of pinot would kick the ass of a 36-year-old woman. (Isn't it funny how us headed to middle-aged non-alcoholic house-wives long past our primes like to brag about drinking as if we are frat boys with an Exxon card.... except instead of a case of "the beast", we try and brag about drinking wines we clearly don't fully understand? Awesome, right?) So, I had an excellent time last night seeing Joshua Bell play. I went with a friend of mine who works for the local NPR station, and sat directly behind an adorable gentleman from the affiliate classical music station who has a curly, yet very short mohawk... and who proceeded to actually "rock out" the entire concert particularly during the solo set where Joshua performed a piece by the violinist/composer Eugène Ysaÿe that brought the house down. His mohawked head was bobbing up and down and side to side in time to the music, which was endearing to see in a sea full of white-haired old timers.

Not so endearing were the two 50/60 year-old dyed-blonde Texas twits who sat behind us and whispered loudly throughout the entire performance. I've never understood why someone would pay $100 for orchestra seats and spend the entire time talking. Not only that, but together they said the phrase "he's sooooo cute" no less than a dozen times, remarked how they were old enough to be his mother, and finally wondered aloud about the size of his penis. Once the concert was over, we moved across the street to the private reception, where about 50 of us waited over an hour before the musician graced us with his presence. You see, immediately after the performance, he sat and signed over 500 autographs before saying goodbye to his fans (very cool guy).

The party was spectacular. Wine ran like a river. There were mountains of sweets and flowers and dim lights. I laughed and talked and felt like I was in New York again for a brief moment and lamented that the hub missed it. I did get my ten minutes of fame with the man, and told him my story and we laughed and he told me that, coincidentally, he is performing in Charleston today at the theater where I first saw him over two decades ago. I told him to tell our mutual friend hello and then went back to the balcony where I sat with my friends ~ new and old ~ and drank tons of wine and ate raspberries and thanked god that I didn't have to drive home.

I returned home excited and ten sheets to the wind, talking the hub's ear off, and then drunk-dialed my mother at 1:30 am to tell her the whole story. I was so excited and happy to be alive that it was 3am before my brain settled down enough to get to sleep. Now, my friends, I am paying the price dearly. The bub and I have lounged around the farm... in between snapping a few snapshots and flying a kite and swinging in the hammock, I've managed to keep myself conscious... miraculously.

Ahhhh, it was a fun night, and one you don't often get here in good old San Antone. I made a pact with the hub though, that we will wake up from our bub-induced haze and begin reconnecting with the outside world. The time has come to cast my flip-flops aside and wear heals again... at least every now and again.