Month: November 2013

We try and spend a little time outside whenever it’s the weekend or a holiday.  It’s not always easy, especially when it’s cold outside and people are sick (Jeremy) or like to nap (me and Edda).  (Where’s Vince?  With his friends.  Somewhere – we don’t really know a lot of the time.  It’s a new world, where you don’t exactly know every minute of the day where your child is.  I mean, we know where he is theoretically.  We just don’t know know.)  I really just wanted to read all day and doze and eat leftover turkey.  But it’s true that if we spend too much time in the house, we all get a little snippy at each other.  So where to go when it’s cold and we are all a little worn out?  Just 20 feet outside into the backyard. 

We planted about half of the 90 daffodil bulbs.  I’m excited to see them from my office window in the spring.  Edda’s happy to be outside in the picture below – her smile is a little grimace-y. 

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A bunch of my mom-friends (who I’ve known for about 5 years or so) are so fascinated when I tell them that when Jeremy and I met in 1994, he had seven earrings and a shaved head.  They can’t even imagine him like that, he’s a pretty regular looking middle-aged white guy these days.  Buys his clothes from Land’s End and testifies in front of Congress in suits.  It’s been so hard to find photos of Jeremy in the early 90s which show off the earrings.  So finally, Kiki brought this photo from 1994, only a few months before we met.  So here it is – so young!  So young – I can’t believe how long ago this was.

Late Wed afternoon, after the rental tables/chairs/plates had been delivered, set up and decorated with paper accordion turkeys, Jeremy came upstairs and lay down in bed.  He looked at me and said that he was finally admitting to himself that he was getting sick.  I panicked a little.  Thirty people were coming to the house and I don’t really know how to cook anything (fish sticks and spaghetti are my specialties).  Jeremy assured me that he was going to feel better – he took a  Motrin and we both went to bed at 8:15.  At 7 am, Jeremy was still in bed feeling lousy – I looked at the turkeys with a sinking feeling in my stomach.  I had to call in back-up – my mom for the ham, and Eric to come to the house early and cook the turkeys for me.  Almost everything else, people brought, so Thanksgiving – food wise – was fantastic without any of the guests noticing that anything was amiss.

So Jeremy was sick and Edda was pissed.  During the early afternoon, as the guests were arriving, Edda was stomping around the room yelling her head off and crying a little bit.  So then I had to retreat upstairs with Edda to her room, so she could have some space to herself.  So we hosted Thanksgiving for 30 people where for a certain non-insubstantial stretch of time, there were no hosts actually present at the party.  I think it might have been a first for us, but with 27 people downstairs, we could leave them to their own devices I suppose.

Other than that, it was a lovely evening, we skyped with the Swedish branch of the family – here’s Ben and Felix.

And our crazy re-arranged house and the food!  So much food!

Last night, Vince asked to be woken up at 6 am this morning in order to be at school at 7:10 am to check out some in-demand books at the library (really?  there’s a run on a particular title in middle school?  this isn’t some sort of justin beiber concert ticket scenario).  This is a full 45 minutes earlier than he usually shows up to school.  So this morning, I dutifully go in at 6 am and shake him awake.  He takes one one-sleepy-eyed look at me and says that he’s going to abandon his ambitious early plan in favor of further cultivating his impressive-looking bed head.

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The thanksgiving festivities have started – Kiki showed up late this afternoon as our first house guest.  I love that it feels like a Friday and it’s only Tuesday! In her honor (really, in my last minute haste), we ordered pizza which Edda loved – Edda loves all the foods.  As I’m still having difficulty recognizing my own husband after the removal of all his facial hair, I asked Kiki if she still recognized her own son.  She said that he looks just like he did in high school, just with less hair.  Well. Thank goodness someone recognizes Jeremy.

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I have managed to somehow subconsciously or unconsciously sprain my ankle.  Can you tell which one? Oh, I think it’s a pretty mild sprain but looking at the picture now I think it’s pretty clear you can tell it’s my right ankle.  I ran entirely too much last week.  Chalk it up to unabashed exuberance and totally stupidity.  And I could tell that I wore myself out on my run on Monday because it felt like I was dragging a small, whiny toddler behind me the whole way.  But I finished my run on Monday just fine (all steps sure-footed) and went home telling myself that I needed a couple of days off to just rest – but all my parts felt just fine.  So today – no running, no nothing – just eating (well, there was also working, but that’s not as much fun as eating).  But by 4 pm, there was no denying that the inside of my right ankle was swollen and tender.  Did I screw it up on the last run?  Did I trip over some loose gravel in the driveway this morning?  I have no idea. Now my brother is going to totally kick my ass in the Turkey Burnoff on Saturday.  Crap.

Ruby has taken to sleeping with us on our bed at night.  Her old joints are no longer very comfortable for her to rest on on our cheap non-Temperpedic-foam dog beds.  As it turns out, there is not enough room on the king-sized bed for the three of us – mainly because Ruby really stretches out length-wise or on the diagonal and there is no way to move her or ask her to scoot over another 2 inches.  Last night, it meant that I had to decamp to Edda’s bed.  I know it seems illogical that I’m more comfortable sharing a twin-sized bed with Edda that a king-sized bed with Jeremy and Ruby, but that’s just the way I am.  

Jeremy shaved his goatee today. I don’t recognize him. If he passed me at the mall or at the airport, I would not give him a 2nd look.  I can’t stop staring at his face!  The general consensus is that he looks younger without the facial hair.

Vince made his own biscuits today.  He has some leftover chicken pot pie from my mom’s birthday party – he had eaten all the biscuits that were on top when the dish came to the table, but there was a good deal of the pot pie innards left and he wanted to have biscuits with them.  So a little measuring, a little kneading and voila! yummy biscuits.  The following photo may or may not have been a reenactment.  I try to discourage reenactments in my photos, but sometimes my preferences are not adhered to.

The final product:

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I’m excited about Thanksgiving – we  are hosting this year – so far the count is 35 people.  We’ve rented extra tables, chairs and plates.  Two turkeys are going to be delivered by our milkman on Tuesday.  We will even have an extra visiting dog (we thought we’d have 2 extra dogs, but alas, one of the dogs is not allowed on Amtrak). And I get to hang out with my little brother for a few days!  So excited to talk to him about his latest dating adventures.  I’m so happy that I got married before the internet was invented (not exactly true, but almost true) – it all seems so much more complicated now; he tells me about all the latest dating apps where you can trade and rate prospective dates among your Facebook pals and you have 24 hours to decide whether or not you want to go out on a date.

In our last conversation, we discussed how young of a woman he could date without being it being totally gross.  Of course, there is the standard equation – “half your age + 7” – which would be 25.5 for Donald.  I guess lately he’s been set up with 23 year-olds which Donald reports is really, really weird (I think for both parties).

He’s also suppose to install this new-fangled thermostat in the house which you can control via the web and will learn over time your heating/cooling preferences – it’s suppose to save us $.  I’m not sure I believe it, but it looks really slick.  He gave it to me for my birthday – so that was months ago – it’s still sitting shrink-wrapped on my desk awaiting deployment.

Celebrated my mom’s 72nd birthday at our go-to celebration place, Founding Farmers.  I’m so please that, for at least 6 months out of the year, I live so close to my parents that we can celebrate together like this. 

We ordered way too much food and drink.  Lots of it is now sitting in the fridge waiting to become my lunch – I love leftovers.