It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
Archive for April, 2009
Happy Good Friday!
4April 10, 2009
In honor of Jesus’ death, let’s everybody take a moment today and ponder the fact that He loved everybody. And then got crucified for it. I’m going to be more like Him and take the shunning that comes from being inclusive like the bad-ass that He taught me to be.
While I ponder this (and, perhaps, draw parallels between my life and His), I’ll be waiting for my mom, my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephews, my sister, and my brother-in-law to come visit. They’re all coming today! And staying for Easter, when my Columbus friends and families will join us all for brunch. And I’m going to pretend that I gave up sugar for Lent and eat it like I haven’t eaten it in 6 weeks. There will be baked goods; Oh, yes. There will be baked goods. And then they’ll be gone like a baked goods rapture. Poof! Amen.
Saturday night, my brother is playing and singing at Gresso’s from 9:00pm-1:00am. Bryan and I find it difficult to stay up to watch a half-hour tv show these days, so we’ve scheduled some naptime on Saturday so we can stay up. You should do that, too, and meet us there. It will be fun, I promise. He sings some Kings of Leon and some Neil Young and some stuff I don’t know because I’m not hip and some more stuff I don’t know because I’m not that old. (He was born in the 60s, so his musical frame of reference is way different than mine.) Some people think he’s good, but I’m not going to say that because he used to tie his dirty sweat sock around my face and gag me with the stench of his sweaty, hairy feet. And also when he and my sister babysat for me, they would wait until I fell asleep and then put horseradish or mustard in my mouth. Bryan thinks we have a lock on the bedroom door for other reasons, but really it’s because of the trauma of waking up to a mouthful of horseradish while two giggling teenagers fall all over themselves snorting with laughter and wiping the tears of hilarity out of their eyes. I hope they had fun. Idiots.
In Which I Fondly Remember my First Pork Roast
3April 8, 2009
It’s spring break around here for my nieces. Truthfully, my kids have been on spring break since the end of February. That’s how it always goes with us. We take a huge break from doing math from the end of winter until about May and then we get back into the swing of things. Sometimes I have them go to Quizlet.com and play games there, but not while their cousins are here. For sure.
I posted some pictures of my messy, messy, nothing is where it actually goes house. It’s extra messy because of the sleepover/spring break/let’s not make the children do chores attitude that’s going on this week. It felt false to kick the blankets/stuffed animals/toys out of the way before snapping pics like this:
That’s what the basement looks like every morning this week. Oh well. At least there are some sweet pictures like this to maybe redeem me:
How could I make these sweet girls clean up their bedding? What kind of a monster would I be? They’re obviously chillin’.
So I made a couple of pork roasts in the crockpot the other day and turned them into shredded pork bbq. It was yummy, but that’s not the point. Certain foods in my life are tied to memories of certain people. I don’t want to say that the food is the most important part of the memory and the person is just secondary, but it seems like my most vivid memories of people have to do with food.
Every single time I make a pork roast, I think of my ex-stepdad, Marc. When I was a junior in high school, he and my mom got married. Not only were we able to move out of our apartment up above Dave’s bar, but this marriage came with a Sam’s Club card and a dude that was a great cook. (Yes, those facts were more important to me than the fact that my mom was also able to get rid of that perpetually muffler-less Chevette in favof the Beretta of Hotness.) After 7 years eating frozen chicken patties, chili, spaghetti, canned ravioli, steak ums, and the like, I couldn’t believe it when I came home from a greuling softball practice with my friend Katie, “starving for death” as Maya would say and Marc had a pork roast in the crockpot. A pork roast with onions, potatoes, carrots and special seasonings. I instantly started drooling, asked him what it was, and then proceeded to eat half the thing over the kitchen sink. With my hands. Like an orphan. I’m pretty sure I grunted and hunched to warn the other animals not to touch my food. I can’t speak for Katie, but “scarfing it down” doesn’t even begin to describe what I was doing. I know for sure that I didn’t even take the time to put my softball glove down. It was still clutched in my armpit. I was starving for death and there was real food. And my stepdad is the type of person who doesn’t know you love him unless you’re eating his food. Especially if you’re eating it over the sink, straight out of the pot, which, as anybody knows, is the best way to eat food.
I’m Going to Blog About the Spartans
5April 5, 2009
I’ve been feeling nostalgic about the Spartans lately since they made it to the Final Four. I was raised to hate them and if I still lived in Michigan, I don’t think I’d be happy for them. In Michigan, the Spartans of MSU are UofM’s natural and most obnoxious foe. I honestly had no idea that there was a huge rivalry with OSU until I moved to Columbus and found out that the the Buckeyes are #1 in Big 10 annoyingness. And I’ll root for the Spartans because, well, they’re not the Buckeyes. This may come as a surprise to the Buckeyes who read this blog, but in Michigan, the rivalry is UofM vs. MSU; we just don’t care about OSU so much up there. Anyway, I’m especially happy for all of my friends who went to MSU (they let anybody in, so I have tons of friends who went there, unlike UofM, which is a more selective university so the only person I know who went there was my bonafide genius Uncle Tom. And, no, UofM: Flint doesn’t count. It doesn’t. Don’t give me that. It doesn’t.)
Ho hum. What else? The house? The house’s roof is leaking right where we thought it might leak, so it’s good that we made the seller give us money to fix it. And also? Also, there are mice in the bread drawer. Consistently in the bread drawer. Bryan killed one with a dustpan. It was caught in the trap, but struggling to get free. He had to do it. I don’t want to know how many more there are, but our cat better get on the job. I’ve been getting good mouse-killing tips over at Facebook, but I wonder if I should just maybe make the drawer into a cage and move the stupid hamster in there too. I can’t win against these rodents.
On the bright side of the house, there’s room! And the basement is a walk-out! And it’s finished! And we can send the kids down there when they’re being too loud! Or we can have them on the main floor with us when we feel like tolerating the loudness!
Other than that, we’ve just been unpacking and working on things (I may have an oven tomorrow!) and yelling at Vonage over releasing our phone number in a timely manner so we could switch carriers. Lena found it particularly entertaining when I yelled at them on the phone. Mommy was very mad and the bad lady on the phone was lying to her and trying to trick her into not switching carriers. The bad lady wants Mommy to keep wasting her money on terrible, terrible phone service and so she had to yell at her. And file a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission. It felt good. But we still won’t have our phone working until April 16th. And I don’t even believe that it will work on that date.
Right this minute, Bryan is trying to get our new tv hooked up and he’s having troubles. My nieces are here visiting for the week and Taylor (the 15 year old) had to tell him to push a button and also to plug something in. Both tips helped, but he’s still having trouble. He’s wearing a head lamp thingamajig and it just occurred to me that the head lamp may be the perfect book light for bedtime reading. I’m going to steal it. And if he says, “Hey, isn’t that my head lamp thingamajig?” I’ll just look straight at him and blind him with the light. It’s ok because I’m always searching for the perfect book light.
I wanted to watch Slumdog Millionaire (I would watch it over and over and over again. Good movie.) with Taylor and our new tv, but Bryan’s still working on it and Taylor fell asleep. Because it’s boring here with no tv and an uncle who walks around with a head lamp on all time.
Maya’s sleeping and Riley (11 years old), Lena, and Liberty are in the basement rec room watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas again. And then they’ll all hold each other and cry, I guess. They know how to party. BTW, Amazon.com just told me that of people who buy The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, 7% buy it with Twilight. FYI. I find that odd.
