TRICK A TREEEEEAT

I feel slightly ridiculous for dumping photos and a blog post online fifteen minutes after we get back from Soren's preschool Halloween party, but I'm trying to stay on top of things.

Soren, light of my heart, announced some time ago that he wanted to dress as a leaf pile for Halloween, and that made me love him even more than before. Dressing as a leaf pile is creative, pretty funny, and, best of all, requires no particular sewing skill on my part. Maybe it's weird that someone who's as addicted to knitting and other artistic pursuits as I am doesn't like sewing, but I don't. It's tedious. And I suck at precise measurement because I'm impatient. And sewing machines scare me because they make too much noise, so I have to sew everything by hand.

Oh, so how's this for a backhanded compliment? At the preschool today, one of the Pre-K teachers walked by and said to me, "I love his costume! It's just my kind of costume! When my kids were growing up they were always complaining, 'Mom, why do I have to wear this? You're so bad at sewing!'" Uh. Thanks? Is there even a compliment in there? Maybe it was just a big ol' backhand.

Anyway, judge for yourselves, and then keep it to yourselves unless it's an actual compliment. I think he looks pretty cute, myself.

Blast From the Past

Okay, so I've been wasting time looking at files I archived in 1996. To celebrate, I will now share with you a poem I wrote about my work environment in the dining hall at Brown. Enjoy.

Dishroom: a complaint


As we slump in the dishroom in the morning,
We can imagine the most frigid landscape to be idyllic.
There must be birds chirping out there,
There must be cars honking or people walking,
Breezes blowing or laughter or fun or even sleep --
Something better than the monotony of conveyor belts,
The steam rising from the diabolical dishmachine,
The defective beeping of the soap dispensers.
O you mess makers, you half-eaters of food,
You pourers of excessive syrup,
Takers of a thousand juice glasses --
Who scrapes the soggy pancakes from your saccharine plates?
Who pries apart your bowls stuck together with Cheez Whiz?
Who feeds your soup cups into the infinite, rumbling dishmachine
And retrieves them at the other end when they emerge, bone-white and
hotter than suns?
When you send your silverware through with your tray, who screams in
frustration at your trespass?
We, we few, we miserable few,
Denizens of the humming room, the stagnant, humid room,
We who watch the milk curdle as we mix it with orange juice,
We who sweat and scrape at 8:45 when all of you leave at once to make your
9:00 classes,
We struggle to keep the conveyor belt from stopping.
There is no fun, no laughter in the dishroom --
There are only the conveyor belts.
I would like to write on the conveyor belt
An endless message to travel around and around,
An enduring inspiration for future prisoners --
I would like to write this thing, this monument,
But the conveyor belt runs the wrong way.
My hands are covered with syrup
And they won't even give us a radio.

Little Victories

It's not all failed DMV trips, rotten gutters and busted Hondas around here. Good things happen, too. This week has had lots of little bright spots, which I will now list so that I have something to look back on next time all my tomato plants get completely fungified and have to be destroyed.

• Not only has my tiny orchid NOT died, it has even successfully bloomed and is now gracing the kitchen windowsill with a 1" spike of 1/4" white flowers.
  
  
• I tried making Cook's Illustrated's quick puff pastry recipe for homemade apple turnovers, and even though I totally didn't bring my A-game to the dough shaping, they turned out AWESOME. And then I ate three of them, so I am no longer suffering from a saturated fat deficiency!
  
  
• My much-anticipated root saw arrived yesterday, and I used it to finally remove the 11" arborvitae stump from the front yard. My mystical quest to remove all existing bushes from the entire yard is now underway, and my weapon is called Yewbane.
  
  
• I cleaned the bedroom.
  
  
• Sigrid looks really cute in the dark teal hooded sweater I made for her.
  
  
• I scored a big play rug (printed with roads, of course) for Soren for $10 at Job Lot. This was especially amazing because I went to Job Lot looking for that specific item.
  
  
• Soren got to participate in a child-development research project with a Brown student yesterday (at the Children's Museum). It was pretty cute to watch, and yay for science!
  

Soren's Friend Cheerios

Soren's been composing lots of songs lately, and although they seem impromptu, he clearly puts some work into composing (or at least remembering) them, because the lyrics are mostly the same from day to day. Chris managed to transcribe one the other day; it's about one of Soren's matchbox race cars which is apparently sponsored by Cheerios. And now, without further ado:

My Friend Cheerios

My friend Cheerios
He's the best
My friend Cheerios
He's the best
My friend Cheerios
He can split Cheerios into a bowl
My friend Cheerios
He can string Cheerios on a necklace, as cars do
My friend Cheerios
He can make space on the couch for all his friends to sing
My friend Cheerios
He can have a birthday cake -- but only one