See mom, no hair

Meeting of the Open Mouth Club

Every day, Marty calls several meetings of the Open Mouth Club. There are only two members. They meet for about 30 seconds before Marty adjourns til the next meeting, which, he usually informs the membership, will be called to order in four minutes.

California

We had a lovely visit! Thanks everyone. There are pictures of you here.

Action Shot

Bath time!

(Okay, so our grout could be cleaner.)

Elijah's Second Month

in pictures

Just got back from Elijah's second month check up. Oh he's crying, more soon . . .

Okay, it's been about a week, but here's the to-be-continued:

So at the appointment he was 13 lbs 4 oz and 24 in long, which placed him in the 80th percentile for both. Even though we're terrible about putting him in "tummy time," since he hates it, he held up his little head like a champ, thus assuring that Marty and I didn't get a mini-lecture from the pediatrician. She asked if he makes sounds and I was all "Does he make sounds?! He carries on five minute coversations!" I don't think people believe me until they see him do it. Yesterday, my knitta friend Sarah came over and she put him in her lap looking up at her and started talking and after a minute of carefully scanning her face (deciding if she was worth talking to?) he started responding to all her questions with loud and enthusiastic "ungah"s or "urrrrr"s (with tongue rolling) or basic "aaaaaa"s. He's also a little flrity. Not with people, though . . . mostly with the light fixture in the dining room. Whenever he sees it he breaks into a huge grin and sort of bats his eyes. Admittedly, it is a pretty cool light fixture. It also amazes me that he already has particular toys and books he likes. Without fail, if I show him the "Humpty Dumpty" page in his board book of nursery rhymes, he'll smile and be happy, even if he was just about to cry. So, yeah, anyway, my kid's the cutest and bestest in the whole universe, etc. Blah blah blahhhhh.

The Story

I’m already forgetting things, in just two months, so I’d better do this now:

On my due date, March 5, a sunny and windy Thursday, we had an appointment with our midwife, Cathy, at Christie Clinic at 11am. Our doula, Trish, met us there. When the nurse was taking us into the exam room, she asked if I was still feeling the baby move around as much as usual. I said he’d seemed quiet today, so she said she’d hook me up to the fetal monitor for twenty minutes before Cathy came in, just to be on the safe side. So she sets us up in the room, the monitor on, and after about five minutes or so, Trish asks if I’m in any pain. Not really, says I. Because, she says, you’re having contractions. And so I was! There they were on the little inky printout. When Cathy came in, she confirmed it, did an exam, and told us I was dilated to 3 centimeters. I had been at 1 centimeter the week before, so this was some progress. Then she told me to hurry up, because she wouldn’t be on call that weekend, so I’d have to deliver before midnight on Friday (more or less) for her to be at the birth. Pressure! But I was technically in labor at that point, so this was all exciting. Then, of course, I went back to work at Dalkey. And after work, I went to yoga. And after yoga, Marty fed me gnocchi and spinach (not fed me fed me, he just made dinner). Then we tried watching TV, but I was tired and the contractions were getting stronger, so we decided to try to go to bed and ride out the night. But things began to really pick up around 10pm. Marty started timing the contractions and after only an hour or so they were four minutes apart and I was in a lot of discomfort (and having diarrhea . . . gross, but apparently a common sign of labor). He called Trish then and she said she’d shower and come on over. But we wound up calling her back, or Marty did, about twenty minutes later, because it was clearly time to go to the hospital (I was writhing and yelling on the kitchen floor [after having eaten, incidentally, a bowl of Total]). When we pulled out of the driveway, the clock in the car clicked to midnight, so I said Happy Birthday, Husband, because then it was his birthday.

Okay, so we pull up to the Emergency Room at Provena Covenant Medical Center just after midnight and check in. They offer a wheelchair, which I (freakishly) refused, and we went up to the fourth floor, me writhing and wriggling down the hallways. But I was smiling, which the labor and delivery nurses commented on right away, and we were quickly taken to the room with the tub, which we’d requested, and left there with Trish, who showed up just a minute or two behind us. Trish had us start some early labor stuff involving a sling and some unflattering positions, and I still had diarrhea, and they started to fill the tub, and they hooked me up to the monitors for twenty minutes and told me I was still at 3 centimeters (which was a little frustrating to hear, considering how much more intense the pain was now), and then the tub was full and hot, and the monitoring was done for a while, and the pain was getting major, and so I got into the tub. What a freaking relief! Huge relief! Then the next few hours I spent in and out of the tub (out to run to the bathroom [or sort of tip-toe in a writhing, hobble-esque tip toe] and to get monitored and measured). Marty took a nap. A nap! Trish sat by the tub and basically coached me, rubbing my lower back and being all-around encouraging. I don’t think I made any eye contact with anyone for those few hours. I went to my monkey place, as Ina Mae tells you to do in her book. I moaned a lot, in my monkey place, and when I started to actually yell Trish coached me down into a lower register. I think I was really loud, because once or twice the doc on call came in looking concerned, but was promptly ushered out by the doula and/or midwife (once she got there). Overall, the time went quickly to me, but each contraction was an event, physical and psychological, and at one point (he was awake again!) I either thought or said to Marty that there’s no way I can do this for a long time. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

At 4am or so, they measured me again and I was effaced and at 8 centimeters. Someone called Cathy; she was on her way. I think she got there around 4:30. I got out of the tub for the last time, got on the bed, and Cathy said it’s time (I was at 10, etc.) but the water isn’t broken, shall I break it? Basically, she said, this baby is ready, if I break your water I think he’ll come right out. So I said, yeah, break it, and she broke it, and it gushed out and felt sort of nice, actually, and then the pushing began. This was the most intense and scariest part for me. I kept backing up in the bed as if I could back out of my body. And it all went really fast, was very intense, and Marty stood by my side and held my hand and held his breath whenever they told me to hold my breath (I had my face buried in his belly this entire time, so I could feel him holding with me), and two nurses had to push my legs toward my body (two on each leg, I mean), and they all kept saying, yes, great push, one more like that, and after they said that a few times I got pissy, YOU KEEP SAYING THAT, and I was getting fatigued and maybe a little discouraged or freaked out, and so someone took my hand and put it on the baby’s head and said, that’s your baby, he’s almost here, and then it really was just one (maybe two) more push(es) and the head was out, and everyone shouts, STOP PUSHING, so they can make sure the cord isn’t around his neck I guess, but it was like a millisecond in time to me because then out comes the rest of him lickety-split and slick and it’s done (or so you figure at the moment) and there he is! He was awesome from the first: eyes open, he latched on and started eating right away while covered in schmuck and blood. He was grand. He is! And I felt insanely proud of myself; I was beaming in pride, seriously, I couldn’t believe I’d done it, and I kept saying, I did it, and also saying, I never have to do it again. And the doula cut the umbilical cord, and then they took him from me because I had to deliver the afterbirth, and I said, no he needs to be on skin, Marty take off your shirt, and he did, and they put him on Marty’s chest, and Marty and Elijah sat in a chair and got better acquainted on their birthdays.

Mahw

Saturday morning cartoon

Second door from the left, top row.

I'm in there.

Four Weeks!

I can't believe it's been a month since Elijah was born. It feels like much more time has passed, and much less. Or no time. It's just weird (see post below re: passage of time post baby).

According to Aunt Ruthie, Elijah is no longer a newborn. Phew! So he is officially a baby, I guess. After one month together I can tell you that little Elijah likes: staring at (out?) windows, being held all day, eating, zerberts from dad, having his diaper changed (a new generation of naked nudies is born!). He dislikes: the cat's meow, the cold, being alone at all ever for even one second. He gives lovely smiles if you talk nice at him.

Here's a pic. Anya described it thusly: "like a bee caught in a confetti snowstorm."



I really want to write up my birth story. His birth story. Ours. If only I could find ten uninterrupted minutes . . .

This morning

Marty said: "It's like there aren't times of day anymore, there are just different kinds of light."

for more on Elijah Beck

go here

A piece of S P R A W L

here for one month

Knit Night Booties

My knitta friends threw me a surprise shower and the main attraction (okay, other than the tropical carrot cake) was a box (decorated in googly-eyed duckie stickers) filled with a handmade pair of booties from each of them. They're sort of obscenely cute.

In order (here and in size): From Dorie: From Erica: From Sarah: From Laura: From Karen.

Thirty-nine Weeks

I love it

I was just flipping through a baby book a friend in town gave me the other day, one of those "What to Expect with Your Baby" sort of things, and there's a sort of thumb-index of words at the top right corner of each page, for quick access. So I'm flipping pages and it goes: Diarrhea, Vomiting, Television, Asthma. Seriously, that's the order.

This friend, Laura, by the way, gave me this and a few other books right after serving the most insanely delicious carrot pudding. I know, it sounds weird. But come visit and I'll make it for you. You will be a carrot-pudding convert. Come!

Belly about House (33-34)

Marty at 32 Weeks

Vacation

So Marty and I have this thing where we both wake up constantly all night. Marty's been an insomniac since I met him. And I'm pregnant, which fucks with your sleep patterns (in case you didn't know). And so now we have this sort of horrible thing we can share. So what we do is we turn on the lights and read in bed and we call it Vacation. Last night we took a nice long vacation. I went to The Book of Words (a weird novel by German writer Jenny Erpenbeck [whose last name sounds like a huge Saxon burp]) and M went to the uncorrected galleys for a new Celine novel DAP is publishing in the Spring. Now I'm so tired I can't even think of what I'm supposed to be doing here at work. There's a list in front of me (I make a list of what to do every night before I leave) but I just keep staring at it like some dead habit.

Stollen Moments

M's first-ever attempt at a Riker holiday tradition. It had cherries in it.

Thirty weeks

A leetle bigger

Twenty-nine weeks

Big

Four years since that day a cat named Jacques said "Meaow" in the middle of our vows

Mmmm

My God People

Is nothing sacred?

First Snow

New Pictures

Here

Make and you will not be sorry

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

Note: It’s good to make the dough the night before you intend to bake these, if you can. (It needs to be chilled prior to baking at least 2 hours)

1 ½ cups plus 1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 ¼ tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 Tbsp. freshly grated peeled ginger
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
½ cup unsulfured molasses
1 tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. boiling water
7 oz semi-sweet chocolate, cut into ¼-inch chunks
¼ cup granulated sugar

1. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a bowl, sift together flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cocoa. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and fresh ginger on medium speed until lightened, about 4 minutes. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add molasses; beat until combined.

4. In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in boiling water. Set aside.

5. Beat half of the flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking soda mixture, then remaining half of flour mixture. Mix in chocolate chunks, turn onto plastic wrap. Pat out to a 1-inch thickness; seal with wrap. Refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or overnight.

6. Preheat oven to 325 F. Roll dough into 1 ½-inch balls; place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Chill 20 minutes. Roll in granulated sugar. Bake until surfaces just begin to crack, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating halfway through. Let cool 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Cookies are best the same day they are made (ESPECIALLY WARM WHEN THE CHOCOLATE IS ALL MELTY!!!), but can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days.

M on a friend

Here

Second Planet Anyone?

See here.

This week - eighteen weeks (or nineteen?)

Fourteen weeks, rocking the ankle boots

Two and a half months (ish)

I'm back

I took a little vacation from the blog and almost everything else. As you probably know, I've been pretty sick the last few months. But feeling much better now. I also promise to post pics very soon. I just need new batteries for my camera. These little life chores have never been my strong suit, and now that I'm pregnant they seem to slide even further down the priorities pole than every before. But I'll hop to it.

In other news, Marty is in Dublin right now. Actually, right now he's sleeping in Dublin. So far, he's said it seems smaller than he expected. He had a very nice bowl of stew.

PS - I'm actually a month and a half pregnant in the pic below this post. So, see, I have posted pregnancy photos after all!

My mom sent me a dress in the mail

And it fit!

Spin

Interesting

Kitchen Update

Well we had the lady from New Prairie come out to give us an estimate. It was, um, a little high. Like nearly ten times what we wanted to spend high. So, yeah, on to DIY.

Our lovely neighbor, Pat, this weekend took us to her friend Sarah's house, to introduce us to Sarah and her husband who had done a lot of work on their old house themselves. Well, Sarah had. She's amazing. She made me feel like a total loser, actually. She's one of those people who knits, and has a rain barrel, and makes her own ice cream every week, and, oh, I don't know, put in her own dry-wall. So she gave me lots of ideas (and a bowl of apple crisp with homemade frozen yogurt). I'll let you know how we get on with improvements . . .

In other news: we're trying to be vegan. It was a decision based, in part, on M's cholesterol report. So, anyway, if you have any fantastic vegan recipes, send em my way! Thanks, Sara, for the vegan lasagna. I'm trying it soon. Tried vegan french toast this weekend. That one needs a little tweaking.

And speaking of kitchens and food . . . check out my insanely talented little brother here - the "Daring Danish" entry blows my mind. My brother made that! Once upon a time, he wouldn't eat food that touched other food on his plate!

Jim Wallis Criticizes James Dobson's Distortion of Barack Obama's Statements on Faith and Politics

Evangelical leader Jim Wallis, author of The Great Awakening and founder of Sojourners, the largest network of progressive Christians in the United States, today criticized James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, for distorting Barack Obama's statements on faith and politics at the annual Pentecost Conference in 2006 held by Sojourners.

Full Text of Jim Wallis' Statement:

James Dobson, of Focus on the Family Action, and his senior vice president of government and public policy, Tom Minnery, used their "CitizenLink" radio show today to criticize Barack Obama's understanding of Christian faith. In the show, they describe Obama as "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."

Now that James Dobson is insinuating himself into this presidential campaign, his attacks against his fellow Christian, Barack Obama, should be seriously scrutinized. And because his basis for the attack on Obama is the speech the Senator from Illinois gave at our Call to Renewal/Sojourners event in 2006 (for the record, we also had Democrat Hillary Clinton, and Republicans Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback speak that year), I have decided to respond to Dobson's attacks. In most every case they are themselves clear distortions of what Obama said in that speech. I was there for the speech, Dobson was not.

You can read Obama's now two-year old speech, which was widely publicized at the time and will see that Dobson either didn't understand it or is deliberately distorting it. There are two major problems with Dobson's attack today on Barack Obama.

First, Dobson and Minnery's language is simply inappropriate for religious leaders to use in an already divisive political environment. We can agree or disagree on both biblical and political viewpoints, but our language should be respectful and civil, not attacking motives and beliefs.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, is the role of religion in politics. Dobson alleges that Obama is saying:

"I [Dobson] can't seek to pass legislation, for example, that bans partial-birth abortion because there are people in the culture who don't see that as a moral issue. And if I can't get everyone to agree with me, it is undemocratic to try to pass legislation that I find offensive to the Scripture. ... What he's trying to say here is unless everybody agrees; we have no right to fight for what we believe."

Contrary to Dobson's charge, Obama was very strong in defending the right and necessity of people of faith bringing their moral agenda to the public square, and was specifically critical of many on the left and in his own Democratic Party for being uncomfortable with religion in politics.

Obama said that religion is and has always been a fundamental and absolutely essential source of morality for the nation, but also said that "religion has no monopoly on morality," which is a point that I often make. The United States is not the Christian theocracy that people like James Dobson seem to think it should be. Political appeals, even if rooted in religious convictions, must be argued on moral grounds rather than as sectarian religious demands--so that the people (citizens), whether religious or not, may have the capacity to hear and respond. Religious convictions must be translated into moral arguments, which must win the political debate if they are to be implemented. Religious people don't get to win just because they are religious. They, like any other citizens, have to convince their fellow citizens that what they propose is best for the common good-- for all of us and not just for the religious.

Instead of saying that Christians must accept the "the lowest common denominator of morality," as Dobson accused Obama of suggesting, or that people of faith shouldn't advocate for the things their convictions suggest, Obama was saying the exact opposite--that Christians should offer their best moral compass to the nation but then have to engage in the kind of democratic dialogue that religious pluralism demands. Martin Luther King Jr. perhaps did this best of all with his Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other.

In making abortion the single life issue in politics and elections, leaders from the Religious Right like Dobson have violated the "consistent ethic of life" that we find, for example, in Catholic social teaching. Dobson has also fought unsuccessfully to keep the issue of the environment and climate change, which many also now regard as a "life issue," off the evangelical agenda. Older Religious Right leaders are now being passed by a new generation of young evangelicals who believe that poverty, "creation care" of the environment, human trafficking, human rights, pandemic diseases like HIV/AIDS, and the fundamental issues of war and peace are also "religious" and "moral" issues and now a part of a much wider and deeper agenda. That new evangelical agenda is a deep threat to James Dobson and the power wielded by the Religious Right for so long. Many evangelical votes are in play this election year, especially among a new generation, and are no longer captive to the Religious Right. Perhaps that is the real reason for James Dobson's attack today on Barack Obama.

Swerves

Saw the first fireflies of the year LAST NIGHT as M and I walked the hood having a jangly conversation. (Adj. 1. jangly - like the discordant ringing of nonmusical metallic objects striking together; "cowboys with jangling spurs.")

Also, yesterday, I was riding my bike home from work when a man on his bike, in front of me, in the bike lane, swerved suddenly as I was passing him on the left. I rang my bell and scared the shit out of him. Then, a few hours later, in the car, on my way to pick up M at the train station, I was driving up Iowa Street and saw the same guy, in his car, backing into a driveway in order to turn around and head down Iowa, and again he didn't see me coming, again I scared him. Both times we nearly collided. It was almost like the universe WANTED me to run into him.

If your appliances are avocado, they're not green

M and I are thinking about/hoping to redo our kitchen, which was probably renovated by a sweet but totally un-hip DIYer once in the 60s, once in the 70s, and once in the hideous-vinyl-flooring 80s. We don't have a ton to spend, of course. So. But we got the number of a local contractor-company-couple-thing and they're supposed to be really good (tho a little pricey). They're called New Prairie Construction. What I understand is they're a lesbian couple, they employ local artist-types, and they're green. So hooray.

Anyway, today I googled "Green Kitchens" and the first thing that popped up was a blog by a woman in CA who I wish was my next-door neighbor. Check her out here

And through her site, I found this

I like the recipes page a lot. It's like a little gathering of random recipes by ingredient. Some with pics. I want to make the basil and lemon pasta. My basil needs serious eating. Here's the recipe:

CAPELLINI WITH LEMON AND BASIL
The Savory Way, Deborah Madison

zest of 1 lemon, cut into narrow strips
juice of 1 lemon
1 1/2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 1/2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
8 fresh basil leaves, finely sliced
2 tsp. finely chopped parsley
3 oz. capellini
salt
freshly ground pepper
freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (optional)

Put the lemon zest, juice, butter, oil and herbs in a bowl large enough
to hold the cooked pasta comfortably. Also have ready 2 heated pasta
bowls or plates.

Bring several quarts of water to a boil, salt to taste and add the
pasta, and cook until al dente. Lift out the noodles with a pasta scoop
and add them immediately to the large bowl. Repeatedly lift the noodles
with a pair of tongs, mixing them with the other ingredients as you do
so. Divide the pasta between the 2 bowls and add a little pepper.
Serve with cheese, if desired.

Anyway, I'll let you know how the kitchen thing goes. I've contacted New Prairie to get an estimate and some ideas. I'm thinking white cabinets and walls. Old school linoleum floor in green maybe. Some weird composite countertop in a warm brown. Hmm. I'll let you know.

Birds

Then he was in the yard this weekend.

Indigo Bunting

He was in the grass outside the kitchen window last night. Very busy and puffed.

Harper . . . or J'Lyn?

She looks a little like J-bird here!

favorite headline in today's news

"Miley's Lost Pooch? Bitch Please!"

Catch up

I was sitting at my computer (new!) and my desk (old!) and looked up out the window into the backyard. Here's what I saw: snow covering the ground, the white old rickety garage to my right, the white house behind our own white house, the four evergreens at the back of our yard (two juniper, two spruce) and three (three!) male cardinals chasing each other around over the snow and in and out of the trees. To say this was beautiful seems so stupid but this was beautiful. They are little flying ruby-creatures and chirping-machines and they're fighting, I think. Now they're gone and it's quiet. The sun is setting and the snow on the ground is doing that weird thing where it sort of glows blue at dusk.

So, to catch up:

My toes hurt pretty regularly. What's up with that? I do not know. Marty thinks it's frostbite. My toes will turn black and fall off or something.

Marty just kissed my ear and the cat is going: "Ra-ow, ra-ow, ra-ow."

I went to Kentucky. There was an ice storm.

Our basement flooded.

I have a piece coming out in Harper's "Reading" section in April.

The last episode of "Curb your Enthusiasm" was so right on.

I'm teaching an online class right now. It's s strange. The class is always happening. When I'm asleep: class is in session. When I'm scratching my butt: class is in session. At first it really tripped me up. Instead of teaching being this node of anxiety in the week it was this film layer of anxiety over everything. But so far so good. I'm sort of growing into it.

Gillian Anderson is officially creepy as the new "Masterpiece Theater Dude." We shall call her creepy Gillian, henceforth.

OK, I have to go make dinner right now. Huevos Rancheros. It's seriously good. Come visit, sweet friends, and I'll cook it up.

mmmmniece and mmmmnephew!

Manquake

I just got Doctor Zhivago in the mail. The envelope describes it as: A brilliant, epic film about a man and his mistress caught up in the manquake of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

Manquake.

Plus the disc is two-sided. I've never had to flip before.

All in all, I'm very excited.

Dream

Last night I dreamt that I desperately needed to check my email, but instead of a keyboard there was only a bunch of little blue beanbags in the shapes of the letters. They were in a basket--like kids toys in the living room--and I had to search through to find the letters I needed. The worst part was that you could hardly tell what letter each bag was supposed to be, because they were really blobby. AND I couldn't remember my email passcode, so I kept having to do it over and over. Another weird thing was that the keyboard had been there but was lost by my bestfriend from childhood, Yamuna, who I haven't seen or talked to in about ten years. I think she came up with the beanbag idea to placate me. And then the beanbags worked. Or sort of.

Harper Darper

How is everyone?

In our fucking basement!

I don't want to freak anyone out by posting a picture. But google "water bug" and you will know my horror.

who the?! hey the?!

So I'm reading this novel by Mrs Gaskell and it's nearly 700 pages long and I'm totally into it and I'm all "What's going to happy with Molly and Roger?!" even though I know, really, what's going to happen with Molly and Roger, but I want to see it, you know, I mean because now I've been living with these people for nearly 700 pages, so I stay up til about 2 in the morning reading and reading and then I only have a few pages left and I turn the page and the last chapter is called "Note from the Cornhill Editors" and it turns out she never finished the book! She died. What the fuck!? Shouldn't there have been a warning label?

Tat

I don't know if you can see this. But half of this lovely tattoo is a line from my book. Holy crap! This is from the back of a student of NEG's. I think it's so cool and weird. He must be a really insiprational fucking teacher. I think I want to include it in my bio from now on. Like...her work has appeared in blah, blah, blah, and on the lower back of a young female co-ed at the University of Colorado, Denver. Or something like that. I haven't quite got the wording down yet.

Grrrr

I am CRANKY. And I have no friends here so I have to be cranky by myself (woe, woe!) or else be cranky with Marty who is at a meeting at 5:30pm on a Friday and therefore likely cranky himself.

So: I demand nonsensical stories. Gossip. Movie reviews. Etc. Get commenting!

Much love,
D

Who has the cutest niece? Me!

cmu has a blog!

I had no idea. It's oddly comforting to find these daily rambles online. I guess it feels a little like being near someone when you can't be near them really.

In other news: last night I dreamt that I was responsible for feeding all these small animals - like mice, sure, but also miniature horses and pigs, and dogs (only the small breeds). I fed them miniature vegetables - like cherry tomatoes, sure, but also very small bell peppers. Only it was clear all these animals were starving. And I didn't have enough of the tiny veg to go around. It was awful. At one point, a beagle grabbed (with his mouth) a fistful of tiny green bell peppers out of my hand. It sort of hurt.

Then this morning, M sang the whole Fat Albert song while we were drinking tea.

Lately

I spend too much time in my office and no time writing.

I see a lot of little girls on bikes. Their bikes are usually pink.

I'm into Johnny Cash.

Wine tastes gross.

I eat a lot of lentils.

The leaves are falling off our walnut tree and into our yard.

High School

Okay, this is neither here nor there, but I wanted to say, officially, that probably nothing makes me feel like I'm 16 again more than "Kiss Off" by the Violent Femmes. Now, if I was drunk in the backseat of a beater driving through an orange grove at night, all would be complete (PS - thank god I'm not 16 anymore).

Also, my new favorite word is keening.

What's up with you guys?

Spittlekings

All I do is look at words and I looked really fast a a bunch of words and thought I saw the word "Spittlekings" but I'm pretty sure I didn't and I can't even find the word that might have looked like Spittlekings to my tired eyeballs. Now I'm thinking...if Spittlekings was the name of a band, what kind of music would they play?

Last week one of the interns told me he read my book at it was "creepy."

Also, something's wrong with my computer at work. Whenever I go to blogger everything except that which I type is in some eastern European language, which reminds me...last week Marty put his head on the pillow and two second later I said "Is it ok if I open the window," and I guess he was already asleep because he said "You have to put the accent marks over his name."

Urbana

So my new favorite thing is to get a little bit tipsy after dinner and go for a bike ride with M just as the fireflies are starting to spark-up around the neighborhood. The streets are shady and dusky and green and I feel so floaty. We usually ride over to the High School and make big circle in the sloped (empty) parking lot and watch the bunnies in the soccer field. This morning and last there was a baby bunny in our back yard eating violets. I miss you guys. I wish you could come over and sit on the porch with me and help me decide what color to paint the front room.

Foxy

Last night, after the reading, on my drive home, about 10pm, I saw two foxes running across front lawns, sniffing the dirt and grass, crouching around car tires, one about three blocks away from the other. I'm tempted to think they were husband and wife foxes. The second one seemed much more feminine than the first. A more feminine snout (snoot?). I wonder if they have kid foxes somewhere squirreled away? Were they out gathering dinner for the family? Do they take home cats and birds? There are always so many missing cat signs in the neighborhood...the best sign I ever saw was for a cat named Sancho Panza. He was black and white and fluffy and fat and the night after I saw his sign on a telephone pole I had a dream that he was in my backyard (even though I don't have a backyard) and it was dark and I knew he was out there so I went outside and he was standing upright in the grass and he told me he didn't know where he was.

But the reading before the foxes was also very special. Christina and Julie rocked it, and J'Lyn knocked my socks off with her bird archive complete with a slide show of "found" dead birds. Her first publication just came out: Bear Stories in the new issue of Sleepingfish. I emailed her and told her I thought they were great and we got into a discussion of writing that sparkles, or sparkling too much, or not wanting to sparkle, or wanting to. I think we might define sparkly two different ways. She's worried about being too sparkly, I think. I kept pushing her, trying to get her to define exactly what she meant by sparkly, because I really want to know, but then she stopped answering my emails.

Battles

This evening, on the green-shingled roof next door, there was a battle between a hawk and a squirrel. The squirrel won (i.e., the hawk didn't carry the squirrel away in his talons). Needless to say, Dr. Spanglestein and I were glued to the window, our tails twitching in anticipation.

Two days ago I had a battle with the radiator. Just kidding, it jumped out and burned me for no real reason. Now I have a big, blistering sore on my calf. I'm hideous.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

I'm baking and planning what to have my students do for our last day of the semester. I think we'll play with fairy tales. A.S. Byatt writes: "The best single description I know of the world of the fairy tale is that of Max Luthi who describes it as an abstract world, full of discrete, interchangeable people, objects, and incidents, all of which are isolated and are nevertheless interconnected, in a kind of web or network of two-dimensional meaning." She goes on to say: "the fairy tale world is called up for me by the half-abstract patternings of Paul Klee, of the mosaic definition of Kandinsky's early 'Russian' paintings of horses and forests."

Oh, the buzzer just went off!

Here's the recipe. It's good.

3/4 cup sugar
3 tbl. vegetable oil
2 large free-range, vegetarian fed eggs
1 cup applesauce
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbl. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
cooking spray

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Place first 3 ingrediants in a large bowl; beat at low speed until well blended. Stir in applesauce.
3. Combine dry ingrediants (flour through salt) in a bowl and mix together. Add dry mixture to wet and stir until wet through (my favorite part). Stir in zucchini and chocolate chips.
4. Pour batter into a loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Cook at 350 for one hour or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out almost clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove and cool completely.

He's leaving

Not my cat. My cat's not going anywhere. He's stuck to me like cat glue. He's next to the laptop (practically on top of it) watching my fingers.

But Matthew Stadler's got stuff to say here about leaving Clear Cut to write. Among his comments (my favorite!), this one about my book: "newcomer Danielle Dutton's groundbreaking S P R A W L, a prose poem that jams Lisa Robertson's intelligence and music into a Jane Austen-ish scrutiny of the manner of being in those new landscapes we continue to call 'suburbs.'" Merci.

Speaking of S P R A W L, it looks like it'll be out next year, late-Winter.