Merry Fucking Christmas to you too, Great Depression of ought-8

Man, but it's been hard.

When it was just US watching our own budget things seemed dire enough but now with, oh, you know EVERYONE watching their economy as well as the nation's and planet's spiral ever downward things seem even worse. We've been trying to buckle down for the last year or so since our own finances went topsy-turvey and I've got to tell you--there's nothing more depressing than fantasizing about the swanky cocktail party of your dreams, you know, the one where you're wearing that vintage frock you fit into ages ago, updated with some fine Louboutins (what? just me?) passing out nibblets of chorizo-stuffed dates wrapped with prosciutto while your husband--outfitted in natty slacks and cashmere cardigan (omg! with a pipe!) shakes you and your guests a dirty martini (although, really, probably more of a Sidecar. Yum.) while in reality you're trying to decide if your 5 year old really need his cavities filled or if you can replace some of the draughty windows instead or maybe buy some firewood because the heater's broken. Poor kid. His teeth hurt. On the other hand, fillings only benefit him, while warmth benefits us all.

It will be interesting, this next little while. If not the dust bowl, then what? The closing of Detroit? Where will they go? Mexico? Canada? Will they come to California again? Will the mothers of dead babies breastfeed grown men?

How can we have let this happen? And how can I stop the draughts around my doors? How do we keep the cold out?

Merry Christmas, baby. All I need is what I've got, right here with me. I will snuggle my babies for warmth and feed my chickens and grow my garden and take care of what I have because that's all I have. It's enough. It's perfect.

We did it!

And we did it for guys like this. Pretty soon it will be in their hands and I'm just happy to report that we seized our opportunity to do the right thing. We'll try not to fuck it up for you too badly, my little guys. We certainly made the right choice last night.

And thank fucking god. I didn't really want to move to the Netherlands.

Ahem.

I'd really like to lay down some mad lines here about perspective and parenting and first days of kindergarten and shit, but I'm sort of obsessed with Black Hockey Jesus right now and keep checking in on him to see if maybe today qualifies as a two-entry kind of a day and also there's a toddler screaming at my elbow (HELLO! HELLO ELBOW! CAN YOU HEAR ME ELBOW? ELBOW HELLO! ELBOW!) and, yesterday, every time I turned on the radio or opened my eyes I cried mad, mad tears of joy/frustration/hope/anguish that burned my cheeks and stung my eyes like little crazy bees of emotion, and as disappointed as I was last night with Obama's speech I still want to kiss him for making it and say thank you, thank you, thank you for fighting hard and being our Obi Wan Kenobi, my eight-year-old didn't understand much of what you said but she listened with an open heart more golden than sunshine, more full of promise than a full Netflix queue and today I understood that despair will only guarantee us 4 more of this bullshit and that the hippies were right! all we really need is love, true, open, sweaty, blissed out love and hope and if enough of us send out our happy blinking beacons of happy hopefulness we will get what we need because if enough of us get to the forest RIGHT NOW, we will be there. We will be witness to the tree falling and we will hear it fall and we will be able to say: Now. The time is Now.

Not setting the goal too high since 1997

During my senior year of high school I applied to only one college. Everyone else I knew was applying to many, many colleges and universities and staying up all night and working every weekend on essays that would set them apart from the pack of other high school seniors who were applying with 3.9's and several extracurricular activities to their name. I had no interest in spending my last year of high school actually working at anything, other than being a complete bad ass, and I'm pretty sure I met my goal. The year was 1997, and I was subsisting on little more than black coffee, cigarettes and modern rock. I was dating a guy in his early twenties and I drove an '83 Volvo DL. I was the master of my situation and I was completely uninterested in being disappointed by rejection. Plus, I knew exactly where I wanted to go.

I applied to San Francisco State University and was still actually nervous about not making it in. Seriously, I think they take people on a first come, first served basis and I let out an audible sigh of relief when my Letter Of Acceptance came. My parents and I decided on the dorm for the first year and we took out student loans and drop-kicked that last bit of senior year in the ass and I packed myself up in my little Volvo and headed forward to my future with love in my heart and practically nothing in my head.

I dropped out after the first semester.

It had nothing to do with the school. Or the city, I loved the city and I continue to love the city. What happened was, I met this guy the summer before I moved and we had the most amazing courtship that happened mostly in the city. It was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I dropped out of school, he never returned to his school to finish up, we moved in together and had three babies by the time I was 26.

Yeah, I know. The downside...ok, one of the downsides is that he DOESN'T ACTUALLY LIKE SAN FRANCISCO. I know, I know. It was a horrible realization for me too, but what can I do?

It's been years since we've been to the city together, but last weekend I dragged his complaining ass all the way down there because my dad's family was having a reunion and I told him that he just had to kind of ENJOY IT DAMMIT I WANT TO GO AND YOU HAVE TO TOO. He went. He even helped us find this great dim sum joint in Chinatown:

(That's the Sprout in a hat (worn backwards, of course) we picked up in Chinatown. Bean got Pop-pop firecrackers and Peanut got little slippers that are off-gassing the most vile shit imaginable. They've been kicked outside until they learn to let it go.)

It was not this place, though:

Which was too bad, really, because, and I know you can't actually tell from the picture, but the front of the building was painted GOLD and it was AWESOME.

We had such a good time, and we did nothing but all the shit I've always refused to do, like Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf, but the kids loved it (also, Cable Cars+toddler="FUN! FUN! FUN! ALL DONE?") and at the end of the day, I think my husband did too. Oh, plus really good food and service at Beretta that, unfortunately, we had to duck out of early because of child related illness--ha, no, my kids didn't make anyone sick, one of my kids GOT sick. Just, you know, for fun.

Hopefully we'll do it again. Some day.

It's just the clown. It's weeping again.

An exercise in stream-of-consciousness blogging.

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We've taken the plunge: we've decided to commit to a weekly CSA box. No doubt, it will be brimming with all the same produce we're drowning under from our own garden, but that's a small price to pay for supporting our favourite local farm, right?

I mean, right?

(I have nightmares of ratty beet greens taking over our fridge and being forced by frugality to make beet green omelets, smoothies and pies until we all die, choking on our beet greens. I've been...meaning to get in touch with a therapist.) (OHMYGOD ANALRAPIST!!!1!11!!)

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So, we've been watching "Damages" recently, piggybacked by "Benidorm" (look it up). I have to say, the preposterouness of this show is spellbinding. I couldn't get over Glenn Close's ridiculousness in the first few episodes, but now I rely on it like the TV mainlining freak that I am. Dearest Husband is out of town now for a few nights, and if we hadn't finished it last night, wrapping it up with the final three episodes in a frenzied fury, bedsheets drenched with the sweat of anticipation and disappointment, I'm not sure that I could have sworn fidelity on that one. I mean, I held the show at arms length until I JUST! COULD! NOT! STOP! THINKING! about just WHAT EXACTLY had happened to...

And Holy Shit, that's it! It's done! The demons have been exorcised for I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF GOD REMEMBER ANY OF THE CHARACTERS NAMES! HALLELUJA!

Ahem. This house is clear.

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To come: A conversation involving Cydwoq boots and how to pass your own personal Douchebaggery test!

(Hint: Cydwoq boots do not equal douchebag! The equal the opposite! They equal a man of exquisite taste and grooming! THEY EQUAL AWESOMENESS!!!)

they might have to pry my iPod from my cold, dead hands. or maybe they won't. who knows.

You want to know what makes me feel old? The iPod nano I got for my birthday. That makes me feel old. I tried to do what all the kids are doing these days and "download" some "sweet sounds" so that I could "rock out"....at some point, I'm not quite sure when I can actually use it because of having to constantly be aware of possible bludgeonings and the screams resulting therefrom or the sound of children disappearing stealthily which is really hard to catch even when you're really paying attention...anyway, I thought I broke the computer because in the middle of trying waaaay too hard to get some Kruder and Dorfmeister (look! I'm still cool!) in there the damn thing stopped working. My reaction to the computer when it stops and will no longer respond to my incessant tapping the space bar and/or enter key or random flailing with the mouse is to exhale loudly and walk away, irritated at the idiot box and confident that when my husband gets home he'll listen to my complaints and shake his head and chuckle at me, his little moron.

Stupid iPod.

Of course, my man fixed it all and I am now able to enter the 21st century, ear buds proudly inserted for maximum obliviousness, completely ready to check out at designated times--basically, when the kids are in bed and the only thing he's in the mood for is Rambo: First Blood 2--and enjoy the music that has been pre-selected for me.

Rambunctious Sausage

Man, it's hard to keep this thing going. We've been busy with chickens who are finally laying, bees who continue to keep us on our toes (is that a queen cup? Are they getting ready to swarm, or are they bearding because it's too damn hot in the hive? Who knows? Not me.), garden watering in blistering hot weather and then not-so-hot but horribly smokey weather. I've been trying to get a handle on household finances (my good LANDS, groceries are expensive), find a job and try to maximize my efficacy and efficiency as a, GULP, housewife all at the same time. Also, trying new recipes because it's fun and tasty.

Oh, and having a birthday. The very last birthday of my twenties, thankyouverymuch.

Yay! We had a birthday yesterday and it was fine. I turned 29 with very little fanfare which is exactly how I like it, and also two birthday cakes because why fuck around with one freakisly delicious cake when you can have two.

What happened was, the kids wanted to go pick out a cake and because Kelsey almost never picks one up for me I said ok, so at around 3 or so we hit the best bakery in the WORLD (ok, maybe I've been to a better bakery in France, but only maybe), conveniently located in Sebastopol and the kids chose a cake that looked fine and delicious. Roughly 5 minutes before we got there, Kelsey did the same thing. At the same bakery. Almost with the same cake.

I know. We have similar tastes in baked goods. It's what makes the marriage work.

After a lovely dinner that Kelsey's mom made for us, we tucked in to the cake Kelsey brought home for us. It was delicious, and just in case it wasn't, we had a back-up. We're very boy scout about cakes.

And then today, just because we've been cooped up in the house because of unhappy smokey sinuses and headaches (seriously, there are, like, a BAZILLION fires happening around here. It's horrible. Oh, Oh, and our well may be going dry! I knew I was forgetting one piece of horrible, horrible reality), Peanut decided she'd like to play a game. All rolled up. In a comforter. As a sausage. A rambunctious sausage. My first born had us all in stitches today pretending to be a sausage that bites back. "Mom! Mom, look! I'm a Rambunctious Sausage! Aaaaarrrrrrrgghhhhh!"

It was so much fun I even forgot about almost being at the bottom of the well.