ass.

wednesday mornings, seemingly all the moms in town CONVERGE upon the playground and there's just a diaperload full of kids. great! and i ought not to talk turkey, this being such a small town and all, and all these moms being so very nice..... just the thing that bugs me is they all make it look so EASY. for example, at least when they arrive, their children are free of gunk on their faces and hands, or in their baby hair, and have non-rumpled looking clothing on. or at least CLOTHES on. they do not say "ma? ma? Ma? ma? ma?" until their mother wants to shake them (although this just started with my son, it sets my teeth on edge like nothing else). the moms pull a virtual organic mini mart out of their strollers or what have you, and my son is (thankfully) included, otherwise he might just stand there with his mouth wide open and cheep. loudly.
and the moms, while monitoring 100% for signs of non-sharing, pushing, falling off any playground equipment, and staying put---even for more than 1 kid! have nice conversations, with little interruption, and also they have nice flat bellies as little as 2 (TWO) darn months after having a baby, while here i am jogging my baby weight off 11 big ones later. who ARE these moms? how did their legs get so shaven, their hair so coiffed? surely they didn't go to the salon before the playground, cuz that's the only place MY hair gets done......

hm. maybe the convos about the hard stuff ARE going on, and i don't catch them because i'm simultaneously removing sand from the baby's mouth with my shirt and putting the boy's shoes on for the 80th time, while visions of the non-organic snacks i managed to toss into the stroller dance in my head.

i once dreamed king crab legs
would not stop growing from my mouth
as i watched in a mirror horrified

now i wish that would happen
from the place where words come might some
beast of the ocean be birthed

and set to devouring
to tearing apart
to clawing

might i be lulled by salt
pulled by moons
washed by nothing
finally speechless and
without the need

it's such a uniquely modern problem to have a running 'blog filter' in your daily interior monologue--perhaps the blog has become the exterior monologue. i have found myself shaking my head cartoon-style to try to shake off the little nag---- 'hey, should i blog this?' ...not ALL the time, but more than i'd like. then, how funny, when i get here it was like...'hmm....what's been going on?' whole lotta nothing, lots of interior monologue-ing.

this photo came out SO odd...but really i just wanted to show the gigundo and beauteous head that is this cauliflower-- bigger than my son's (ok so he's 2 but he's a BIG 2) and about the size of mine. it was a must have at the farmer's market. haha. must-have cauliflower.



definitely one for the future blackmail pile.
mark twain said "cauliflower is nothing more than cabbage with a college education."
it was awesome steamed, with butter & lemon pepper.

my own garden, while largely inedible, is something i'm super grateful for. my mom helped a TON< but a lot was us too. it really is lovely now. not bad for the 1st year here, with a toddler and an infant.


dahlia



yellow echinacea/coneflower



pincushion

next year we will really begin to tear things up, putting in a new driveway, a brick pathway, and a slight privacy fence, since militant yard lady next door nearly ran my baby over with a lawnmower this summer. not long, i believe it can be wondrous, even for being so small. *especially* for being so small.

so i guess we're getting closer.... just where the hell's the pot? it's been aeons without it..... tho i swear that southern tier beer has a secret ingredient... oh yum.

it's sort of unfair of me to go straight to the fair w/o representing some of the other awesome things about this county. i always mean to take photos when we're out on drives, but haven't gotten to it yet. the verdancy is astounding out here. there are so many really high peaks on crazy twisty country roads, that offer this amazing view of the lake. everywhere farms, everywhere grapes, everywhere the most amazing wildflowers on the side of the road. we live in a town, what with the college it's pretty OK, but more and more i am finding myself longing to really live out there in the middle of nowhere, with a few animals and a few kids (mine, not goats'), and a huge vegetable and flower patch. for now, we're close to ideal.
enough said.



in the cow barn, a bunch of rear ends face you. it makes sense since the cows would probably get agitated with all the activity were it face-to-face. but still. ha ha.




these were really the creme de la creme of cows (sorry, puns)-- but they *were* beautiful. (ignore fresh patty in photo)---clean and shiny, smooth lovely udders, expression on the faces. i kept forcing myself NOT to think of hamburgers.



naturally.



this kind of event is SUPER fun again, with kids. can't wait till ramona's old enough.



but i think she had fun people watching.

there were also sheep, which i still want to raise someday, and goats, which were surprisingly cute, and really pretty chickens. (my photos are too big!) i only got a little depressed looking at the rabbit hutches, but i chased away the blues by telling myself rabbits *always* look that way. boots n stew, is all i'd want a rabbit around for.
it was a lovely fair, not crowded, sufficiently redneck-y entertainment (child elvis, jumping dirtbikers, smash em up derby). lots of fun.

some of you may remember the roaring 20s evening of mine, which will forever live in my (ok, *spotty*) memory as one of the most fabulous nights of my life (i do not know who has the photo of all of us on the stairs of some allentown mansion (maybe *the* mansion?), but if you have it can you send it to me? ty)
in any case, i just had to plan something equally 'holy moly' for my sister-in-law. she's coo coo about spiderman, so there you go. i secretly hired an actor on craigslist, Guy, ironically. I rented a super corny spiderman costume. Then Guy surprised the bride to be out at Root 5:


"oh no you dittint!!!"

oh man. it was priceless. people at the bar loved it too. one woman thought the two of them had tied the knot that night. imagine! people have done weirder things for their wedding, tho.



we headed back down the lakeshore in our amazing limo, and all sorts of shenanigans ensued that i probably shouldn't talk about. suffice to say, my MOTHER IN LAW won the naughty girl prize of the evening (and she ain't like that), we all literally rolled on the floor of the limo laughing, and the bride cried a fair amount. i know, babe. it's tough being a bride to be.

but you'll always have spiderman......


because i can't let well enough alone, i am contemplating sending some of these photos to stan lee with a short explanation of her fascination.... think he'd send back an autograph?