peevish mama

You all know how much I love the little lake down the street. We’ve been in, around and on this lake virtually every day this week. Saint James and Supergirl fish almost daily, wiling away hours at a time, coming home with tall tales and triumphant grins. The other day Supergirl hooked a two and a half foot muskie with dark spotted green skin and “shark eyes”. She said her arms were shaking and her knees were knocking before the beast snapped the line and got away. Needless to say, my scared little fishergirl came home more than a little pumped. The two of them don’t even keep count of the sunnies and pumpkin seeds anymore. They’re in it for the big ones now.

We’ve taken dips in the morning, at sunset and in the night. Every time I do, I can’t help myself from swimming out past the bouys and flipping on my back – a watery heart opener to the sky. The water feels so silky compared to pool water – sorry, even with a occasional caress from a fresh water weed, I so prefer lakes.

We’ve listened to music at the Bandshell twice, plopping down on the grass next to our bikes while the kids run around in the dusky night. Saint James practices juggling a soccer ball and last time he ended up in a little juggle session with a very tan hippy boy and a portly dude – both obviously soccer players in a former (or maybe not so former) life. He’s up to 127, in case you’re wondering.

But best of all this week was Supergirl’s idea that we take our meager two hour window while Devil Baby was at art camp and rent a canoe. It was sheer joy to be out in the middle of Lake Harriet with my middle child. We paddled, we idled, we chatted, we sighed. It’s just so pretty, she kept saying. Indeed. This has been a hot, fast, sometimes frustrating, sometimes wonderful summer. Out of all my moments, this is the one I will always remember. I hope she does too.

Tonight. It is hot and I am irritable. I tell Saint James to take Foxy for a walk and he replies that he isn’t wearing shorts. I grab the leash. I’ll do it myself. Barely to the corner, I hear a small cry. Mom! I turn and my son is running towards me in the giant t-shirt he wears as a night shirt, shorts hastily pulled on, feet bare. He grabs my arm and leans against me. His wet hair feels cool on my shoulder. It’s an awkward way to walk, but it’s so humid, we aren’t going anywhere fast. We decide to walk to the lake and back. He spots a couple of owls in a tree.

Bard owls.

Barn owls?

Bard owls.

Barn owls?

No. Bard owls.

Sometimes I really can’t hear my son. Especially when he’s speaking in his hushed nature voice. We stop and watch. Owls are cool – large, mysterious, knowing, and, as of last night, my new favorite bird. They blink down at us, seeming to understand why a woman and her boy would have stopped in the near dark to stare up at them. We stay and watch way longer than most people would. Minutes go by. One owl flaps to another branch.

A short exhalation, sounding like oh! and Saint James thrusts the leash at my chest. He runs under the tree his hands extending toward the inky branches. Owl feather, he breathes. And I see it. Floating down through the thick air. I watch from the sidewalk. It seems to take forever – a small object settling to the bottom of the sea. Until finally, Saint James captures it in his palm. A gift.

He turns and looks at me. A giant smile. A gift.

Guten tag! If you’d like to read a post I wrote about German artist, Uli Westphal, get on over Simple Good and Tasty. He’s cool. I dig him. I dig his mutatoes. And it’ll give you a little something to chew on this farmers market season!

I found this picture on my phone – surely it was a drive-by shot taken by one of my kids – and it spoke to me. This is how I feel about summer so far. It has been nothing but a cloudy blur. I’m not sure what my deal is (aside from the WRETCHED weather), but I can’t seem to get my footing. I can’t seem to stop. Look. Focus. It is as if I’m wearing fuzzy glasses that are keeping me one step removed from the reality of what surely is.

The date is June 25. Surely, it is summer.

We’re going through the motions, running from one thing to the next, but I have yet to have that summer moment. It can happen at the bandshell, at the beach, at the pool, in the backyard. When you lose the distinction between your skin and the air and you feel permeable to the softness of the season. When the smell of a barbecue or a sparkler makes your nose prickle in recognition and pulls you back through layers of memory, to other hot nights and cool drinks. When you feel summer in your bones, as a fact and a gift.

What is it? Is it that I’m too busy? Or is it really as simple as the string of rainy cold days? Am I not looking in the right place? Am I not documenting it enough with words and pictures? Whatever it is, I need to get it together because when it comes to matters of summer, there’s no time to mess around here in Minnesota. It is a brief and heavenly season and to squander even one day feeling muted and half-assed seems a pity.

Time to get my groove on.

are just – awesome.

The weather outside sent me looking for this song and boy does this hold up after all these years. So dreamy. Can you believe it was released in 1984? Damn, we’re old. And how gorgeous is Annie Lennox?

Today I glanced out my kitchen window and saw a squirrel standing on its hind legs with its arms wrapped tenderly around my jonquil – only he wasn’t wooing the flower, or even making out with the flower, he was eating the flower. My only friggin’ jonquil in that part of the garden was being mauled and consumed in broad daylight. I burst through the back door and scared him away with all manner of screeches, hisses and wild hand gestures – I think I get very Latina all of the sudden when I’m trying to shoo something. Perhaps it’s the years of watching my mother scream and fling herself out of the house to scare Mallard ducks out of our pool so they wouldn’t get too comfy and make it their home for the summer.

I probably would have done the same thing had there been a hundred jonquils in my garden, but the fact that there is ONE just makes it so much worse. First of all, we work hard for our spring here in these parts – March and April are a bitch and the first crumbs of spring we get are these bulbs that start to crop up against all odds. This one flower, probably because there is just one flower, becomes a symbol of spring, of warmth, of hope, of change, of new beginnings. And by eating it, the squirrel is basically saying,You don’t even get to enjoy this one measly thing to the natural end of its short measly life, peevish mama. (Actually, the squirrel is probably saying something more like, Come closer my crumpet, I wish to ravish you, so ravenous am I after this long winter with nothing but a handful of bitter acorns for sustenance. But you know what? This blog is about me. Screw the squirrel.)

And as quick as the flick of a furry tail disappearing through the fence, this one flower also becomes a symbol of my failings. Do you remember this post? Just in case you ever read this blog and feel like, wowee, she’s real neato and thoughtful and motivated, rest assured that I’m not. I’m a lazy slacker. If I had simply followed through with my impulse to plant more – what were my words? “bulbs of joy” (insert eye-roll here), then I guess I wouldn’t be in my current predicament of hating on myself and hating on a squirrel. It makes me ornery that I’m so lackadaisical about every thing. Why didn’t I just plant some more damn bulbs like I said I would? Where is my follow through? What was I doing with my time? Honestly, I don’t even know. I really shouldn’t be this lazy. I come from very motivated, conscientious, busy-bee stock. What’s my excuse? I have no excuse.

And lest you think I’m being too hard on myself over a flower, rest assured that this is just one example of many. Look at my car, look at my house, look at my baby books. It’s all going to hell in a hand basket. But don’t worry, I’ll manage to forget about all of this by tomorrow and be back to my free wheelin’ lazy-ass ways in no time flat. In fact, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to turn this into a business – there must be a market for someone who can lounge around and shoot the shit, drink wine, listen to hip hop, over-analyze everything, peruse fashion magazines and make pretty good chili. Someone hire me! Quick!

I think this is all percolating because of an article I read in the New Yorker last night. First of all, let me pause for a moment. The New Yorker. The first magazine I subscribed to after college. The only magazine to which I’ve had a consistent subscription since then. The magazine that makes me feel smart and entertained at the same time. The magazine that I share with Doctor Dash. The mother of all magazines – for me – my best me. OK, so I open it up in bed last night and there’s a huge article about this blogger who goes by the name Pioneer Woman. I’ve been to her blog a handful of times over the last few years, but I had no idea she had reached the level of being worthy of an article in the New Yorker. Basically, she was a city slicker who fell in love with a cattle rancher and it changed the trajectory of her life.

She seems sweet and engaging enough, but also, suspiciously, like one of those people with extra arms and hours in the day. She home schools her kids, cooks all sorts of fancy cowboy food, takes gorgeous pictures of all of it, teaches photography, oversees monster additions to her home and ranch, decorates it all, grows a garden, writes cookbooks, writes memoirs, writes children’s books and writes a blog. All of it with a wink and a smile. Which is fine. Obviously this is really compelling to a lot of women. I think her story and lifestyle are what people would consider aspirational. To me it’s kind of demoralizing. She makes Martha Stewart look like she’s in my league, which leaves me looking like I’m barely more animated than that piece of stucco that chipped off our house over the winter that I walk by every day and haven’t picked up.

I think you, my readers, are better served by hearing about how much I DON’T get done. My laziness is not only my gift, it is my gift to you. Tomorrow you can vacuum your cars with the satisfaction of knowing that I won’t be vacuuming my car. Or my house. What can I say, besides . . . you’re welcome.

Since spring seems to be feeling a little sheepish this year (yes, the pun was completely and shamelessly, intended. You’ll see just how shameless in a moment), we hardy folk of the north must figure out ways to survive these last dregs of winter. I stumbled into one such coping mechanism last week and turned it into a little ditty for Simple Good and Tasty. Essentially, Doctor Dash and I conjured a lamb feast for ourselves at the lovely and kick-ass Barbette and biked away feeling oh, so much better. A long, indulgent lunch a deux was just what we needed on that particular day. Now, this many days later, after a week in Florida, I’m afraid I need more than a lunch. I need spring. Real spring. As in no more scarf spring. So let’s get on that, shall we?

The Summer Day – Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan,  and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,  how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me,  what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I love this poem. It’s so simple. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. But I do know how to pay attention. I see a pink cheek, small freshly painted blue nails and the twist of  a braid on a late winter’s day and I know to pause and take note.

Is this what I’m supposed to be doing with my one wild and precious life?

I think so.

What will she do with her one wild and precious life?

To ponder that exquisite question too closely or for too long is like staring into the sun. Better, for now, to stick with my moments.

It’s time for Tiny Dancing. High time for Tiny Dancing! The lake is one hundred percent frozen and maybe, just maybe, the winter blue blahs (that sounds like blue balls, heh) are starting to scratch at your door with pale skinny fingers. If you need a perk up, and I know you do, grab your iPod and make a beeline for the center of your lake of choice. Mine is Harriet and dear, sweet, lovely Harriet brought me more than a touch of peace yesterday. It was cold as all hell, but I was in a Sunday funk, so off I went. I couldn’t believe mine were the only footsteps out there. I felt like a bedecked and beswaddled Robinson Crusoe. All alone in the middle of our little city, save the ice fishermen, free to do as I please on a gorgeous white expanse of wind swept snow.

Come on, people! This is new ground! Found ground! A place to go that you can only get to for a couple months out of the year, its solidity completely belying its true ephemerality. That alone is reason enough to go, no?

As if unfettered, outdoor, hidden-in-plain-sight dancing weren’t reason enough.

Post script: Don’t be alarmed by how close I look in this pic. Dash took it last year and I’m sure the zoom was involved. Plus I’m not really in the middle – just bustin’ a couple moves on my way.

According to Devil Baby, sometimes babies drop out of God’s pocket and fall into ladies’ bellies and then they are born by shooting out of ladies’ butts. Only sometimes though. If they don’t fall out of God’s pocket, they just shoot out of ladies butts. Spontaneously. Which means that chances are good that with all these babies dropping out of pockets and getting shot out of butts, you could get hit, so take appropriate precautions, is all I’m saying. And all of this simply because Devil Baby’s school had an author come in to read and sign books and said author is with child, igniting Devil Baby’s curiosity and imagination. When I asked her who told her about this pocket business, she said it was Supergirl. Sigh.

Remember when Jamie Lynn Spears got knocked up and I was trying to figure out how to explain the whole debacle to Supergirl? Well, I found this series of books by Robie Harris and I think they are wonderful. When I sat down to read it with Supergirl and Saint James, however, Supergirl scampered off in short order, uninterested in or unable to digest the topic. Saint James, on the other hand, loved it. It felt so familiar and normal to be reading a book together, shoulder to shoulder, that it completely mitigated any awkwardness or wondering how to phrase things on my part. He was genuinely interested, curious and amused by the (admittedly) preposterous sounding facts of life.

My little conversation with Devil Baby was a good reminder that I not only need to purchase the next book in the series to read with Saint James, but I need to revisit the first one with the girls. This time Supergirl will probably sit through it and Devil Baby will scamper off, but such is the process I think. Pass the knowledge along, bit by bit, but come back to it often. In the meantime, helmets and parasols to protect from those flying babies.

Remember Saturday morning when I was all kinds of foul weather swagger? Well, Mama Nature brought it. And I, for one, was impressed. I don’t even know what we totaled in the end, but it was a lot. There were snow drifts the size of glaciers, kids getting swallowed up whole in the middle of the lawn. I spent all day watching cars get stuck in the street. Doctor Dash was out snow blowing for three hours. It was tremendous. And tremendously fun. When I set off with Lady Tabouli to go to Lady DK and Doctor Mister Lady DK’s holiday party on foot, we looked like Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton’s hos, so beswaddled and begoggled were we. We either had to tightrope walk in the few existing tire tracks, or post hole up to our thighs in the snow, and we did both, for about an hour, laughing in white puffs of air the whole way. Yes, this storm was a doozy. A good one. The best in a while. But then after a lovely, cozy, relatively snowbound weekend, we got two (count ‘em TWO) more snow days – as in, days off of school.

As my friend Lady DK says, My kids are lovely people, but . . .

From Illustration Rally via Malark

We’re in the middle of a monster storm here in the Little Apple, although I must admit when I woke up this morning, that familiar childish impulse to rush to the window pulling me out of my warm bed at 6:45, I was unimpressed.

But here it is, an hour later, and it’s coming down hard. I think – I hope – that in the end, when the last flake has fallen and settled with an angel’s hush, I will indeed be impressed. Needing a little wonder, a little awe, a little knock-your-socks-off-weather drama.

Come on Mother Nature! Work it, sister!

Isabella Rossellini stars in and directs a hilarious series of scientifically accurate short videos about animal attraction. It’s hard to stop watching these, they are so clever. My favorite is the duck episode when she says: “They all want to mate with me with their corkscrew penises! Forced copulation! Get away! But I evolve vaginal complexity to keep control!” She’s a gem. Check ‘em out.

Or maybe it should be Last Best Chance. Regardless, I’m obsessed with summer’s passing and all the “lasts” that it entails. Maybe because autumn has come upon us so quickly and quietly, like the whisper of a turning page. Yesterday I was biking around the lakes and it occurred to me that I should take the kids for one last plunge. The thought naggled me throughout the day, but truth be told, I didn’t really feel like putting on a suit and going for a swim. At all. But the thing about a last chance, is that it’s just that. Hesitate, procrastinate and you’ve missed it. So I said to my kids: will you guys do something nutty with me? Arguably six o’clock in the evening when it’s 67 degrees out is not optimal swimming time, but in a few months this lake will be a white block of ice and it will be 70 degrees colder. And when it is, I’ll remember floating on my back with the waning sun in my eyes on a beautiful September night.

What are your “lasts” for the season? Do them. Do them all.